The Farmer's Movement of the Late 19th Century Essay

Through the period of 1865-1900, America’s agriculture underwent a series of changes .Changes that were a product of influential role that technology, government policy and economic conditions played. To extend on this idea, changes included the increase on exported goods, do the availability of products as well as the improved traveling system of rail roads. In the primate stages of these developing changes, farmers were able to benefit from the product, yet as time passed by, dissatisfaction grew within them. They no longer benefited from the changes (economy went bad), and therefore they no longer supported railroads. Moreover they were discontented with the approach that the government had taken towards the situation.

Most of their success was contributed to laissez-faire’s economic system. The government played a large part in funding the accounts acting in the railroad industry. Document G exposes the bonds, grants, and money given out by the government to multiple railroad companies. This caused the citizens to have to pay a much higher tax in order for the government to contribute to railroad companies. Never the less in the 1870’s Congresses resolution was passed. This states “no subsidy in money, bonds, public lands, endorsement, or by pledges of the public credit, should be granted by Congress to associations or corporations engaged or proposed to engage in public or private enterprise” as seen in Document F. They were trying to limit certain aspects of the companies, directly contradicting the laissez-faire idea. After this resolution was passed the land was put on sale for 125-250 per acre. At this point the larger companies began to buy the land surrounding the railroads and selling it off piece by piece at much higher

The populists created a Farmers’ Alliance that began in Texas and it organized low cost insurance for farmers and put banks in their place with regulations. The Farmer’s Alliance also gave the government the ownership of the transportation system to regulate their costs and monopolies. When the Grangers lobbied for regulation of the

Beginning in 1871, several states passed laws controlling railroad freight. The railroads fought the Granger Laws, in federal court, where they were ruled unconstitutional. The railroads regularly used rebates and drawbacks to help win the business of large shippers, and made up this loss in profit by increasing the cost to smaller shippers such as farmers. As a result, many farmers, already hurt by the depression in agriculture, were ruined. These farmers were hurt by the unfair practices of the railroad enterprise.

In the late 1800s the farmers believed that the railroad companies were constricting their profits away, and the government was in favor which is what gave them the reason for discontent. The farmers had plenty of reasons to be angry/upset about that situation because the government saw a need for reform which alludes the fact that their were problems: Monopoly on railroads caused a raise in cost, deflated value of crops, and farmers weren’t treated in a friendly way by big business.

Due to “…falling agricultural prices and growing economic dependency” (Foner 636) in the mid-nineteenth century, farmers in the South began to face inevitable economic uncertainty. Farmers, both white and black alike, were thrown into poverty due to sharecropping and the fall of the price of cotton, and many faced the fear of losing everything they had due the inability to pay bank loans. Believing that their situation was caused by “…high freight rates…excessive interest rates for loans…and the fiscal policies of the government” (Foner 636), disgruntled farmers hoped to better their lives and conditions through the founding of the Farmers’ Alliance in the 1870s. However, by the 1890s, the Alliance transformed into what became known as the Populist Party. Keeping their roots in mind, the Populists sought to end what they considered political corruption and economic inequality that arose during the Reconstruction. In order to do so, they proposed “…the direct election of U.S. senators, government control of currency, a graduated income tax, a system of low-class public financing…the right of workers to form labor unions…[and a] public ownership of the railroads” (Foner 638). In addition to their propositions, the Populists were considered radical due to their embracement of science and technology, their belief that the

Farmers were in debt because of the rise of the industry era. Most farmers could not keep up with the debt they wanted some kind of change in order to survive in the industry era. Farmers started to form Alliances. These alliances were like unions addressing the needs of the farmers and finding ways to survive in the market. Like unions the struggle in the beginning because bankers did not want to cooperate with them. The had to seek help from the political parties. Farmers united and became stronger together in numbers by working together. The Alliances helped lower interest rates in banks, lower cost in transporting good in the railroad, and the regulation of money supply. Because the issues were being resolve the populist party was

The Populist Party had its origins in the agrarian West. A lengthy and devastating drought, followed by a depression, exacerbated the tensions between urban and rural interests and farmers began to unite under the Populist banner. "In the 1880s, as drought hit the wheat-growing areas of the Great Plains and prices for Southern cotton sunk to new lows, many tenant farmers fell into deep debt. This exacerbated long-held grievances against railroads, lenders, grain-elevator owners, and others with whom farmers did business. By the early 1890s, as the depression worsened, some industrial workers shared these farm families' views on labor and the trusts" (Edwards, "The People's Party," 2001).

In the past farming was a way to provide food to the family, but in a growing market economy it was becoming more important in the 1860s and 1870s to have money in order to purchase food, clothing, and supplies for the family. That money could also be used to keep the farm running and producing more goods and making more money. However, farming was as competitive as ever. During the Civil War the demand for crops like cotton was high so farmers started producing even more cotton. After the war, the supply of cotton stayed the same but the demand for it lowered, dropping the prices and putting many farmers in debt. The invention of railroads connected many states together making bigger, interstate markets instead of simple local markets; making it even more difficult

* Populism – This was a popular movement with farmers. Especially among poor farmers that lived in the South.

Following the Civil War, a second industrial revolution in America brought many changes to the nation’s agriculture sector. The new technologies that were created transformed how farmers worked and the way in which the sector functioned. Agriculture expanded and became more industrial. Meanwhile government policies, or lack of them for a while, and hard economic conditions put difficult strains on farmers and their occupation. These changes in technology, economic conditions, and government policy from 1865 to 1900 transformed and improved agriculture while leaving farmers in hardship.

During the Gilded Age, a new third party, the Populist or People’s Party, was created. This political movement was established to speak for those in the United States who were farmers and agricultural workers or in any classes of production. Farmers were hit with hard times after the economy was influenced by the Industrial Revolution. The crop-lien system put the majority of farmers in a large amount of debt and government-implemented tariffs decreased the value of production for farmers. Due to these hardships, the Farmers Alliance was formed in an effort to stop the sharecropping system that caused the financial trouble. This organization began persuading farmers to support the idea of bimetallism,

This is relevant to this paper because the topic is, how does the Transcontinental Railroad affect farmers? The transcontinental railroad is just like any other railroad, therefore, it has the same effects. This website is accurate, because the same theory is shared amongst many other websites. This website is quality, providing pictures and is easy to navigate.

The Populist Movement ultimately failed to survive because of their desire for inflation and the support for the coinage of silver, as well as the fact that they merged with the Democratic Party to combat the Republicans. The 1896 election undermined agrarian insurgency, and a period of rapidly rising farm prices helped to bring about the dissolution of the Populist Party. Another important factor in the failure of the party was its inability to affect a genuine urban-rural coalition; its program had little appeal for wage earners of the industrial east. Although the populists were not outright socialists, many conservative interests saw the Populists as a threat to the basic economic system of the United States. The Populists’ agenda was

and opposition of the middlemen. The decline of the Grange movement made way for the