The Realities of Rural America

1. 15 The Realities of Rural America

2. The Realities of Rural America • Modernizing Agriculture • The West • Resolving the Native American Question • The New South • Farm Protest • Conclusion: Farming in the Industrial Age

3. Modernizing Agriculture

4. Modernizing Agriculture • Most farms still small family farms • Bonanza wheat farms • Northern plains • Large-scale • Machinery, hundreds of workers,managers • Farmers losing their dominance • 1860 – 60% of labor force • 1900 – less than 37%

5. A Vision of the Lackawanna Valley

6. American Agriculture and the World • Europe industrializing • Demand for food supplies • Farming methods • German experimentation • Land-grant colleges – Morill Act • Transportation improvements

7. American Agriculture and the World (cont'd) • Farms increasingly tied to larger economies • Europeans ban American pork imports, 1870s • Wheat prices fall when other countries compete

8. American Agriculture • Machinery brings indebtedness • Large crops sometimes bring gluts • Prices fall • Farmers sometimes then increase production

9. The West

10. The Frontier Thesis • Frederick Jackson Turner • Claimed the end of the frontier • Saw the American experience as unique • Gave a special place to frontier farmers • Yet frontier had been avoided by farmers

11. The Cattleman’s West, 1860-1890 • Cattle raising from earliest Spanish settlements • Railroads transform cattle raising • Huge cattle ranches, 1870s-1889s • Pay well • Arrival of farmers changes things

12. The Cattleman’s West, 1860-1890 (cont'd) • Other factors • Over production • Poor weather, 1886

13. Farmers on the Great Plains • Railroad promote the west • Settlement boom, 1879-1890 • Most from Illinois, Iowa, Missouri • Family groups • Homestead Act • 160 acres, five years • But less desirable land

14. Farmers on the Great Plains (cont'd) • Better land from railroads or land companies

15. Domestic Work in the West

16. 1880s-1890s • Barbed wire, binders, steel windmills • Boom ends around 1890 • By 1900, two-thirds of homestead farms failed • Long-term ecological impact

17. The Natural Environment of the West

18. Cornucopia on the Pacific • Farming • Monopolized by large farms • 1,000 acres and more the norm • Dependent on water • Fruits at first not profitable • Refrigerated cars made it possible

19. The Mining West • Rapid growth spurred by mining • Marked by boom and bust • Not individual miners, but large companies • Difficulties of mining radicalizes many miners

20. Natural Resources • Wood required in huge quantities • Streams disturbed • Timber and Stone Act • Land purchased through dummy owners • Public domain land to corporate lands • Early naturalists, such as John Muir • Yosemite National Park • Sierra Club

21. Natural Resources (cont'd) • Gifford Pinchot • Management, not preservation

22. Resolving the Native American Question

23. Resolving the Native American Question • High mortality among Indians in California • 90% from1850-1880 • Plains Indians • Way of life disrupted by migration of Gold Rush • Indian involvement in Civil War punished

24. Resolving the Native American Question (cont'd) • Sand Creek Massacre begins period of warfare • Worsened by transcontinental railroad

25. The Tribal View • Broken promises of protection, lands • Destruction of buffalo • Dawes Act, 1887 • Attempt to cut tribal bonds • Land for leaving tribes

26. Native Americans, 1850–1896

27. The Ghost Dance • Wovoka • Promise of greater strength, survival • No threat, but perceived as one • Wounded Knee Creek, 1890 • Slaughter by American Army

28. Harper’s Weekly

29. Two Runaways

30. The New South

31. The New South • The New South • Push for new economic direction • Opportunity for northern capitalists • Birmingham, Memphis, Augusta • Industrialization • But still dependent on the North • Few southern corporations • Per capita income lower than elsewhere

32. The New South (cont'd) • Cotton makes economy subject to other markets • Decline in cotton prices in late 1800s • Credit purchases bring indebtedness • Inability to change direction

33. The Nadir of Black Life • Conditions worsen as the century progresses • Abandoned by Republican party, courts • Civil rights laws not upheld • Southern state constitutions disenfranchise blacks • Grandfather clauses, white primaries, poll taxes, literacy tests

34. The Nadir of Black Life (cont'd) • Segregation • “Jim Crow” laws • Plessy v. Ferguson • Lynchings

35. Lynching

36. Diverging Black Responses • Separatism • T. Thomas Fortune, Afro-American League • Lobbying to make Oklahoma all-black • International Migration Society – Liberia • W.E.B. Du Bois • The Souls of Black Folk, 1903

37. Diverging Black Responses (cont'd) • Many follow Booker T. Washington • “Atlanta Compromise”, 1895 • Countered by Du Bois

38. Farm Protest

39. The Grange • The Order of the Patrons of Husbandry • The National Grange • Cooperatives • Worked against railroad rate structures • Achievements • “Granger laws” setting rate ceilings • Railroad commissions

40. The Grange (cont'd) • Interstate Commerce Act, 1887 • Goal: regulation of railroads • Interstate Commerce Commission

41. The Southern Farmers’ Alliance • Grange declines in 1870s • Southern Farmers’ Alliance • Lectures, large organization • Broad agenda • Colored Farmers’ Alliance, 1888

42. The Southern Farmers’ Alliance (cont'd) • The Ocala Platform, 1890 • Attacked both parties • Direct election of members of Congress • Graduated income tax • Regulation of transportation, communication

43. Farm Protest:The People’s Party • Populist Party formed, 1892 • Omaha demands • Direct democracy • Labor reform • Graduated income tax • Silver coinage • Election of 1892 • Weaver carries 4 states – 22 electoral votes

44. Conclusion:Farming in the Industrial Age

45. Conclusion:Farming in the Industrial Age • Extension of farming • Disastrous for Native Americans • Sense of accomplishment for white settlers • Use of collective action • New groups in political forums • Dislocations • Many move to cities

46. Timeline