Most economic historians now believe that agrarian unrest reflected the growing risks and uncertainties of agriculture after the Civil War. Uncertainty or risk can be thought of as an economic force that reduces welfare. In the late 1800s, the avoidance of risk was much more costly. As a result, increases in risk and uncertainty made farmers worse off. These uncertainties and risks appear to have been particularly severe for farmers on the frontier. Agriculture had become more commercial after the Civil War (Mayhew, 1972). Formerly self-sufficient farmers were now dependent on creditors, merchants, and railroads for their livelihoods. These relationships created opportunities for economic gain but also obligations, hardships, and risks that many farmers did not welcome. World grain markets were becoming ever more integrated, creating competition in markets abroad once dominated by U.S. producers and greater price uncertainty
Farmers were losing their farms because they could not repay their mortgages and they were being charged very high-interest rates on loans. Farmers disliked deflation because they believed that interest rates were too high due to monopolistic lenders, leaving the money supply to be inadequate. A falling price level increased the real burden of debt, as farmers repaid loans with dollars worth significantly more than those they had borrowed.
The period between 1870 and 1900 was a time to change politics, improvements in transportation allowed larger competitors to sell more easily and more cheaply, making it harder for American yeoman farmers to sell their crops. there was a shift from an agrarian society to an industrial one.
Monopolies: When a business owns all of their competition and their business because they were able to buy out the competitors.
Cross of Gold: a speech delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The speech advocated bimetallism; a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent to certain quantities of two metals, typically gold and silver, creating a fixed rate of exchange between them.
Bimetallism: a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent to certain quantities of two metals, typically gold and silver, creating a fixed rate of exchange between them.
Farmers’ Alliance: an American agrarian movement during the 1870s and ’80s that sought to improve the economic conditions for farmers through the creation of cooperatives and political advocacy. Numerous local chapters were formed and organized into state groupings of the National Farmers’ Alliance.
Grange– a social movement that turned political with Farmers’ Alliances. The Populist Party emerged to represent agrarian interests at the national level. Founded in 1867 to advance methods of agriculture, as well as to promote the social and economic needs of farmers in the United States
Granger Laws– The Granger Laws were a series of laws passed in several midwestern states of the United States, namely Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, in the late 1860s and early 1870s. The main goal of the Granger was to regulate rising fare prices of railroad and grain elevator companies after the American Civil War. The laws, which upset major railroad companies, were a topic of much debate at the time and ended up leading to several important court cases, such as Munn v. Illinois and Wabash v. Illinois.
Homestead Act (1862): a federal law promoting westward expansion by allotting 160 acres of free public land to individual settlers, distributing millions of acres of western land to individual settlers.
Industrialization: the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one. It is a part of a wider modernization process, where social change and economic development are closely related with technological innovation.
Populism: a social and political movement of the people and began under the economic hardship that was being felt by American farmers during and after the Civil War. An approach to politics that views “the people” as being opposed to “the elite” and is often used as a synonym of anti-establishment; as an ideology, it transcends the typical divisions of left and right and has become more prevalent in the US
Agricultural surplus: more food production than the existing. The population needs for its own subsistence, but no opportunities for international. trade. The increased productivity freed up many workers and many farmers were displaced as prices fell with advancements in technology such as transportation. Social Darwinism– the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals, in the 1870s which applied biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics, and politics.
Government Regulations of food and drug– The history of early food regulation in the United States started with the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, when the United States federal government began to intervene in the food and drug businesses. When that bill proved ineffective, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt revised it into the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1937. This has set the stage for further government intervention in the food, drug, and agricultural markets.
Interstate Commerce Act (1887)- In 1887 Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act, making the railroads the first industry subject to Federal regulation. Congress passed the law largely in response to public demand that railroad operations be regulated. The act also established a five-member enforcement board known as the Interstate Commerce Commission. In the years following the Civil War, railroads were privately owned and entirely unregulated. The railroad companies held a natural monopoly in the areas that only they serviced.
Populism– a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
Urbanization– refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change.
Laissez-faire– Laissez-faire is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are absent of any form of economic interventionism such as regulation and subsidies. A “hands off” approach to the economy, no government intervention in a free market.
Changes to the family structure– the Industrial Revolution completely transformed the role of the family. In traditional, agricultural society, families worked together as a unit of production, tending to fields, knitting sweaters, or tending to the fire. Women could parent and also play a role in producing food or goods needed for the household.
Ellis Island– New York Harbor became America’s first immigration center in 1892, immigrating 12 million people into the U.S. before it was decommissioned in 1954. The industrial revolution created many new jobs, for things such as manufacturing products and building railroads, providing jobs to the thousands of immigrants coming to America that didn’t have any. The influx of immigration provided a major workforce for the industrial revolution.
Angel Island– It functioned as both an immigration and deportation facility, at which some 175,000 Chinese and about 60,000 Japanese immigrants were detained under oppressive conditions, generally from two weeks to six months, before being allowed to enter the United States. Added even more workers to the industrial revolution. Unlike Ellis Island, where Europeans were subject to restrictions that precluded entrance for some but not most immigrants, the Angel Island Immigration Station employed discriminatory policies that were used to prevent Asians from immigrating. This approach was an outgrowth and implementation of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which had resulted from years of racial hostility by white Americans against immigrant Chinese laborers.
Push-Pull Factors– Push factors “push” people away from their home and include things like war. Pull factors “pull” people to a new home and include things like better opportunities. The reasons people migrate are usually economic, political, cultural, or environmental. We can identify three major kinds of push and pull factors: economic, cultural, and environmental.
EOC U.S History Guide 