Why did American farmers organize alliances in the late nineteenth century?
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Figure false: Nebraska Farm Family
Figure false: A Nebraska farm family poses in front of their sod hut in Custer County, Nebraska, in 1889. The house is formed of blocks of sod cut from the prairie. This photo testifies to the hard, lonely life of farmers on the Great Plains. Nebraska State Historical Society.
CHRONOLOGY
1876
- – First Farmers’ Alliance forms in Lampasas County, Texas.
1892
- – Farmers’ Alliance forms the People’s Party and launches the Populist movement.
HARD TIMES in the 1880s and 1890s created a groundswell of agrarian revolt. A bitter farmer wrote from Minnesota: “I settled on this Land in good Faith Built House and Barn. Broken up Part of the Land. Spent years of hard Labor in grubbing fencing and Improving.” About to lose his farm to foreclosure, he lamented, “Are they going to drive us out like trespassers … and give us away to the Corporations?”
Farm prices fell decade after decade, even as American farmers’ share of the world market grew (Figure 20.2). In Kansas alone, almost half the farms had fallen into the hands of the banks by 1894 through foreclosure. Farmers soon banded together into Farmers’ Alliances, which gave birth to a broad political movement.
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Figure false: FIGURE 20.1 Share of World Wheat Market, 1860–1900
Figure false: Although many countries produced wheat for home markets, Britain, Germany, and the United States were among the largest wheat exporters. Exporting wheat worldwide became viable after the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. The resulting growth of the railroads, coupled with the development of improved mechanical reapers throughout the second half of the century, led to the mechanization of U.S. agriculture, allowing wheat farmers to harvest ever-larger crops.