Farmers struggled with pricing during the 1920’s, but after 1929 it hit city dwellers just as hard too. Many businesses began to lay off workers or close after the stock market crashed. Families were running out of money, the need for buying a new car and appliances began to dwindle. People learned to live without a new Sunday dress. And maintaining a steady income to pay rent was getting hard. Some young men jumped on any train they could in search of a job. Times were getting hard and they were taking farmers with them. During World War One farmers worked hard to keep their pockets full, but when prices fell it got tougher to pay off debt, and household expenses. Prices dropped so low in the 1930’s many had to file bankruptcy or close their farm. The price of corn fell so much that a bushel was only worth around ten cents. Families couldn’t even afford to fill their fires with coal anymore. Coal was replaced by corn, and it was not uncommon for the countryside to have a popcorn stench. …show more content…
In Le Mars, Iowa, some farmers went as far as bursting into a courtroom and snatching a judge from his seat. The mob carried him out of the courtroom and drove him into down trying to make him promise to not take any more cases that would cost a family its farm. The judge refused to do so and was almost hung. Fortunately, the mob dispersed and the judge was left in a hazed form. The governor ended up calling in the National Guard the leaders of the mob were sentenced to some much needed jail
From the expanding of railroads country wide, to limiting laws on the goods farmers sold and transportation of the goods,to starvation of the economy, agriculture began to take its own shape from 1865 through to 1900 in the United States.
The period between 1870 and 1900 was a time to change politics. The country was for once free from war and was united as one nation. However, as these decades passed by, the American farmer found it harder to live comfortably. Crops such as cotton and wheat, once the cash crop of agriculture, were selling at prices so low that it was nearly impossible for farmers to make a profit. Improvements in transportation allowed larger competitors to sell more easily and more cheaply, making it harder for American yeoman farmers to sell their crops. Finally, years of drought in the Midwest and the fall of business in the 1890s devastated the farming community. Most notably, the Populist Party arose to fight what farmers saw as the issues affecting the agricultural community. During the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, many farmers in the United States saw railroads and banking enterprises threaten their way of life; their work to fight these elements eventually led to a change in national politics.
During the early 1920s the Great Depression took place. The Great Depression affected many people's lives. The immigrants caught the worst of it. They had just come from another country and were trying to start their new lives when the depression hit. They had to struggle once more with poverty and desperation in taking care of their families, the main reason they had left their old countries was to escape the same epidemic that was now overtaking ?the land of the free?. Immigrants, such as the Jewish immigrants, had to live in poverty-stricken ghettos without the necessities they needed to live healthy lives. The 1920s was the time of rapid change, it was the time of risque fashion, it was the time of which that if you were rich and had all the latest fashions then you were ?in? but if you did not then you were an outcast.
The time period between 1880’s and 1900’s was generally good for politics. The U.S did not face the threat of war and many of the citizens were living peacefully. However, as time went by, the farmers in America found that life was becoming very rough for them. The crops they planted such as, wheat, cotton, etc. were once the sustenance of the agriculture industry, but now they were selling at such a low price that it was hard for farmers to make a profit. Rather many of the farmers were falling deep into debt. Furthermore, the improvement in transportation helped the foreign market gain an upper hand. Farmers often had to pay rebates and drawbacks to railroad companies to ship their goods. Railroad companies used rebates to win over the large business owners and made up the loss in profit by charging smaller shippers way more. During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, farmers considered monopolies, trusts, railroad, and loss in silver backed dollar as threats to their agrarian lifestyle. Overall, the farmers blamed their problems on two things; the money supply, and the railroads which were valid complaints.
Farm life of the 1930s was really hard for all the farmers. They did lots to get through the 1930s without starving. In York county they didn’t indoor bathrooms, light or, heat unlike the people who lived in the towns of the 1930s.(Reinhardt n. pag.) to feed there family’s many raised their own food like chicken which gave them eggs, cows which also gave them beef and milk to drink. They grew vegetables for there from there garden. (Reinhardt n. pag.)Which families didn’t do it alone they had help from there neighbors to help them along the way.
Unfortunately, the circumstances in the Great Plains all came to a head, resulting in a horrific ten years for citizens of the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl caused government and people to look at farming practices and evaluate their output. These policies resulted in overproduction of crops, causing the prices to fall. The conclusion of World War I and countries that stopped importing foods added to the pain the farmers were already feeling.
Farming was the major growing production in the United States in the 1930's. Panhandle farming attached many people because it attracted many people searching for work. The best crop that was prospering around the country was wheat. The world needed it and the United States could supply it easily because of rich mineral soil. In the beginning of the 1930's it was dry but most farmers made a wheat crop. In 1931 everyone started farming wheat. The wheat crop forced the price down from sixty-eight cents/ bushels in July 1930 to twenty-five cents/ bushels July 1931. Many farmers went broke and others abandoned their fields. As the storms approached the farmers were getting ready. Farmers increased their milking cowherds. The cream from the cows was sold to make milk and the skim milk was fed to the chickens and pigs. When normal feed crops failed, thistles were harvested, and when thistles failed, hardy souls dug up soap weed, which was chopped in a feed mill or by hand and fed to the stock. This was a backbreaking, disheartening chore, which would have broken weaker people. But to the credit of the residents of the Dust Bowl, they shouldered their task and carried on. The people of the region made it because they knew how to take the everyday practical things, which had been used for years and adapt them to meet the crisis.
The farmers of the Great Depression did benefit from “New Deal”. The New Deal was mainly focused one them and the government tried many ways and started many organizations to help them from being taken advantage of like they had been in previous years.
The 1930’s were a decade plagued by the colossus economic downturn known as the Great Depression. With unemployment levels surpassing 20%, people did anything to earn money. This included riding the rail lines in order to look for work in other cities. In the American South, the problems of economic downturn and the problems of racial tension met in 1931 during the court case of the Scottsboro Boys.
During The Great Depression, people had to find ways to save money on even the bare necessities. One example of this was the widespread use of vacant lots, and land provided bythe cities to grow food. Americans now had to live in the manner of their ancestors, making their own clothing, growing their own food, and agai...
The 1920's was a time of change in the United States. “The Roaring Twenties” had an outstanding impact on the economy, social standards and everyday life. It was a time for positive results in the consumer goods industry and American families, because of higher wages, shorter working hours, and manufacturing was up 60% in consumer goods. But it was also a time of adversity and opposition for others, such as immigrants and farmers. Immigrants had lots of competition when they were looking for work and they weren't treated fairly by Americans, depending on where they came from and what they believed.
During the late nineteenth century, the agrarian movement evolved into a political force that energized American farmers to voice their political and economic grievances like never before. Although the movement essentially died after William Jennings Bryan's loss of the 1896 Presidential election, many of the reforms they fought for were eventually passed into law.
As you walk to the other end of the stage and look out into the sea of blue and gold corduroy, you realize this it! This is the moment you’ve worked toward for the last four years. You’ve stayed long hours after school working on you record book, spent grueling hours memorizing speeches, experienced the joy of winning first place at a state CDE contest, and best of all you met so many amazing people and doors were opened to opportunities you never imagined. Finally, after all of your hard work, you’re receiving your State FFA Degree! All of this from making one simple decision your freshman year of high school, signing up for the FFA. What you didn’t realize at the time was that this wonderful organization would help you build leadership skills and teach life skills that you are going to need in the coming years.
Farmers everywhere in the United States during the late nineteenth century had valid reasons to complaint against the economy because the farmers were constantly being taken advantage of by the railroad companies and banks. All farmers faced similar problems and for one thing, farmers were starting to become a minority within the American society. In the late nineteenth century, industrialization was in the spotlight creating big businesses and capitals. The success of industrialization put agriculture and farmers on the down low, allowing the corporations to overtake the farmers. Since the government itself; such as the Republican Party was also pro-business during this time, they could have cared less about the farmers.
In document 4, a chart is shown of the U.S unemployment rates from 1926-1945. This chart shows how as farmer unemployment got worse, so did the non-farmers. In the 1920’s workers who worked in the city had more opportunities to find jobs unlike farmers who kept a more basic, traditional lifestyle. If farmers who produce food for factories couldn’t anymore, that meant workers would be laid off in the city and factories would shut down forever.