Farmers In The Late Nineteenth Century Essay

During the late nineteenth century, the United States’ large farmer population was growing increasingly discontent with the state and political affairs. Deflation, debts, mortgage foreclosure of farms, high tariffs, and unfair railroad rates contributed to the farmers’ desire for political reform. As a result of all of the agricultural depression, many farm groups, mostly the Populist Party, arose to fight what farmers saw as the reason for the decline of agriculture. While some of the farmers’ problems did result from overproduction, it was decreased production of silver, discriminatory railroad rates, monopolies, the big boys of business, and the limited political power of farmers which caused most of their problems. Therefore the farmers

Before 1870 the global economy was performing very deficiently because of the widespread crop failures in other countries. American farmers took advantage of this and began growing extremely large quantities of wheat, which they could sell for high profit. Nevertheless, by 1890 the global economy had rebounded causing wheat prices in the global market to plummet. Similar to the “King Cotton” economy of the Civil War South, the nineteenth century Midwest economy was also a “single crop” and thus prone to the effects of global market swing. The sudden increase of wheat available in the world market caused a deflationary effect in the Midwest. Farmers were suffering from crop failures, falling prices, and poor marketing and because of this the Populist Party was formed. The Populist movement was a revolt by farmers in the 1892, in the South and Midwest, against the Democratic and Republican parties for ignoring their interests and difficulties. The Populist party favored bimetallism because expanding the money supply would create inflation, making it easier for farmers to pay their debts. In The Platform of the People’s (Populist) party in 1892, the document states, “Silver, which has

From the farmer's perspective the government was doing anything and everything in their power to injure the Midwest and thus the farmers. Railroad companies charged excessively high rates, that farmers had no other choice but to pay in order to get their crops to market. To the farmers it was the government's duty to protect the general public, even at the cost of corporations or private companies. James B. Weaver, the Populist party’s presidential candidate in the 1892 election, summed up the feelings of the American farmers in the A Call to Action: An Interpretation of the Great Uprising. (Doc F) The document states, “They limit the price of the raw material so as to impoverish the producer, drive him to a single market, reduce the price of every class of labor connected with the trade throw out of the employment large numbers of persons who had before been engaged in a meritorious calling….” Essentially Weaver was saying that they lowered the prices of materials to put the farmers into an even bigger debt and throw them out of employment. Farmers not only agreed that monopolies were present, but they also brought up that there was corruption all throughout the government. In the Platform of the People’s Party in 1892 (Doc A), the Populists stated, “Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the legislatures, the Congress, and even touches the ermine of the bench.” Government corruption was so bad that