Farmers Dbq

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Farmers wished that the government would stop trying to spin straw into gold and just give them some silver instead. From 1880 to 1900 agrarians faced many issues, the price of agrarian goods was too low, transportation costs were far too high, and the financial system in place became more questionable. The dissatisfaction that agrarians felt certainly was very reasonable.
Farmers faced the issue of low prices on agrarian goods. Farmer’s crop production was at a surplus. With a large amount of food more readily available for people prices began to fall. While population growth had nearly doubled during the 19th Century the amount of money in circulation had only increase by 60 percent (Doc. C). With more people food production had increased while yet the money per person had decreased. The lower cost of money made it harder …show more content…

The farmers created The Farmers Alliance which spread to the cotton states after 1885. The Farmers Alliance greatly stressed cooperation between farmers. By banding together to pay for things they were able to not worry about interest that the bank might charge them, and they knew that if they needed help they would also be able to ask the other farmers. One issue though was that all of the farmers would have to share the same equipment since they all would be owners of it. This could very easily have caused tensions between the farmers if two or more farmers needed the use of something at the same time. Since farmers didn’t want to switch to industrialism they began to lose out. The historian Ray Ginger showed that in 1859 farmers had received about 31 percent of the national income but by 1889 they had only received 16 percent. Ginger also stated that the national wealth in 1860 was 40 percent but then it decreased all the way to 20.5 percent in 1890. Farmers were not at fault for the low prices on their good. They were just trying their best to make some money and do well. It was almost impossible for any farmer to control

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