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Farmers life in 19th century america
Farmers in america during the late 19th early 20th century
Farmers in america during the late 19th early 20th century
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There were many problems in the late 1800s. Most of these problems came from social issues in society. The two main issues this paper will address is the exploitation of farmers and workers, and how they tried to change things by reform movements. The populist movement originally started out as an organization called the Grange, which would help farmers. While the Grange helped farmers by opening cooperative stores, and promoting farmer unity, the Populist party did this in a more political way. The problems that Populists faced were overproduction, railroad companies and high interests rates. Farmers suffered from overproduction, railroad companies were unregulated and had complete control over the market, and high interests rates
In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities.” (Jefferson, 1801) This idea echoed far beyond it’s time and into the minds and hearts of the Populist’s, and became the center and the driving force of the Progressive era. During the gilded age railroads were being built, Industrialization was rising, the population of United States was increasing dramatically; and corporate businesses were becoming extremely powerful. The gilded age was known for its corruption and business domination, it wasn’t until the Populist movement when people started to fight back and also not until the Progressive movement when people started changing the government system.
...er party being formed, the populist party. This party had the belief that cities depended on farms, yet farms did not depend on cities. William Jennings Brian supported this idea in his speech, quoted on document J. In which elaborates on the opposition on gold standards and support the silver standards that would better benefit farmers.
Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur, a Frenchman living in America, wrote many letters to Europeans telling them of the great opportunities for immigrants to America and its generous, welcoming, paternal government. However, a study of the farm workers ' experiences in America does not always paint a rosy picture. In particular, John Steinbeck and Cesar Chavez portrayed the dire circumstances of farm workers during the Great Depression (1930 's) and the 1960 's. Today my interview with a farm worker shows that farm workers today still face injustices.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, the economy was booming, new technology flourished. The rapid industrialization brought achievement to the United States, however, it also caused several social problems. Wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of a few, and poverty and political corruption were widespread. As people became aware of these problems, a new reform group was created. Unlike populism, which had been a group of farmers grown desperate as the economy submerged into depression, the new reform movement arose from the educated middle class. These people were known as the progressives. The Progressive Movement was a movement that aimed at solving political, economic, and social problems. The Progressives were people from the middle class who had confidence that they could achieve social progress through political reform. The Progressives sought after changes and improvements in the society through laws and other federal actions.
Farmers united to protect their interests, even creating a major political party. The party was called the peoples party which became known as the populist party. Populists drew its strength from rural areas. Populists tended to be poor and uneducated. They had ideas such as government ownership of major industries. The Populists supported labors demand for an eight hour work day. The most controversial Populist demand concerned the money supply. Farmers being both sellers and debtors, saw inflation as a way to improve their standard of living, but they wanted to expand the money supply. Farmers convinced the government to use silver as well as gold to back the money supply. The congress passed the Bland-Allison Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase. Populist platform urged congress to authorize free and unlimited minting of silver. The Populists were united in favoring the minting of silver to expand the money supply. Democrats agreed with the Populist, but most Republicans favored the gold standard and a smaller money supply. Democrats agreed on a presidential candidate that was with the mint silver, wh...
The social and economic developments of the last quarter of the nineteenth century drastically changed the United States. The business world changed once industrialization was introduced to the world. Opportunities grew as people heard about the boundless American opportunities. Immigrants from all races flooded the cities which doubled in population from 1860-1900 (Barnes and Bowles, 2014, p. 34). However, as industries grew, owners prospered off the hard work of others. People started to feel they were not being treated fairly. People had to work harder and longer for their money. Barnes and Bowles (2014) noted “In the era of industrialization, millions of workers fought to simply have the right to work in safe conditions, and earn a fair wage” (p. 45). Many Americans feared that giant corporations would one day seek to restrict the ability of common people to get ahead and curtail individual freedoms. These fears were particularly strong among farmers, laborers, an...
Pratt and Clark’s (2005) cultural argument of penal populism ignores the inequalities of New Zealand, in which the structural explanation would stress that inequalities reflects the deep foundational ways of how it shapes the criminal law and the justice system (Workman & McIntosh, 2013). The structural perspective recognizes that New Zealand’s prison population has increased substantially over the last 40 years, simultaneously, so has the inequality between the rich and poor (Workman & McIntosh, 2013). Thus, New Zealand’s punitiveness reflects on the way in which growing inequalities feeds the desire for harsher punishment, and neo-liberalism reflects this relationship (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006). The introduction of the economic system of neo-liberalism in 1984 focused on individualism, little government intervention and social support, which created the gap between the
After settlements were established, farmers opposed the government. The farmers united to form their opposing union that would lead their opposing movement and solve their common problems that they had with economic distress and railroads. The grange and farmers´ alliances surged with the quest to get the government to support them. The rise of the populist party caused a scare and panic to other government groups, but it didn´t last, the populist party collapsed.
The end of the 19th century brought to farmers astringent policies enforced by railroad companies, once stable cash crops like cotton and wheat now selling at such low profit margins due to inflation that farmers continued to end up in the red, spikes in foreign competition due to leaps and bounds in transportation, and all of this in the wake of a devastating drought that brought with it the degradation of businesses throughout the west. This agricultural depression culminated into the Populist movement, founded on the premise of the politicalization of the farmers plight. However, much of the negative stigma put onto the precipitants of the industrial revolution by farmers was under false pretense, when the dry and arid conditions of the west, as well as the social isolation from the increase of farm size was to blame.
Factory workers of this time had very little freedom. Aside from having to work outrageous hours for 6 days of the week, there was no job security, no solid way to survive day-to-day, and if a family member were to suffer an accident, families had no financial means to carry on. In the early 1900s, there were no labor laws, including the right to organize, an eight-hour day, safety standards, or unemployment/disability pensions. M...
However, during this time in history, politics needed a party that had more reasoning and meaning, or hopefully more meaning than just appointing someone to run office. The populist party had thought throughly the reason behind having big businesses running the majority country. Basically they saw that the railroads, telegraph, and bank companies were running the America. For this reason they wanted the government to be in control of these major things so smaller businesses. Of course, with the low crop prices farmers were one of the major advocates of this idea, and would soon become corrupt.
During the Gilded Age activists tried improving the conditions of workers and the poor in many ways. In a few ways they were moderately successful but mostly philanthropists didn’t succeed. Between 1875 and 1900 the organized labor, overall, didn’t improve the position of the workers, making them unsuccessful.
In response to intervention, thousands of groups of people became defiant. Laborers living off the bare minimum often assembled into organized groups to enforce their demands upon the government, making a notable push for reform (D) while educated men such as Henry Demarest Lloyd promoted virtue, not land, as the ideal focus of government (B). Dissatisfaction continued within the middle class. As new industrial machines emerged, designed for mass product...
The changes accompany the transition from one epoch to another. In the late nineteenth century labor has become a commodity to the merchants, and the formation of a new mode of production has risen which gave rise to a capitalist society. There is a new class distinction between the laborer and those who owned the means of production.
The Populist movement was established in 1891. It grew mainly from the agrarian sector of the economy and was mostly based among white farmers.