Agrarian Discontent and the 19th Century essays

Agrarian Discontent and the 19th Century essays America, like any other nation, has always relied heavily on agriculture. Differing from other nations, however, is the problems that agriculture has created through Americas brief history. It can be argued that the Civil War was started by agriculture; the South developed as an agricultural dependent region, while the North developed as a manufacturing region; creating two distinct, almost separate cultures. Some twenty years after the Civil War, new problems were arising; that of agrarian discontent. Farmers of the 1880s and 90s were having a harder and harder time getting by. Mother Nature was showing no mercy; through grasshoppers, floods, and draughts. But the farmers placed the blame of their problems on two main areas; the money supply, and the railroads. In the late 1800s deflation became a major problem for the farmers. Farmers were suffering losses year after year and were forced to have their mortgages foreclosed on, as they saw it, by their Eastern Master (Doc D). The reason the farmers blamed this Eastern Master was no one was aiding them in their falling prices. The Populist Party felt that silver was the answer, and not coining it was a vast conspiracy against mankind across two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world. They further emphasized that if this conspiracy was not dealt with, it would be the destruction of civilization (Doc A). Farmers were correct in arguing that the United States money supply was not what it should be; over 30 years the population nearly double while the money circulation rose by only 60 %( Doc C.) What they were incorrect in was their assumption that silver was the solution. They failed to recognize that they were producing way more than the worlds market could handle (Doc E.) As J. Laurence Laughlin said in Causes of Agricultural Unrest, The sudden enlargeme...