The Farmer's Revolt
Farmers were once known for being able to do everything themselves. They grew their own food and sewed their own clothes. People often yearn for the old days and complain about so many people living in cities. Many farmers had to give up their farms and move to the cities, because of something that happened in the late nineteenth century. High prices forced farmers to concentrate on one crop. The large-scale farmers bought expensive machines, increasing their crop yield. This caused the smaller farmers to be left behind. The small farmers could no longer compete and were forced give up their farms and look for jobs in the cities. The smaller farmers who stayed blamed their troubles on banks and railroads. In the 1890's western and southern farmers came together to make up the political party called the Populist Party. Their plan was to take control of the White House; then they could solve all their problems. The increase in crop yield caused a change in the economy, which the party set out to straighten out in 1892. On their party platform
As the amount of crops produced increased, the prices paid for them decreased. This is shown by the graphs, "Production and Prices, 1860-1895" In 1860, only 1000 million bushels of corn was produced, and the price per bushel was about $.65. By 1895 over 2500 million bushels were produced at less than $.25 per bushel. It was the same story for cotton and wheat. A farmer wrote a letter to the editor of a Populist newspaper that read, "We will get permanent relief only when the government owns the railroad and when we have government banks where we can get money at a small rate of interest." All the problems and troubles of the farmers were caused by the invention of new farming machines. These machines were expensive and small farmers could not afford them. This forced them to be left behind when the lager farmers bought machines and increased crop yield. The overproduction caused a decrease in price, which in turn raised interest rates. The railroads were being greedy and had huge transportation fees. This led to the creation of the Populist Party, whose goal was to take control
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Approximate Word count = 732
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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