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Yeomanry Transformed:
The Changing Image of the American Farmer in
the Northern Agriculturai Press, 1873-93

presented by

Kirk Leo Heinze

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YEOMANRY TRANSFORMED:
THE CHANGING IMAGE OF THE AMERICAN FARMER IN THE
NORTHERN AGRICULTURAL PRESS, 1873-1893

BY

Kirk Leo Heinze

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English/American Studies

1988

2;; by [32/0

ABSTRACT
YEOMANRY TRANSFORMED:

THE CHANGING IMAGE OF THE AMERICAN FARMER IN
THE NORTHERN AGRICULTURAL PRESS, 1873-1893

BY

Kirk Leo Heinze

From the emergence of a distinctly agricultural press in 1810
until well after the Civil War, farm newspaper editors and their
readers shared a mythic conception of the American farmer. For
over half a century, the pages of the northern agricultural press
depicted the farmer as the noble yeoman--the central hero of the
agrarian myth. Not only was the farmer the ideal man and
citizen, he was also the symbol of American democratic
government.

Between the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893, the heroic
yeoman image underwent a profound transformation. Throughout
these tumultuous two decades of agrarian unrest, northern
agricultural editors and their readers began strongly supporting
collective political and economic action while denouncing
monopoly and privilege. Instead of the traditional and
ubiquitous poems, speeches and editorials apotheosizing the
proud, virtuous and independent yeoman, the farm papers resounded
with strident calls for cooperative economic and political
action. The mythic yeoman image gave way to the farmer-

businessman and political activist. This new image revealed an

agrarian willingness to face the social and technological
challenges of industrialization, urbanization and
commercialization.

At the same time, however, the late nineteenth century
agricultural press revealed an ominous dimension of the agrarian
character. Editorials and letters reflected an increasingly
ardent xenophobia in the wake of large-scale immigration.
Nativism, coupled with the unprecedented hostility toward Native
Americans and Blacks occurring during the period, revealed a
bitter, cynical, retrogressive farmer quite unlike either the
yeoman or the progressive farmer-activist.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the legendary yeoman was
displaced by a new, more complicated agrarian--one who was moving
technologically, economically and politically forward, but who
could not seem to reconcile many of the social changes ushered in
by industrialization and a growing cultural pluralism. The
result was an image of the American farmer that was, at best,
paradoxical, and, at worst, schizophrenic. It is an image of a
conflict between agrarian progressivism and retrogression which
remained unresolved in the rural psyche well into the twentieth

century.

Copyright by
KIRK LEO HEINZE
1988

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A great many people have provided counsel and encouragement
throughout the time it has taken to complete this dissertation.
Foremost among them, of course, are the members of my doctoral
committee. Professor Robert V. Hudson first sparked my interest
in journalism history during a graduate seminar and served as the
director of my committee. His own exacting scholarship and
rigorous attention to editorial detail provided important
standards against which I could assess my work. Professor Victor
M. Howard introduced me to the broad and exciting arena of
American Studies scholarship and helped shape my views regarding
mythopoetic historiography. His personal warmth and his wry good
humor helped me through some difficult spots. Professor Douglas
T. Miller exposed me to the stimulating panorama of intellectual
history which helped provide the conceptual framework not only
for this study, but for my entire doctoral program. Dr. Miller
also spent many hours gently nudging me towards a deeper, more
sophisticated understanding of the origins of American
agrarianism. Professor Linda Wagner-Martin was instrumental in
convincing me that I could write a paper of this magnitude. Much
more than that, however, she has provided a model of academic and
pedagogical excellence that, while difficult to duplicate, will
continue to inspire. And to Professor James McClintock, who came

V

to my project in the final months, I would like to offer a most
heartfelt "thank you," for his interest in my work and his
confidence in me.

I would also like to extend my deep appreciation to Dr. Maxine
Ferris, Dr. Carroll Wamhoff and Mrs. Mary Pierce, my colleagues
and my friends, for their generosity of spirit, their great
flexibility, and their unswerving faith in me. It is a pleasure
and a privilege to know and to work with three such wonderful
people.

I have also been blessed with a large, happy and most
supportive family. My Mother and my Father, my Mother-in-Law and
my Father-in-Law, my six sisters, three sisters-in-law, one
brother and six brothers-in-law have never lost their interest in
my work and have never faltered in their belief that it would be
finished. But those upon whose shoulders much of the burden has
fallen are my daughters, Hillary and Gretchen, and my wife,
Katha. Anyone who has ever written a dissertation knows the
sacrifices exacted on those nearest one's heart. Now it is time
to return to them some of the understanding, patience, resilience
and love that have sustained me through the years of my doctoral

study.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1--From Virgil to Virginia: The Wellsprings of
the American Agrarian Mythology

Chapter 2--Yeomanry Enshrined: The Image of the Farmer
in the Early and Mid-Nineteenth-Century
Agricultural Press

Chapter 3--Agrarians in Conflict: Agriculture in the
Gilded Age

Chapter 4--Farmers in the Vanguard: Economic and
Political Progressivism, 1873-1893

Chapter 5--Anti-Urbanism, Xenophobia and the Emerging
Paradox: Social Retrogression, 1873-1893

Conclusion--Yeomanry Transformed: The Image of the
American Farmer in the Northern Agricultural
Press at the Close of the Nineteenth Century

Bibliography

vii

Page

31

58

97

158

191

231

236

INTRODUCTION

More than a few of the festive farmers may have become
momentarily perplexed during the opening remarks coming from
the tall gangling presidential hopeful at the platform podium.
Speakers invited to annual agricultural fairs were generally
given to extolling the virtues of farming, but here was Abraham
Lincoln casually informing an audience of proud Wisconsin grain
and milk producers that:

I presume I am not expected to employ the time

assigned to me in the mere flattery of the farmers,

as a class. My opinion of them is that, in proportion

to numbers, they are neither better nor worse than

other people. In the nature of things they are more

numerous than any other class: and I believe there

really are more attempts at flattering them than any

other; the reason of which I cannot perceive, unless

it be that they can cast more votes than any other.

Any proclamation which assigned dubious motives to politicians
would, under normal circumstances, appeal to the wary
agrarians. But annual fairs were not pedestrian events, and
further, Mr. Lincoln had prefaced his humorous poke at office
seekers with some additional reservations about the nobility of
the farming class. Yes, it was true that farmers had become
accustomed to flattery, but was it not well deserved? Wasn't

the small freeholder the linchpin of democratic government?

Wasn't the energetic yeoman, sowing fecund fields in the open

2

air, much closer to the Almighty than the wretched immigrant
toiling hopelessly away in the urban factories? Wasn’t the
farmer’s house "the abode of the virtuous . . . a temple in
which the precepts of holy religion are inculcated"?2 After
all, American agrarians had received similar encomiums since
early colonial days--tributes not only from the always suspect
politicians, but, more recently, from their trusted
agricultural newspapers.3

Since the inaugural issue of the Agricultural Museum on
July 4, 1810,4 agricultural editors had printed countless
letters, poems and editorials apotheosizing the American
yeoman--in often rhapsodic fashion:

In a sweet healthy air, with a farm of his own,

Secluded from tumult and strife,

The farmer, more blest than a king on his throne,

Enjoys all the comforts of life.

When the sweet smiling spring sheds its fragrance around,

And music enchants every tree,

With his glittering plowshare he furrows the ground

With a mind independent and free.
Such lofty sentiments had their origin in a unique agrarian
mythology which had as its dominant symbol a "vast and
constantly growing agricultural society in the interior of the
continent."5 It was a society which promised growth,
prosperity, freedom and harmony with the Almighty; in short, it
offered a new beginning for those who had fared poorly in the
Old World. The heroic figure in the agrarian mythology was the

yeoman farmer. He was the ideal man and the ideal citizen who

diligently tended his ground, reverently reaped his harvest,

3

helped sustain his community and America’s destiny. Originally
a construct of the educated classes, the agrarian myth had
become a mass creed by the early nineteenth century. Early
agricultural editors easily embraced the appealing allegory and
faithfully passed it along, in poem and prose, to their
readers.7

This is not to say that agricultural journalists were so
mesmerized by the agrarian myth that they were oblivious of
more practical concerns. 0n the contrary, the pages of the
early nineteenth-century farm papers were largely devoted to
such mundane tasks as "the application of manure," calf
raising, deep ploughing and "the culture of wheat, corn and
other grains."8 Most papers were divided into specific
sections including horticulture, machinery, husbandry, markets,
and weather, and a great deal of the reader correspondence
addressed such pragmatic concerns. Nor it is fair to insist
that the agricultural editors and their readers were so
transfixed by the pastoral vision that they somehow managed to
ignore the rigors of nineteenth-century agricultural life.
Many of the editorials, letters and agricultural society
reports combine to form an often dreary, drudgerous picture of
early farming. In fact, there is some evidence that
agricultural editors were not above using yeomanesque hyperbole
to keep wide-eyed rural youths from abandoning Arcadia for
urban living.9 Yet, despite some ambiguity about the nobility

of farming (and some questions regarding the integrity of

4

certain editors), the sheer plethora of newspaper content
strongly indicates that most early to mid-nineteenth-century
agrarians and their agricultural editors shared a sincere faith
in the Jeffersonian vision of a nation dominated by God-fearing
yeomen.10

From the early 18003 until approximately the mid 18705, the
image of the American farmer, as revealed in the northern
agricultural press, remained relatively unchanged. In the two
decades between the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893,
however, that image underwent a gradual, yet profound
transformation. American farmers entered the Gilded Age with
expectations that the favorable economic conditions they had
enjoyed during and after the Civil War would continue.11 Their
optimism was quickly dashed against the rocks of plummeting
commodities prices, unpredictable, and often usurious
transportation rates, a niggardly federal monetary policy,
ravenous insects and capricious weather.12 Although these
proved a dismal two decades for most farmers, those in West and
South suffered more than those in the East and Midwest. Many
who were driven to the economic precipice fought back,
primarily through cooperative marketing and political
associations. The Grange, for the first (and for what also
proved to be the last) time in its history, urged its members
toward economic and political activism. The Alliance Movement
spread north and east from the parched Texas plains, and,

eventually, the Populists launched a third-party movement that

5

rocked the political establishment and served as the harbinger
of many twentieth-century social and political reforms.13
Throughout these tumultuous twenty years of agrarian unrest,
and despite a long tradition of eschewing political issues in
their papers, a great many agricultural editors in the East and
Midwest joined their more newly-established and vociferous
counterparts on the Plains in strident defense of farmers.
Editorials in Maine and New York echoed those in South Dakota
and Nebraska in supporting cooperative movements, denouncing
monopoly and privilege, urging political activism and even
endorsing friendly politicians. Instead of trusting in
Providence, farmers were exhorted to take matters into their
own hands. Instead of glorying in their alleged economic
autonomy, they were encouraged to join and help manage
sophisticated marketing cooperatives. Instead of basking in the
warm, exalted glow of their yeomanry, they were called to take
up arms against the powerful financial and industrial forces
which many believed were exploiting them. The result was
profound: by the end of the nineteenth century, the image of
the Jeffersonian freeholder, "more blest than a king on his
throne," had virtually disappeared from the pages of the
northern farm press. In his place stood the precursor to the
modern agribusinessman who has emerged during the twentieth
century.14

Concomitant to the gradual appearance of the more

economically sophisticated, politically aggressive farmer,

6

however, was the unmistakable development of a more ominous
alter ego who was anything but progressive. The image of the
new agrarian, at once pragmatic and visionary, also embraced an
agrarian who demonstrated a darker, retrogressive side to his
character. The late nineteenth-century agricultural press
unveils an emerging xenophobe who increasingly vilifies urban
life, who finds scapegoats among the growing waves of
immigrants flowing into the cities, who scorns any theological
departure from Protestant fundamentalism, and who often takes
his merriment at the expense of Blacks, Native Americans and
other minority groups. Although the wellsprings of
anti-urbanism can be traced well into the rural American past
and nativistic currents have ebbed and followed on farms and in
villages throughout our history, the period between 1873-1893
witnessed a burgeoning of both retrogressive phenomena
unprecedented in northern agrarian journalism.15

By the end of the nineteenth century there emerges from the
pages of the northern agricultural press an image of the
American farmer which is, at best, paradoxical, at worst,
schizophrenic. It is the image of a farmer confronting the
challenges of rapid industrialization head on, while
simultaneously shrinking from them; one moving technologically,
economically and politically forward, yet unable or unwilling
to reconcile concomitant social changes; one showing no
inclination to return to an idealized pastoral utopia, yet

incapable of accepting an ever-expanding cultural pluralism.

7
In short, this double-edged image appears to encompass the
conflicting forces of progressivism and retrogression which
have struggled unresolved within the American rural psyche
throughout the twentieth century--often to the decided
detriment of agrarian interests.16
In an effort to trace the transformation of the yeoman image
in the nineteenth-century agricultural press, I have organized
the following study into six chapters:
Chapter 1--From Virgil to Virginia: The Wellsprings of
the American Agrarian Mythology
Chapter 2--Yeomanry Enshrined: The Image of the Farmer
in the Early and Mid-Nineteenth-Century
Agricultural Press
Chapter 3--Agrarians in Conflict: Agriculture in the Gilded
Age
Chapter 4--Farmers in the Vanguard: Economic and Political
Progressivism, 1873-1893
Chapter 5--Anti-Urbanism, Xenophobia and the Emerging
Paradox: Social Retrogression, 1873-1893
Conclusion--Yeomanry Transformed: The Image of the American
Farmer in the Northern Agricultural Press at the
Close of the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 1 will trace the development of the agrarian myth
from its origins in Classical and Enlightenment thought to its
introduction and subsequent proliferation throughout American

culture. Concomitant to the development and popularization of

8
this unique, rural mythology was the emergence of the yeoman
farmer as mythic hero. Chapter 2 will examine the various
dimensions of the yeoman image as they are revealed in the
early and mid-nineteenth-century agricultural press. The focus
will be placed on ideas and themes which combine to convey the
moral, economic and nationalistic significance of the image.
The third chapter will survey late nineteenth-century
agricultural history in order to establish a comprehensive
backdrop against which the changing content of the farm papers
can be considered. Chapter 4 will illustrate how the image of
the solitary, independent yeoman was replaced by the political
and economic activist. Many of the sweeping changes farmers
were demanding, while often considered radical at the time,
later became legal and institutional realities during the
Progressive era. Such forward-looking proposals indicated that
rather than longing to return to a romanticized Arcadia,
farmers were willing to confront the economic and political
challenges of industrial America. The juxtaposition of
Chapters 4 and 5 will contrast the image of the progressive
farmer-activist with the farmer-nativist. Although anti-urban,
xenophobic tendencies were apparent in earlier farm papers,
such proclivities became increasingly pronounced as hard times
wore on. Perhaps due to severe economic pressures and the
frustrations arising from feelings of powerlessness in the grip
of distant and impalpable foes, farmers were compelled to lash

out at more identifiable, more vulnerable targets. Such

9

attacks eventually reached a stridency unparalleled in earlier
agricultural journalism. The conclusion will provide an
impressionistic exegesis of the transformed image of the
American farmer as it emerged from the pages of the
agricultural press at the end of the nineteenth century.
Historiography and Methodology

While relatively new to journalism historiography, the use
of images like the yeoman farmer to illuminate American
cultural attitudes, values and beliefs became a primary
analytical tool for a small but influential group of literary
critics and intellectual historians in the two decades after
World War II. The emergence of the "myth, symbol and image"
school provided the then embryonic American Studies movement
with a methodological platform from which holistic,
cross-cultural, scholarly explorations could be launched.17
Beginning with Virgin_Lag§ in 1950, interdisciplinary
investigations into literature, history, philosophy and
theology produced a number of highly acclaimed works which
subsequently provided a major theoretical framework for the
American Studies and American Culture programs which
proliferated during the 19505 and 19605.18 Shortly
after the publication of Thg_Maghine in the Garden (1967),
however, many American Studies proponents entered a period of
intense self examination. Prompted by incisive critiques
within and outside the discipline, scholars reappraised the

movement, taking a particularly hard look at what had been one

10
of its predominant methodologies.

While reaffirming the holistic orientation of most American
Studies scholarship, individuals like Robert Sklar and Cecil
Tate concluded that one unfortunate result of the search for
uniquely American cultural manifestations had been, in effect,
to fracture content for the sake of form.19 While accumulating
evidence to help identify a homogeneous national character or
style, scholars often inadvertently neglected America’s great
ethnic and geographical diversity. One result was that myths
and images thought to reflect American life, in toto, may
actually mirror specific regions of the country and, moreover,
specific socioeconomic groups within those regions. Related to
this argument was the contention that by placing major emphasis
on expressions of elite culture, early American Studies
scholarship sacrificed insights which could have been derived
from the examination of more popular cultural forms.20 While
certainly not fatal to the mythopoetic methodology, such
well—grounded reservations suggested modification in its use.

At approximately the same time American Studies scholars
were reexamining their discipline, many journalism
historians-—also prompted by growing criticism within and
outside the field--began vigorously exploring new
historiographical approaches to their work. Allan Nevins had
first thrown down the gauntlet in 1959 declaring that, among
other shortcomings, many American journalism historians had

been "deplorably uncritical and . . . dishonest" in their

11

been "deplorably uncritical and . . . dishonest" in their
published endeavors. Noting but a handful of exceptions,
Nevins averred that many media histories were erected on
superficial evidence and, further, that there was little or no
attempt to determine the broader implications of any
substantial evidence that was presented. He suggested that
journalism scholars begin moving away from the tendency to
emphasize the "great men" in American journalism and toward
approaches demanding greater sophistication in the selection
and interpretations of data.21

Coupled with the charges of conceptual narrowness and
superficiality was the growing realization that most journalism
histories had been fashioned from a single interpretive
paradigm.22 Usually termed the "Whig" or "Progressive" model,
the paradigm holds that press history has been marked by the
gradual triumph of liberalism over the dark forces of
retrogression and repression.

The Whig interpretation . . . views journalism

history as the slow steady expansion of freedom

and knowledge from the political press to the

commercial press, the setbacks into sensationalism

and yellow journalism, the forward thrust into

muckraking and social responsibility.
The heroes who often emerge from such interpretations are the
crusading reporters, editors, and publishers who have waged
relentless journalistic wars against the forces of
conservatism, censorship and social injustice. Even when the

focus shifts from powerful personalities to, for example,

philosophical and legal foundations, the undergirding

12

interpretive paradigm generally remains the same: print
journalism in America has gradually marched forward since the
dark days of the partisan press into successive periods of
ever-increasing enlightenment.24 Years after most historians
had abandoned the progressive cosmology, journalism scholars
were still echoing strains of Turner, Parrington and Beard.25

During the late 19605 and early 19705, press historians were
exploring alternative analytical models. Many recognized that
besides serving as a valuable repository of names, dates and
events, the press is also a dynamic, culture-bound institution.
As such, newspapers and magazines reflect or mirror the culture
in which they appear.26 In effect, print media can serve as
sensitive cultural seismographs, recording subtle shifts or
changes in the values, attitudes and beliefs popularly held
during given historic periods. Instead of using press content
to trace the careers of editorial titans or to chart
technological advancements in printing, media historians could
analyze advertising, features, news and reader correspondence
in order to "grasp the form of consciousness, the imaginations,
the interpretations of reality"27 of past eras. The challenge
to journalism scholars was to bring a more holistic orientation
to their work, to integrate press content and culture in order
to probe more deeply into the significance of press history. It
was scarcely surprising, then, that some journalism historians
turned to American Studies scholarship for possible

methodological foundations upon which to build their

13

investigations.28

For several reasons, the somewhat embattled mythopoetic
model offers particularly appealing possibilities for press
scholarship. First, if newspapers and magazines accurately
reflect the culture in which they appear, then they should also
mirror the dominant mythic constructs which pervade that
culture.29 Second, by focusing on the journalistic
expressions of those myths, images and symbols, scholars would
be exploring one alternative to the biographical or
technological emphases of most media histories. For instance,
the gradual emergence and subsequent disappearance of a
dominant cultural image may suggest some decidedly different
conclusions about journalism history than those presupposed by
the progressive paradigm. Third, since magazines and
newspapers are usually expressions of popular culture, the
charges of elitism leveled at American Studies scholarship
would not apply to much journalism historiography. Further, by
carefully selecting periodicals on the basis of such variables
as readership and geographic circulation, media historians
could avoid the more disturbing charge that mythopoetic
scholarship had tended to sacrifice ethnic and regional
diversity in the quest to identify and characterize a
distinctly American cultural ethos. Instead, press historians
could retain the distinctions of the southern, rural Black
press or the midwestern, urban labor press while, at the same

time, further examine the relationship between the content of

14
such publications and the broader culture. In short, they
could retain the mythopoetic "baby" while discarding the
"bathwater." By adopting the myth and image framework,
press historians would find both the justification and the
means for studying newspapers and magazines generally absent
from standard print media histories--most of which reflect
strong eastern, urban biases.3o One of the most consistently
disregarded realms of journalistic enterprise has been the
American agricultural press.

In his 1941 preface to The Ameriean Agrieultural Press,
1819-1860, Albert Lowther Demaree lamented that agricultural
journals, the "medium of exchange for the ideas of eighty
percent of the population and . . . a rich depository of social
and economic history of their times" had been "entirely
neglected by historians."31 Demaree’s exhaustive scholarship
helped fill that historical void, but, over four decades later,
his book remains the only fully developed study of the American
agricultural press.

There are several plausible reasons why scholars have
ignored the historical development of the farm press. First,
complete files are very difficult to obtain. Nineteenth century
farm periodicals are scattered across the country, and
collections must be pieced together from land grant university
libraries, state historical societies, the National
Agricultural Library, and from the files of existent

agricultural periodiCals. Compounding this logistical dilemma

15
is a widely-held notion that agricultural papers have been
exclusively concerned with matters related to practical
husbandry. While it is true that a great deal of editorial
space is devoted to improved production and marketing
strategies, the farm press is also rich in social content.
Unlike the urban press, however, the socio-cultural dimensions
of the agricultural press are often overshadowed by the
scientific and technical dimensions. Finally, and perhaps most
importantly, press historians have been unwilling or unable to
reconcile developments in the agricultural press and their
overall interpretations of media history.

The Whig/Progressive paradigm cannot be easily applied to
the farm press. For example, even though American agricultural
newspapers began during the era of the partisan press, the
overwhelming majority of farm editors vowed to avoid party
politics. Most kept to their word. In addition, while urban
papers in the mid-nineteenth century were changing dramatically
in response to a burgeoning metropolitan readership, farm
papers remained relatively unchanged until well after the Civil
War. Even the newer midwestern and western agricultural
periodicals were almost identical to their established
counterparts in the East. Nor did the farm editors enjoy the
twin luxuries of money and large staffs necessary to undertake
expensive, time-consuming journalistic projects. In-depth
features and expose stories, for example, were seldom evident

in the nineteenth-century agricultural press. And, although

16

farm periodicals began to consolidate into a handful of small
publishing groups after World War II, the agricultural chains
have neither the power nor the sophistication of the
urban-based media conglomerates. These incongruities
illustrate the point that the development of the farm press
cannot be neatly incorporated into an historiography that
presupposes the steady, linear advancement of the American
media through successive, ever more enlightened stages, in
response to the mandates of "liberalism, freedom, democracy and
libertarianism."32

Rather, farm papers danced to the beat of a different
drummer, i.e., a fundamental agrarian ethos that could be
alternately progressive, conservative or reactionary depending
on the prevailing issues and the condition of agriculture at
the time. The result of these differences between the urban
and agricultural papers is that most press historians have
either ignored the farm papers completely or relegated them to
chapter-ending addenda, separate and distinct from dominant
media trends. That "rich depository of social and economic
history" Demaree affirms has, with few exceptions, remained
untapped.33

Yet, it seems clear that the farm periodicals provide a more
complete and balanced picture of rural American life than their
often-quoted urban counterparts, which alternately romanticize
and disparage country living, depending on the prevailing

popular mood.34 Because the agricultural papers were the

17

major information source for most-farmers, they were as welcome
on the farmstead as old, trusted friends.35 Writing for the
average farmer, with his predispositions firmly in mind, the
agricultural editors were generally reluctant to examine such
sensitive issues as religion, international affairs and party
politics. Wary of antagonizing their readers, thereby
sacrificing precious subscribers, farm editors chose their
content with great caution. Open candidate endorsements and
appeals for economic or political activism came only after long
deliberation and much soul-searching--even after reader
correspondence clearly indicated heightened receptivity to such
appeals or endorsements out on the farm. For these reasons,
the farm press is a far more accurate barometer of change in
rural America than the urban dailies, the mass circulation
magazines, or the polemical Alliance and Populist papers--all
of which have been widely used in studies of agricultural
developments during the Gilded Age.36

To briefly summarize, I believe the study of the farm press
offers a unique opportunity to join journalism history and the
mythopoetic methodology. Although a rich repository of rural
popular culture, the agricultural press has gone virtually
unnoticed in journalism historiography. As a result, the
development of the farm press is relatively unencumbered by the
standard interpretations of much journalism history. Those few
studies of the farm press which do exist are either

broad-ranging content summaries or biographical treatments.37

18
While such studies have illuminated important features of
agricultural life, they have contributed little to a more
holistic understanding of the "form of consciousness, the
imaginations, the interpretations of reality" modern journalism
scholars hope to achieve. One means of taking a more
penetrating look at agrarian culture is to trace an established
archetypal image through the pages of the farm press.
Transformations of that image might indicate concomitant
changes in rural America. Instead of examining the yeoman
farmer in expressions of elite culture-—which is usually the
case-~I will examine the image in the context of a medium that

springs directly from rural America.

The Selection and Use of Primary Sources

The most critical criterion governing the selection of
agricultural papers for historical study is availability. Many
of the records of the approximately 80 farm journals published
between 1873-1893 have been lost or destroyed.38 Extensive
bibliographic searches have unearthed comparatively complete
volumes of some of the more long-lived papers from the recesses
of the National Agricultural Library, various college and
university collections and from state historical societies.
Occasionally, a current publisher can provide substantial
holdings, as in the case of the Kensas Farmer or germ
Jegrnel. In addition, the American Periodical Series (APS)

contains a few agricultural publications from the Gilded Age,

19
although the APS collection of farm papers between 1820-1850 is
far superior.

Fortunately, many of the surviving papers are generally
considered among the most influential. Based on the judgment
of scholars like Demaree and Gilbert,39 I have tried to select
from among the.available papers those which enjoyed significant
popularity and/or longevity. Since circulation figures varied
widely relative to state and regional farm populations, and
because farm editors were known to become somewhat overzealous
in their readership tabulations, the time a paper managed to
remain in business provides a more reliable means of gauging
overall significance. Simplifying the selection process
somewhat is the fact that most states only had one major
agricultural publication during the period concerned. Papers
like the the.£arner. the Michigan_£armer. the Kansas_farmer
and the Nebreeke Ferme; monopolized the agricultural news
market in their respective states. Now known as "horizontals,"
these broad-ranging papers had not yet been seriously
challenged by the specialized dairy, livestock, horse and cash
grain papers ("verticles") which emerged in the twentieth
century.40

Primary sources have been limited to what I have broadly
termed the nbrthern agricultural press.41 Influential,
long-lived farm papers were printed in the South during the
Gilded Age, but, for several reasons, I have not included them

in this study. The surviving files of the southern

20

agricultural papers are far more fragmentary than those of
their northern counterparts. One apparent explanation for this
phenomenon is that far fewer southern farm papers were
published in the nineteenth century. Besides the paucity of
surviving files, the southern farm papers present problems of
content. Farm editors below the Mason-Dixon line were largely
(and understandably) preoccupied with the technological,
economic and political developments associated with a highly
specialized agriculture. Unlike northern editors who were
obliged to cover multi-dimensional forms of husbandry, ranging
from dairy farming to grape growing, southern journalists
focused a great deal of attention on issues surrounding
intensive cotton and tobacco cropping. Another such issue was
the tariff-~something seldom discussed in the northern
agricultural press. Finally, and, in the context of this
study, most importantly, southern rural culture witnessed the
emergence of an archetypal image rather different than the
independent yeoman. The dominant symbol associated with the
cotton and tobacco culture was not the hard-working, unassuming
son of the plow, but the genteel plantation aristocrat. Such
profound regional differences cannot be ignored, particularly
in light of the shortcomings of earlier mythopoetic
scholarship; therefore, I decided to confine this study to the
northern agricultural press.

Most northern farm papers were monthlies or bi-weeklies, and

they averaged between 12 and 16 pages per issue. The sheer

21
plethora of broadsheet newsprint precluded a line-by-line
examination of each issue. I largely ignored items related to
practical husbandry, choosing instead to concentrate on
editorials, entertainment, news, the reports of various
agricultural organizations and letters from readers. The last
provided some measure of "check and balance" as to whether the
editOrials reflected the prevailing views of the readership. I
paid special attention to issues published between September
and December, the months for harvesting and marketing
crops--and for major elections. January and February issues
provided some particularly interesting letters to the editor
because many farmers (with the exception of livestock and dairy
operators) had more time to take pen in hand prior to spring
planting.

It was difficult to gather the files of agricultural papers
from the collections scattered around the country. Besides the
close and patient cooperation of Michigan State University's
Carol Jones, I have been assisted by reference librarians at
the National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, Maryland; the
Kansas State Historical Society, and the South Dakota
Historical Resource Center. I have also had the support of
friends and acquaintances in the American Agricultural Editors
Association, including Richard Lehnert, editor of the Miehigen
Eermer, and Andrew-Stevens, editor of the Ohio Farmer. Many
publishing companies have more complete collections than either

the land grant universities or the state historical societies.

22
Ultimately, these valuable historical records should be

gathered under one roof.

NOTES

1Abraham Lincoln, "Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural
Society," flieeonein Farmer, Nov. 1859, p. 390. The editor’s note
indicates the speech was given in Milwaukee on Sept. 30, 1859.

2Hon. Mr. Rowan, "The American Farmer-~A Portrait," Franklin
Fennen, 12 Oct., 1839, p. 61.

3Henry Nash Smith identifies Franklin, de Crevecoeur and
Jefferson as the "best known expositors of the agrarian
philosophy" during the second half of the eighteenth century--
although he reminds us that they were certainly not unique among
their contemporaries. Virgin Lend (1950; rpt. Cambridge:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1970), p. 126. Albert Lowther Demaree, Ine
Amenieen Agnidnlnnndl Press, 1812'1§§Q (New York: Columbia Univ.
Press., 1941), has collected invaluable examples of such tributes
to the yeoman.

4Although the Agricultural Museum was probably the first
exclusively agricultural periodical in America, it was short-
lived (the last known issue appeared in May, 1812), and there is
no evidence that it influenced the better known papers which
followed. Most scholars agree that the establishment of the
American Fenne; on April 2, 1819 marked the "birthdate" of the
agricultural press in the United States. William Edward Oglivie,

Pioneen Ag;de_l§n;d_ Journaliste (Chicago: Leonard, 1927), pp. 3-

9: Gilbert M- Tucker. American. Agricultural Periodical. (Albany:
Privately Printed, 1909), pp. 71- -2; and Demaree, pp. 23- 38.
5"A Poem," Weetern Farmer end Record 91 denendl Intelligenee,

9 Nov. 1841, p. 161.
58mith, p. 123.

7Richard H. Abbott, "The Agricultural Press Views the Yeoman:
1819-1857," Agzigultural HistO , 42 (1968), 35-8.

8Neetern farmer and Beccrd cf general Intelligence. 19 Jan.
1841, p. 4.

23

24

9Donald B. Marti, "Agricultural Journalism and the Diffusion
of Knowledge: The First Half Century in America," Agricultural
Histeny, 54 (1980), 28-37. Marti suggests that some agricultural
editors deliberately encouraged rural youths to stay on the farm
to preclude reduced readership.

10Douglas R. Picht, ”The American Farmer: An Inter-
Disciplinary Examination of an Image," Diss. Univ. of Minnesota
1968; Lynne Blanton, "The Agrarian Myth in Eighteenth and
Nineteenth-Century American Magazines," Diss. Univ. of Illinois
1979; Kirk Heinze, "Wesnenn EdIEQIL dgecord ofG General
innelligenee: Michigan’ 5 First Agricultural Newspaper," Highland
dieneny, 68, No. 2 (1984), 40- 6.

11Fred A. Shannon, Ine Fennenie Les; Fnontier; Agricnlnure,
l§§Q:ld21 (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945), pp. 291-328 and

Earl W. Hayter, Ine IIQDDLEQ Eeznen, 1850-1900 (DeKalb, 111.:
Northern Ill. Univ. Press, 1968), pp. 3-11.

12The literature on agrarian misery during the Gilded Age is
extensive. Among many excellent studies: John D. Hicks, Ine
Populisn Bevel; (1931; rpt. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press,
1961): Norman Pollack. The Bcnuliet Beeucnee tc Industrial
Americe (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1962); Solon J. Buck,
Ine Agzenien d;n_ede (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1920): and
Shannon, The EQEEQILfi LQ§§,E£_DL1§£L

13In addition to the Hicks’ and Pollack volumes cited above,
see: Norman Pollack, The Bepnlien Mind (New York: Bobbs-
Merrill, 1967); Solon J. Buck, The Granger Movement (Cambridge:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1913); Robert C. McMath, Jr., Ine Ponulist
Yenduerd: A Hietcrx cf the Scutnern Burners Alliance (New York:

Norton, 1977); Fred A. Shannon, Amenieen Fennenei Movemenne
(Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1957).

14Richard Hofstadter, Ine Age e; Befgnn (New York: Knopf,
1963), pp. 94-130. Although he makes limited use of the
agricultural press, Hofstadter traces the emergence of the farmer
as businessman and employer. By World War I, he concludes,
American business, "while contributing to agricultural prosperity
through its support of agricultural technology and education,
thus laid the foundations of a business-agrarian alliance that
has never been broken." (p. 125).

15Paul H. Johnstone, "Turnips and Romanticism," Agnienlnnnel
Hienexyl 12 (1938), 224-54; Hofstadter, pp. 33-6; Marti, pp. 28-
37; and Demaree, pp. 86-8.

25

16Farmers still distrust labor unions, metropolitan centers
and various religious and ethnic minority groups. A recent
illustration of agrarian nativism is: Bruce Maxwell, "Radical
Right Wing on the Rise in Midwest," Rochesnen Eesn-Bullenin, 17
Sept. 1984, Sec. 1, pp. 1, 12, cols, 1-6. This article was the
first in a six-part series exploring the emergence of right-wing
extremism in the rural Midwest. History has contributed an
ironic dimension to the long record of rural nativism. The
number of farmers has dropped below three percent of the U.S.
population; therefore, agrarians, themselves, have become a
distinct American minority group. Gilbert Fite, American

Fennene: The Hen ManIlLY (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press,
1981).

17Cecil Tate thoroughly traces the development of American
mythopoetic scholarship in Tne §§d£2h fen e Menned in Ameziean
Sendiee (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minn. Press, 1973), pp. 9-24.
Borrowing from the social sciences, American Studies scholars
have used a broadened conception of "myth" as a key
methodological tool with which to examine culture. More than
simply a false notion or a folk tale, myth is viewed as the
crystallization of the thoughts and feelings shared by the
majority of people in the culture or sub-culture from which the
myth springs. In this sense, then, myth is seen to embody the
"dominant thought forms" which determine and sustain human
society. These thought forms are collective representations:
they contain the commonly held ideological and emotional
aspirations of the time. Such aspirations are necessarily
expressed symbolically, i.e., as particular images or a complex
of images which comprise the overarching mythology. Images (or,
as Leo Marx prefers, ”cultural symbols") can be expressed in a
variety of forms including heroic gods or mortals, exotic animals
or idealized natural settings. In American Studies scholarship,
such images include the American Adam, the West, the Forest, the
Frontier, the Desert, Andrew Jackson and the Yeoman Farmer. By
examining such images in expressions of popular and elite
culture, scholars have attempted to elucidate a uniquely American
mythology--a mythology which reveals how Americans perceive and
structure reality. Also see Kenneth E. Boulding, Tne Tnege (Ann
Arbor: Univ. of Mich. Press, 1956), pp. 1-17, 133-45; John
William Ward Bed, Thine end filne (New York: Oxford Univ. Press,
1969), pp. 1-6, Hofstadter, pp. 23-36; and Smith, pp. ix-xii.

18Karen J. Winkler, "For Scholars in American Studies, the
Intellectual Landscape Is Changing," Tne engeniele,ef Hignen_
Edneenien, 10 March 1980, p. 3, cols. 1—4; p. 4, cols. 1-53
Marion Marzolf, "American Studies-—Ideas for Media Historians?"
deurnalisn dietexy, 5 (1978), 1, 13-16: and Charles W. Bassett,
"Undergraduate and Graduate American Studies Programs in the

United States: A Survey," Aneriean Quarterly, 21 (1975), 306—
30.

26

19Robert Sklar, "The Problem of an American Studies
'Philosophy': A Bibliography of New Directions," Amenican
Qnennezly, 27 (1975), 245-62; Tate, pp. 127-33. Leo Marx defends
the work of what he terms the "humanistic scholars" against
charges that American Studies research generally lacks a
discernable methodology, "American Studies--A Defense of an

Unscientific Method," he! Linenezy History, 1 (1969), 75-90.
20Jean Ward, "Interdisciplinary Research and Journalism
Historians," denznelien Hieneny, 5 (1978), 1, 17-19: Robert
Sklar, "American Studies and the Realities of America," Amenieen
Qnennezly, 22 (1970), 597-605: and Marzolf, pp. 1; 13-16. For a

succinct examination of both the historical development of
popular culture and the distinction between elite and popular

art, see Russel B. Nye, The Unenhenneeeed Ange (New York: Dial,
1970), pp. 1-7.

21Allan Nevins, "American Journalism and Its Historical

Treatment," dennneliem Quezgerly, 36 (1959), 411-12; 519.

22James W. Carey, "The Problem of Journalism History,"
dennnelien dinneny, 1 (1974), 3-5, 27 and Joseph P. McKerns, "The
History of American Journalism: A Bibliographic Essay," American
Snudies lntennationel, 15, No. l (1976), 17-34. McKerns
concludes: "The time has come for a radically different
interpretation of journalism history grounded in the context of a
paradigm other than . . . the Progressive interpretation." (p.
34).

23Carey, p. 4.

24For "progressive" philosophical and legal interpretations of
journalism history, see Frederick S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson,
and Wilbur Schramm, zen; Theoriee 9f nhe Prese (Urbana: Univ. of
111. Press, 1956) and Leonard Levy, Eneedom e; fineee_ end Eneee
in Early Americauietcrx (New York: Harper & ROW. 1963).
respectively. The best known general histories also embody the

progressive paradigm, e.g., Alfred M. Lee, The peily,hen§pene; in

Aneniee (New York: MacMillan, 1937): Frank Luther Mott, Amenican
deunnalien, 3rd ed. (New York: MacMillan, 1962): and Edwin Emery
and Michael Emery, The Eneee in Aneriea, 5th ed. (Englewood

Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1984). Although the Emerys have added
new chapters concerning recent challenges to press credibility,
the progressive interpretation remains. The latest edition
concludes with a clarion cry that "the rights of citizens are
only as strong as their will to defend them and their willingness
to defend those who bring them this news and opinion with no
other interest than their own." (p. 750).

27

25McKerns, pp. 33-4 and Gary Whitby and William David Sloan,
"The Purposes of the Press: A Re-Interpretation of American
Journalism History," History Division, AEJ Convention, E. Lan.,
Mich., 1981. Hofstadter provides a penetrating analysis of the
major progressive historians in, The Progressive Historiane;

Tnnnend Beard, Earrington (New York: Knopf, 1968).

26According to Maxwell H. Bloomfield, Alarms end diversions:
The Anerican Mind Thxengh Anenieen Magazines 1900-1914 (The
Hague: Mouton, 1967), ". . . periodical literature constitutes a
discrete body of social data, capable of shedding new light on
the thought patterns of the average citizen, as he confronted the
most pressing problems of his times.“ (p. 7) The view that
newspapers and magazines mirror the culture in which they appear
has been pervasive and, until recently, almost unchallenged (see
n. 36). David Lawrence, executive editor of the hetroit Free
Eress told Michigan State Univ. journalism students that "a
newspaper should be a reflection of the world in which we live
and also, in theory, one should be able to pick up a newspaper
years from now and agree that the world was as it was written in
the newspaper." (Millicent Reynolds, "Editor Says Power of Press
is Enormous," neg News-Bulletin, 16 Nov. 1984, p. 4, cols. 1-4).

27Carey, p. 27.

28Carey, pp. 3-5: Hazel Dicken Garcia, "Cultural Research in
Communications History,” Clio, 11, No. 2 (1979), 1-7; Ward, pp.
1, 17-19; Marzolf, pp. 1, 13-16: and a special section of
Jounnalien histony, 2 (1975), containing articles by Garth
Jowett, Richard Schwarzlose, John Erickson, Marion Marzolf and
David Weaver.

29Extending Henry Nash Smith's theory that "men cannot engage
in purposive group behavior--without images which simultaneously
express collective desire and impose coherence on . . .
experience" (gingin Lendl ix), Joseph McKerns discusses the
relationship between those images and media. "The media, taken
collectively, is a culture—bound institution and media
practitioners are products of culture. The image or images of
reality that the media present to society are governed by the
dominant social and cultural ideas and attitudes of their time."
(91121 11 No. 2 (1979), 10-11) That media reflect the dominant
images of their time is an assumption central to this study.

28

30Among many examples in journalism historiography, Emery and
Emery; Mott; Lee; Robert W. Jones, dournalism in nhe United
§£d§§§ (New York: Dutton, 1947); and Willard Bleyer, hain
Qnrnente in The nienezy e; Anezieen Journalisn (Boston: Houghton-
Mifflin, 1927). One notable attempt at a more balanced
geographical analysis of journalism history is Sidney Kobre,

derelooment of American Journalism (Dubugue. Iowa: Brown. 1969).
31Demaree, p. xi.

32Joseph McKerns, ”The Limits of Progressive Journalism
History," dennnelien niehezy, 4 (1977), 88. This is certainly
not to imply that because journalism historians have frequently
applied the progressive paradigm to the urban press the urban
press has, in fact, been progressive. More recent scholarship
suggests that the urban press has been subject to the same
editorial vicissitudes as the rural press, depending on the

prevailing popular mood. Herbert Gans, Deeiding flhet's News (New
York: Pantheon, 1979): Michael Schudson, Discovering the hene

(New York: Basic Books, 1978): and Gunther Barth, Tiny People
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1980).

33Many standard journalism histories make no mention of the
agricultural press, e.g., Jones, Kobre and Lee. The Emerys
briefly note farm papers, and Mott includes minor sections

throughout A History of American Magazines. 5 vols. (Cambridge:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1957). James Playsted Wood, hegeninee in

the Uniged Stetee (New York: Ronald, 1956), incorporates a
chapter on farm magazines.

34The most systematic study of how the popular urban press
treats the farmer is Blanton's, "The Agrarian Myth in Eighteenth-
and Nineteenth-Century American Magazines." The author concludes
that throughout the nineteenth century the urban press continued
to portray an idealized image of the yeoman. However, during the
final two decades of the nineteenth century, urban writers
alternately scolded farm radicalism and unscientific farming
while, at the same time, apotheosized the untrammeled rural life
(pp. 316-26).

35Demaree, pp. xi-xvi, 39-134; Oglivie, pp. v-vi; and Tucker,
pp. 71-74. Farmers continue to rate farm magazines as their most
important source of agricultural information. John L. Adams and

Anne M- Parkhurst. EarnerLRancner Percentione of channels and
Sources of change Information. Dept- of Agricultural

Communications Report No. 9 (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln,
1984), pp. 29-37.

29

36As mentioned above (n. 26), one of the central tenets of
this study is that newspapers and magazines accurately mirro; the
attitudes, values and beliefs held by the users of those media.
In the last two decades, communications researchers have
challenged the "media as mirrors/barometers" assumption.
Instead, they argue, media, especially newspapers and television,
actually exeene political and social issues based on the news
choices made day after day. In other words, the media set the
social and political "agenda" instead of simply reflecting it.
For a detailed account of the growth of agenda-setting research,
see Donald L. Shaw and Maxwell E. McCombs, et al., The Emengence
fiWMMMWLL—JUCtiO oftne
Ezess (St. Paul: West, 1977). Recent agenda-setting research
indicates that the more specialized a medium, the more it tends
to reflect or mirror the attitudes, values and beliefs of its
users. Trade publications, for example, would be less prone to
agenda-setting than national news magazines. The farm press
served a highly specialized audience; therefore, the agricultural
papers should be relatively free of any agenda-setting role.
(Telephone interview with Michael Salwen, Ph.D. Candidate-~Mass
Media, Michigan State Univ., 18 Jan. 1985).

37Even Demaree's work has been criticized for its lack of
interpretive depth. "There is little attempt to correlate and
extract significance from the mass of biographical material
presented, and a chapter on the significance of the agricultural
press does not explain the significance of the early farm press
at all." Simon Bourgin, rev. of Anerican Agnicultnnal Pnees, in
Lend Poliey, 4 (1941), 35-8.

38The most detailed record of nineteenth-century agricultural
papers is Tucker’s, and he noted in 1901 that due to the absence
of a systematic effort to preserve farm papers, subsequent
attempts to study them would be difficult "if not quite
impossible." (p. 72).

39Demaree, pp. 321-389; Gilbert, pp. 72-9.

4°Other than the eastern horticultural society journals and
scattered fruit and livestock publications, most specialized
agricultural papers did not appear until the early 19005. One
important exception was fieendle Deinynen, first published in 1870
and now a premier publication in the dairy industry.

30

41When using the designation "northern agricultural press," I
am referring to farm papers published in those states which lie
to the north of the original Mason and Dixon Line (parallel 39°
43’ N) and the subsequent extensions of that line prior to the
Civil War. The original Mason and Dixon Line divided
Pennsylvania on the north and Maryland (as well as portion of
what is now W. Virginia) on the south. During the Missouri
Compromise debates (1819-20), the line was extended to include
the Ohio River from the Pennsylvania border to its outlet in the
Mississippi River. The Missouri Compromise extended the line
west of the Mississippi River along parallel 36° 30'N, thereby
separating the free and slave states. (The important exception
was, of course, Missouri which lies north of 36° 30’N, but
remained a slave state.) From a more contemporary cartographic
standpoint, this designation would include the northeastern
states, the northern Great Lakes states, the northern plains
states, the central plains states, and the central Mississippi
Valley states, excluding Kentucky and Missouri. ("Mason and
Dixon Line," Eneyclopedia Anenieene, 1985 ed. and The hahienal
Atlas; of the United States of Americal U-S- Dept- of Interior
Geological Survey: Washington D.C., 1970).

CHAPTER 1--rrom Virgil to Virginia: The Wellsprings of

the American Agrarian Mythology

By the time the Reverend David Wiley issued the first number
of the Agricnltural Museum at Georgetown, District of Columbia,
on July 4, 1810, the agrarian myth had captured the American
imagination.1 Common journalistic expressions of the myth
included the propositions that agricultural life was Divinely
sanctioned; that is was inherently natural and good; that urban
living was unnatural, thus wicked and destructive: that all non-
farm occupations or populations were dependent on the farmer for
their sustenance; that farmers were independent, virtuous, and
happy; and that the yeoman was the backbone of republican
government. These and corollary ideas had been frequently penned
by many well-known, eighteenth-century journalists, including
such influential almanac editors as Nathaniel Ames, Eben W. Judd,
Daniel Leeds and Benjamin Franklin. Important precursors to the
agricultural papers, the almanacs not only reflected American
acceptance of agrarianism but also helped spread its various
tenets.2 What had titillated the imaginations of philosophers
and poets from antiquity through the Enlightenment had become a
mass creed in early nineteenth-century America.

Although randomly and unsystematically expressed in the

almanacs and agricultural papers, the principle beliefs embodied

31

32
in the agrarian myth derived from two seminal sources: the
intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment and the realities of
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American experience. The
propositions which would eventually coalesce to form the core of
a uniquely American mythology represented a fusion of the
ideological and the actual. While the historical developments of
colonial America are generally well-known, the influence of the
European Enlightenment on the intellectual development of our
founding fathers has just recently received more detailed
scholarly attention.3 Therefore, it is instructive to begin this
examination of the agrarian myth by considering certain
fundamental concepts of Enlightenment thought that were "in the
air" when Jefferson, Madison, Crevecoeur, John Taylor and others
were forming their respective agrarian helnenschanngen.

The Enlightenment, often referred to as "The Age of Reason,"
was one of the most important developments in the history of
Western thought. Beginning in the last two decades of the
seventeenth century and gaining momentum throughout the
eighteenth century, the Enlightenment represented, in the most
general terms, an intellectual reaction to those who believed
that explanations for human behavior could be found in
revelation, tradition or illumination. In more practical terms,
it constituted a reaction to old and powerful European
institutions, particularly the clergy and the nobility who, for
centuries, had held hostage basic human liberty. Although

Newton, Bacon and Locke were often considered the "Holy Trinity"

33
of the Enlightenment, the movement was not circumscribed by a
small cluster of thinkers or by particular national boundaries.
It included theologians, philosophers, political economists,
artists, scientists, statesmen and even members of the nobility
from every nation and corner of Europe.

While Enlightenment thinkers represented a rich, broad and
divergent intellectual spectrum ranging from, for example, Locke
to Hume, Gibbon to Priestley, Voltaire to Rousseau or, closer to
home, Hamilton to Paine, some central tenets were generally
shared. According to Henry May, the Enlightenment, regardless of
the various forms it may have taken, "consists of all those who
believe in two propositions: first, that the present age is more
enlightened than the past: and second, that we understand nature
and man best through the use of our natural faculties."4 With
Newton, Priestley and others, Enlightenment thinkers believed
that recent scientific discoveries proved that the universe was
governed by regular, observable laws and principles--often
referred to as natural laws. The order, balance and harmony
observable in Nature were clearly creations of a beneficent
Deity, a Deity which had also had the magnanimity to give mankind
the power of Reason to explore and eventually to understand the
Universe.

Further, just as Enlightenment thinkers believed they lived in
a universe governed by the laws of Nature and Nature’s God, so,

too, they believed that the same laws controlled:

34

. . . the movement of the stars in the heavens and the

tides in the oceans and the circulation of blood in the

veins of man, governed too the great tides of human

history, the rise and fall of empires, the operation of

laws, and the functioning of the economy and the ultimate

standards of morality.
Because the laws which governed natural phenomena were the same
that regulated human affairs, they did not distinguish sharply
between what they called Natural Philosophy and Moral Philosophy
(or, in many cases, Political Economy). They had an almost
limitless confidence in man’s ability to penetrate and grasp
those laws and to apply them to practical affairs. Thus, they
believed that man could use his rational faculties to create
societies which would be free of the villainies and corruptions
of previous epochs. Because these new societies would be
conceived and governed in compliance with natural laws, they
would achieve a level of perfectability unprecedented in history.

This is not to say, however, that the utopian visions of the
Enlightenment were created en nihilo, that history had provided
no suitable antecedents for the creation and maintenance of
virtuous societies. On the contrary, Enlightenment thinkers in
Europe and America looked to the widely shared and understood
literature, art, architecture, philosophy and political theory--
in short, to the history--of ancient Greece and Rome. There, in
the history, in the cultural institutions and, perhaps most
importantly, in the moral lessons of Antiquity, they found ample
and incontrovertible evidence that society could not only be

improved, but even perfected. Thus, the history of antiquity

became "a kind of laboratory in which autopsies of the dead

35
republics would lead to a science of social sickness and health
matching the science of the natural world."6

From the standpoint of political institutions, the classical
world had been a major source of knowledge and inspiration for
enlightened political theorists at least since Machiavelli, and
particularly to the classical republicans and their heirs of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including the radical
Whigs. As Gordon S. Wood observes, enlightened thinkers on both
sides of the Atlantic were especially drawn to the Roman
Enlightenment, "the golden age of Latin literature from the
breakdown of the Republic in the middle of the first century B.C.
to the establishment of the Empire in the middle of the second
century A.D."7 The questions posed by Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus,
and Plutarch were, in many cases, the questions of the eighteenth
century. How did a once great republican empire gradually
atrophy and then crumble amidst civil disorder, corruption and
moral turpitude. Further, what parallels could be found between
the general degeneracy observed throughout Europe and that which
brought Rome to its knees.

For many enlightened Europeans and Americans, the answers to
these questions were not epistemological or metaphysical:
instead, they were moral. It was not the will of God or the
force of arms which made the ancient republics great or
precipitated their decline. Rather, it was the character and
spirit of their people. Such traits as frugality, industry,

temperance, independence and simplicity made the ancient

36
republics strong. Such traits were also the moral equivalents of
the natural laws which governed a moderate, harmonious and
carefully ordered universe. Conversely, prodigality, sloth,
excessive luxury, and intolerance--all antipodal to Nature's
laws--were forces which destroyed the ancient republics.8

Particularly compelling to many eighteenth-century thinkers
was the classical praise of rural life. At least since Homeric
times, the countryside was portrayed as the abode of the
virtuous.9 Early classical writers extended lavish tributes to
both husbandry and the farmer.10 In his flenh end heye, Hesiod
expressed his preference for agriculture over commercial and
military life. Xenophon, in The Econonist, has Socrates avow
that agriculture is the essential occupation of man and is among
the noblest of all professions.

The apotheosis of rural life and the concomitant disparagement
of urban living became conventionalized in Augustan and Imperial
Rome. Cicero, Varro, Horace, Columella, Pliny, Virgil and others
consistently extolled the virtues of agrarian life. The
simplicity and repose of the countryside and the noble character
of the farmers ensured the strength of the republic. Agriculture
was regularly described as the basis of prosperity, the first
source of all arts and the foster mother of mankind. Conversely,
the city was portrayed as the fundamental source of Rome’s woes.
Columella, in he he Buehice, contrasted the agrarian utopia of
early, Golden Age Rome with the sickly, rampant urban vices of

his day. The city had become the abode of vice, corruption and

37
moral decay. These and related sentiments were perhaps best
expressed in the well-known conclusion to Virgil’s second
deengie, beginning with the "O fortunatos nimium" passage. In
Dryden's translation, this paradigm panegyric on country life
begins:
Oh happy, if he knew his happy State!
The Swain, who, free from Business and Debate,

Receives his easy Food from Nature’s Hand,
And just Returns of cultivated Land!11

The Augustan writers established an almost stereotypical
dichotomy between the salubrity of rural life, on the one hand,
and the malevolence of urban living, on the other. This
dichotomy persisted through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and
into the Age of Reason.12

As Enlightenment thinkers surveyed the contemporary European
landscape, they saw modern man locked in what was clearly a
classical, but losing struggle between vice and virtue, slavery
and liberty, passion and reason. They saw what they believed was
the same corruption of natural and moral law which had doomed the
ancient republics. With the exception of the constitutional
monarchy in England, which they generally admired, they saw
Europe fraught with corruption and decadence. Political and
spiritual bondage to nobility and clergy coincided with pervasive
poverty and wretchedness. Cities were rife with crime, disease
and immorality. In the countryside, where man should have had an
infinitely better life, they witnessed increasing peonage,

ignorance and despair. Wherever they looked, they saw human

38

rights violated, liberty and virtue in shambles. In short, the
established European order seemed to represent all that was
antithetical and anathema to the dictates of reason and natural
law. But, if Europe was hopelessly degenerate and bent on the
same destructive course as the ancient republics, where then
could mankind apply the new understandings of the universe?
Where could man begin anew--for the first time equipped with the
lessons of enlightened science, philosophy and political economy?
Many European thinkers--from Radical Whigs in England and
Scotland to Physiocrats and Encyclopedists in France--gazed
westward across the Atlantic and found their answer in the
unbounded geography of a vast new continent and in the classical
character traits they observed in the American farmer.13

While much of what European visionaries saw in America was
filtered through rose-colored lenses, some of their utopian hopes
were grounded in fact. From almost the beginning of European
settlement, the American colonies had been predominantly
agricultural.14 The census of 1790 (apparently the earliest
demographic data available) indicates that over 3.5 million
Americans, or approximately 95% of the total population, lived in
rural areas. Cities were comparatively small and few in number.
Philadelphia, the largest metropolis, had a population of about
43,000. New York numbered approximately 33,000 residents, while
Boston had just 18,000.15 Although the census did not
distinguish rural dwellers by occupation, it can be safely

assumed that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, "to say

39

'American' was synonymous with saying farmer.”16 It was also a
Tel; eeeompli that a great many eighteenth-century American
farmers owned their own land. Through a random, and largely
inefficient process, companies like Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay
and Virginia, and, later, proprietors, the Crown, or other
landowners gradually succumbed to colonial pressure and
relinquished land to those who farmed it. By the second half of
the eighteenth century, land ownership was widespread, highly
prized and easily achieved.17

The tremendous availability of land, its quality and the
relative ease of securing it combined to increase the agrarian
population, slow urbanization and, finally, to stimulate
agricultural production in America. According to John
Schlebecker, America had developed a base for an independent
agriculture by 1763.18 For a few decades, at least, that
independence was not to mean a commercial agriculture. Some of
the southern cotton and tobacco planters notwithstanding, this
independent American yeomanry was overwhelmingly comprised of
subsistence farmers. Although these farmers worked hard to
produce some surplus commodities for sale, inadequate
transportation and marketing facilities, coupled with rudimentary
technology, forced them to concentrate on feeding themselves and
their families.19

The New World envisioned by many European thinkers was, in
fact, a land of agrarian independence and simplicity. In this

regard, American agrarianism marked a sharp contrast to the

40
European variety. During the first quarter of the eighteenth
century, what had begun as a legitimate and fruitful agricultural
enthusiasm in England became what can best be described as an
upper class craze. In stark and frivolous contrast to new
discoveries in scientific husbandry, the establishment of
agricultural societies, and the publication of numerous books on
farming, there was George III’s model farm at Windsor, or the
rustic murals on Lord Bolingbroke’s barns, or Alexander Pope's
cabbage and turnip patches or Marie Antoinette's shepherds, milk
maids and perfumed, pink sheep.2° While the upper classes
trifled in such agrarian escapism, the European yeomanry and
peasantry remained in the same political and economic bondage
they had for centuries.

Thus, for many radical Enlightenment thinkers, the New World
was a true agrarian society blessed with many of the virtues-~and
unencumbered by most of the vices--of the ancient republics and
the English commonwealth. These European visionaries saw small,
well-tended farms instead of sprawling, chaotic cities, proud,
hard-working farmers instead of haughty merchants or dissipated
aristocrats, independent yeomen instead of landless, dispirited
peasants. More importantly, they envisioned an unparalleled
opportunity for the creation of a government based on the most
advanced principles ever conceived by man. They had also met,
befriended, flattered and ultimately influenced those Americans
who would help establish that enlightened government--

philosopher-statesmen like Franklin, Hamilton, Paine, Madison and

41
Jefferson.

It would be a mistake to assume, however, that the Founding
Fathers were merely passive recipients of the main currents of
European radical thought. As Henry Commager has noted, while the
Old World "imagined, formulated and agitated" the Enlightenment,
"America absorbed it, reflected it, and institutionalized it."21
With a kind of "audacious intellectual imperialism,” Americans
annexed those enlightened doctrines which could be applied to the
New World experience and discarded those which could not. Their
ultimate goal was to "formulate a science of politics and of
history that would explain what was happening to England and to
themselves."22 And none of the New World nhilesonhes ransacked
European thought with more sense of purpose and with more
intellectual audacity than Thomas Jefferson, the father of
American agrarianism.

Jefferson's thought, like agrarianism itself, represents a
fusion of carefully selected Enlightenment notions and the
realities of American experience.23 The key elements in his
thinking were built on a complexity of intellectual pillars,
including Scottish moral philosophy, French physiocracy, Lockean
epistemology and Newtonian empiricism. The central tenets of his
eclectic world view were that God had fashioned a rational and
moral universe: that God had also bestowed natural rights on man-
-regardless of earthly condition: that man was essentially
reasonable, just, compassionate and intelligent: and that the

ends of society should always be liberty and progress. And how

42
were these ends to be realized? The answers were manifest in
America’s vast territory, its isolation from Old World
corruption, its overwhelmingly agricultural ethos and, most
importantly, its farmers--those ”public-spirited, wholesome . . .
sturdy yeomen of the piedmont and the Appalachians."24 Like many
of his European mentors, Jefferson believed that America provided
a unique historical opportunity to establish a utopian agrarian
republic which would safeguard individual liberty and encourage
social progress.

It was not only by virtue of his intellectual wellsprings and
his political pragmatism that Jefferson so fervently advocated
the development of an agrarian republic. His personal
predispositions also helped convince him that agriculture was the
noblest of occupations. In an 1811 letter to Charles Willson
Peale, Jefferson wistfully concludes:

I have often thought that if heaven had given

no choice of my position and calling, it should have

been a rich spot on earth, well watered, and near a

good market for the productions of the garden. No

occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of

the earth.25
Echoing Virgil, Horace and other classical writers whom he had
read, Jefferson believed agriculture contributed most to "real
wealth, good morals, and happiness,"26 which, in turn, ensured
independent, vigorous and virtuous citizens "tied to their '
country, and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most
lasting bonds."27 Jefferson was convinced that farmers were

God’s chosen peeple because of their intimacy with nature, their

humble way of life and their unimpeachable integrity. And like

43
agricultural commentators from antiquity to the Enlightenment,
Jefferson saw in urban existence all that was antithetical to the
wholesomeness and blessedness of country life.
Most of these ideas and themes are expressed in the well?

known and richly metaphoric passage from Nones on the Stage of
Virginia:

But we have an immensity of land courting the
industry of the husbandman. Is it best then that
all our citizens should be employed in its improve-
ment, or that half should be called off from that to
exercise manufactures and handicraft arts for the
other? Those who labor in the earth are the chosen
people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose
breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for sub-
stantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which
He keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise
might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption
of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of
which no age nor nation has furnished an example. . . .
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suf-
focates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for
the designs of ambition. This the natural pro-
gress and consequence of the arts, has sometimes per-
haps been retarded by accidental circumstances; but,
generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate
of the other classes of citizens bears in any State
to that of its husbandmen, is the proportion of its
unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough
barometer whereby to measure its degree of corrup-
tion. While we have land to labor, then, let us
never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-
bench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons,
smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the
general operation of manufacture, let our workshops
remain in Europe. . . . The mobs of great cities add
just so much to the support of pure government, as sores
do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners
and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in
vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats
to the heart of its laws and constitution.28

Jefferson clearly affirms the preeminence of husbandry and its
importance to the State: he emphasizes the independence and

virtue of those who are their own masters: he unabashedly

44
proclaims the Divine approbation of rural life: he denigrates
cities and manufacturing: and he links the availability of land
to the establishment and maintenance of the American republic.
These ideas would eventually coalesce to form the core of our
agrarian myth.

Although Jefferson is widely regarded as America's foremost
agrarian democrat, his was neither the first nor the only New
World voice. raised on behalf of husbandry. In what Leo Marx has
called the "first majOr treatment of a pastoral conception of
society," by a "native," Robert Beverly’s History and Pnesent
§§e3e+9T_yi;ginie (1705) provides a somewhat insouciant vision of
a semi-primitive, agrarian utopia which combines the innocence of
Eden and the material advantages of the cultivated soil.29
Drawing on the written accounts of such early explorers as John
Smith and Arthur Barlow, as well as on personal observation,
Beverly celebrates Virginia’s overwhelming fecundity and the
blissfulness of its native inhabitants. Unlike earlier
commentators, however, he is disturbed by the widespread
indolence he observes among many Europeans living in such a
naturally bountiful environment.

They spunge upon the Blessings of a warm Sun,

and a fruitful Soil, and almost grutch the Pains

of gathering in the Bounties of the Earth. I

should be asham'd to publish this slothful

Indolence of my countrymen, but that I hope

it will rouse them out of their Lethargy, and

ififiifiiaéfifimwfii’cfia’éitEEZ fiiitgiieilth23?si {‘a‘f’ii

Acutely aware of the dangers of a radical primitivism, Beverly

suggests that by cultivating and planting the virgin soil,

45

settlers can avoid the soporific effects of idleness and thereby
secure even greater bounties from the land. While Beverly never
fully reconciles primitivism and agrarianism, he foreshadows the
clearer conception.of an agriculturally-based society which was
to emerge.

Writing over seven decades after the publication of Beverly's
higheny, J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur had carefully observed

(and participated in) the transformation of American wilderness

into productive farmland- Hie WW

(1782) is an exuberant celebration of agricultural preeminence
and includes many of the themes discussed throughout this
chapter: the unadulterated joy of tilling the soil, the physical
and spiritual advantages of living in nature, the divine sanction
bestowed on farming, the economic primacy of husbandry and the
political and social liberty which springs from land ownership.

The instant I enter on my own land, the bright
idea of property, of exclusive right, of in-
dependence, exalt my mind. Precious soil, I

say to myself, by what singular custom of law

is it that thou wast made to constitute the
riches of the freeholder? What should we
American farmers be without the distinct
possession of that soil? It feeds, it clothes

us: from it we draw even a great exuberancy, our
best meat, our richest drink; the very honey

of our bees comes from this privileged spot. . . .
This formerly rude soil has been converted by my
father into a pleasant farm, and in return, it
has established all our rights: on it is founded
our rank, our freedom, our power as citizens,

our importance as inhabitants of such a district.
These images, I always behold with pleasure and
extend them as far as my imagination can reach: for
this is what may be called the true and only
philosophy of an American farmer.31

For Crevecoeur, there is no hint of Beverly's uneasy

46

vacillation between alternative living environments. The heart
of his English visitor is gladdened by the "substantial villages,
extensive fields . . . decent houses, orchards, and meadows" in
America, not by the "wild, woody, and uncultivated" terrain along
the frontier. Americans are, first and foremost, "tillers of the
earth . . . a peOple of cultivators," and it is the on-going
transformation of "rude soil” into fertile farmland that sustains
the democratic impetus.32 Crevecoeur's greatest wish is to pass
the legacy of farming to his children so that they, in turn, can
pass it on to theirs. With the exception of Jefferson and John
Taylor, no indigenous spokesman was as instrumental in spreading
agrarianism--although many other distinguished voices contributed
to the increasingly euphonic praise of husbandry reverberating
throughout late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century America.

John Taylor, a wealthy planter from Caroline County, Virginia
and a close friend of Jefferson’s, was perhaps the most ardent
New World Physiocrat.33 He was convinced that the agricultural
class was the only true producer of wealth, and his writings,
even more so than Jefferson’s, constitute a highly systematic and
detailed development of agrarian principles. Unlike his European
counterparts, however, he used theological arguments to bolster
his economic and political theories. Convinced of an "inner moral
light shining forth from the their way of life,"34 Taylor never
doubted that farmers were God’s chosen people. For Taylor, the
"divine intelligence which selected an agricultural state as a

paradise for its first favorites" has also "prescribed the

47
agricultural virtues as the means for the admission of their
posterity into heaven."35

At the awful day of judgment, the discrimination

of the good from the wicked, is not made by the

criterion of sects or of dogmas, but by one which

constitutes the daily employment and the great end

of agriculture. The judge upon this occasion has

by anticipation pronounced, that to feed the

hungry, clothe the naked, and give drink to the

thirsty, are the passports to future happiness.

By linking millennial Christianity and agriculture, Taylor moves
well beyond both the Physiocrats and his Virginia countryman and,
in so doing, also foreshadows the emergence of a mythic
agrarianism.

Other voices raised on behalf of agriculture included those of
such luminaries as Washington, Livingston, Madison and Monroe.
Countless lesser lights like Philip Freneau, Hugh Henry
Breckenridge and George Logan also spread the agrarian faith in
speeches, poems and prose.37 Even the venerable Franklin, while
in no way personally disposed to rural life, wrote that
agriculture was "the only honest way" for a nation to accumulate
wealth, ”wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown
into the ground, a kind of continuous miracle, wrought by the
hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and
virtuous industry."38 As late as 1788, he declared that the
"great Business of the Continent is Agriculture."39

So compelling was the vision of an agriculturally-based

society that even Alexander Hamilton, the consummate proponent of

manufacturing and commerce, found it prudent to pay homage to

husbandry in his Bene;§_en_henn1eehnne§ (1791). While unwilling

48
to grant agriculture any "exclusive predilection," Hamilton
conceded that "the cultivation of the earth, as the primary and
most certain source of national supply," and "as including a
state most favorable to the freedom and independence of the human
mind . . . has intrinsically a strong claim to preeminence over
every kind of industry."40 Even as the "unpent genie of
industrialism was moving about the world," the American Aladdin
could not ignore the pervasive power of the agrarian ethos. So
thoroughly had it captured the American imagination that, by the
1830’s, Alexis de Tocqueville could clearly observe its symbolic
efficacy. To the perceptive Frenchman, it appeared that
agrarianism had assumed mythic dimensions--that it had come to
define the promise of American life.41

Why, then, did agrarianism--a somewhat random and perplexing
blend of Classical and Enlightenment thought, utopian political
theory and the realities of American life--become so universally
compelling that it assumed mythic proportions? At the risk of
oversimplification, I suggest that part of the answer is provided
by historical events and part can be derived from an
understanding of the unique character of American nationalism.

History tells us that the Revolutionary War pitted an army of
ill-equipped, poorly trained yeomen against the prodigious
military might of England. For the most part, the American
troops were led by citizen soldiers, scarcely the martial equals
of George III’s highly professional officer corps. Even the

commander-in-chief of the American forces was, first and

49
foremost, a tiller of the 5011.. Yes, the British were less than
enthusiastic in their conduct of the war. Yes, there was the
invaluable and timely French intervention. Yet, despite these
and other qualifications the victory of the "embattled farmers"
over a vast commercial empire seemed to most observers nothing
short of miraculous. More than anything else, it appeared to be
an historical confirmation of the civic and moral superiority of
both the yeoman and the new agrarian nation he had fought to
establish.

The new nation was not only forged on the battlefield.
Americans were also engaged in a pervasive and highly charged
intellectual ferment throughout the Revolutionary period.
Discussions and debates ranging from democracy to liberty to
republicanism moved from the drawing rooms and university lecture
halls into America’s taverns, shops and churches. Generally
abstract notions which had animated intellectual discourse on
both sides of the Atlantic became popular patriotic shibboleths
replete with reference to independence, individual freedom and
inalienable rights. singularly significant was how, for a brief
moment in American history, previously disparate ideas seemed to
coalesce, how all knowledge seemed to coincide. As Gordon Wood
notes, it was a time "when classical antiquity, Christian
theology, English empiricism, and European rationalism could all
be linked" in support of a single goal—-the Revolutionary
effort.42

What, in fact, Americans were doing on the battlefields and in

50
the taverns and churches was something rather unique in human
events: a nation and its distinctive socio-cultural identity
were being forged simultaneously.43 Whereas in most Old World
countries, the cultural, psychological, economic and religious
underpinnings of nationhood were laid well before the political
superstructure was built, the United States established the
political structure first, and much of what is now considered
uniquely “American" came later. The political decision was
vindicated first on the field of battle and then, more gradually,
in the socio—cultural arena. Whether Americans gathered in the
frosty cabins at Valley Forge or in the dimly-lit taverns of
Boston, they were, consciously and unconsciously, equipping
themselves with the accouterments of nationhood. Among other
things, these accouterments included legends, shrines, heroes,
memorials and, of course, mythologies.

It was in the realm of mythology that agrarianism was most
accommodating. Here was a creed that had almost universal
appeal. It could be espoused by statesmen, teachers, poets,
farmers and,-most importantly, by the Protestant clergy. During
the Revolutionary period, it scarcely mattered to the churchmen
that agrarianism was rooted in the Age of Reason and often
espoused by European infidels because they had already reconciled
Enlightenment rationalism and covenant theology. In pulpits

throughout America:

51
The traditional covenant theology of Puritanism

combined with the political science of the eighteenth

century into an imperatively persuasive argument for

revolution. Liberal rationalist sensibility blended

with Calvinist christian love to create an essentially

common emphasis on the usefulness and goodness of

devotion to the general welfare of the community.

Religion and republicanism would work hand in hand to

create frugality, honesty, self-denial and benevolence

among the people.
Such views were indistinguishable from the major tenets of
classical agrarianism. Agriculture was God’s chosen profession;
the farmers were God's chosen people. It really didn't matter to
the American clergy that the classical agrarians were pagan or
that the French Physiocrats were agnostic or that Thomas
Jefferson was, at best, a Deist infidel. The creed could be
easily be shaped to their needs and to the needs of their flocks.

Besides its broad appeal, agrarianism was a creed that made
patriotic heroes of a approximately 95% of the people who would
come to espouse it. Which class of people most nearly epitomized
the democratic principles set forth in the heclananion of
Tndenendenee? Who, more than the frontier farmer, was a more
quintessential representative of those democratic principles?
Divinely blessed, self-reliant, virtuous and happy, the yeoman
was easily and naturally associated with the struggle for
independence and the development of a new nation.45

Thus, the distinction between-farming, American nationalism
and democracy blurred: the concepts fused. Farmers, as a class,
came to symbolize the ideas of democratic government. The

imaginative blending of farming and democracy is best illustrated

in many of Crevecoeur's lyrical passages, including the following

52

tribute to the yeoman:

Who on contemplating the great and important field

of action performed every year by a large farmer

can refrain from valuing and praising as they

ought this useful, dignified class of men?

These are the people who, scattered on the edge

of this great continent, have made it to flourish,

and have, without the dangerous assistance of

mines, gathered by the sweat of their honest

brows and by the help of their ploughs, such a

harvest of commercial emoluments for their country,

uncontaminated either by spoils or rapine. These

are the men who in future will replenish this huge

continent, even to its utmost unknown limits and

render this new-found part of the world by far the

happiest6 the most potent as well as the most populous

of any.
In this most revealing encomium, Crevecoeur links America's
destiny to the fortunes of those who till the soil. By the end
of the eighteenth century, the yeoman farmer had become more than
a good man, a proud freeholder and the bulwark against the threat
of urban virulence--attributes devolved from European agrarian
traditions. Because of a unique confluence of events, the yeoman
also came to symbolize the triumph of hard work over privileged
leisure, American democracy over European aristocracy, of
progress over decadence. As Tocqueville perceived, the yeoman
became the symbolic embodiment of the assumptions and aspirations
of an entire society. He was the hero-of a pervasive agrarian
mythology, and his virtues were proclaimed in sermon and song,
poetry and prose, newspaper and magazine--whenever the subject of
agriculture arose. It was scarcely surprising that the pages of
the incipient agricultural press reverberated with praise for the

American yeoman.

NOTES

1Henry Nash Smith, Vitgin Lend (1950: rpt. Cambridge: Harvard
Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 123-26; Wayne C. Rohrer and Louis H.
Douglas, The Agtetian Tradition in America; Dualism and Change
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), pp. 11-19: Richard
Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York: Knopf, 1963), p. 28: and
"Horace Greeley: Agrarian Exponent of American Idealism," Rural
Sociology, 13 (1948), 411-19.

2Chester E. Eisinger, "The Farmer in the Eighteenth-Century
Almanac," Agtieultural Histony, 28 (1954), 107-12.

3Henry F. May's, The Enlightenment in Aneriee (Oxford: Oxford

Univ. Press, 1976) was the first comprehensive treatment of the
subject since 1907. Other studies which helped shape my
discussion of the Enlightenment include Henry Steele Commager,

Jeffersen, hetionalism, and the Enlightenment (New York:
Braziller, 1975); Gordon S. Wood, The Creat' o the er ca
Renublie; lZZ6-l787 (New York: Norton, 1969), pp. 1-124: and
Morton White, e '1oso h o the Ame 'can v ion (New
York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1978).

4May, The Enlightenment in Anetiee, p. xiv.

5Commager. Jefferson1_uationaliem1_and_the_Enligntenment. p.
xiii.

6Wood. Tne_creation_of_tne_American_Beounlica_lllo:lZ§1. p-
52.

unter. p. 51.

8Tbid,, pp. 49-53; Commager, pp. 133-4.

9This necessarily brief survey of what has been called "the
literature of agriculture" is drawn from two seminal studies by
Paul H. Johnstone: "In Praise of Husbandry," Agtienltntel
Histony, 11 (1937), 80-95 and "Turnips and Romanticism,"
Agtienltnzel_hi§tety, 12 (1938), 224-55. Johnstone’s rich and
incisive use of primary sources has been acknowledged in most
major treatments of agrarianism and the agrarian myth, including
Hofstadter’S. Ine_Age_of_Reform and Leo Marx, Ine_uacnine_in_tne
danden (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967). A more general
treatment of agricultural literature can be found in Edward

T. Booth, ded hede the Countty (New York: Knopf, 1946).
53

54
10Johnstone, "In Praise of Husbandry," 80-1.

11Virgil, The_§eetgie§, trans. John Dryden, introd. Alistair
Elliot (London: Mid Northumberland Arts Group, 1981), p. 87.

12Paul H. Johnstone, "Old Ideals Versus New Ideas in Farm
Life," in a e s i W d: e Yea ok 0
Agtieulture, 1940, ed. Gove Hambidge (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Dept. of Agriculture, 1940), pp. 112-4, 118-9, and Johnstone, "In
Praise of Husbandry."

13Marx, The Machine in the Ganden, pp. 73-144: Commager, pp.
49-53.

14John T. Schlebecker, Thezehy We Thtive: A Histezy ef

' 7- (Ames: Iowa State Univ. Press, 1975),

pp. 3-14, 36-48: Gilbert Fite, ° a e 5' he 0 't
(Bloomington: Univ. of Indiana Press, 1981), pp. 1-7.

15Rohrer and Douglas, The Agretian Tnensition in Ametiea, pp.
26-7.

161ml, p. 27.

17Schlebecker, Thetehy_fle_Thtiye, pp. 3-14 and Chester E.

Eisinger, "The Freehold Concept in Eighteenth-Century American
Letters," Williem end hany Qnatterly, 4 (1947), 42-59. Although
Eisinger exaggerates the importance of private land ownership in
Jefferson's thought, he accurately observes the importance of the
English freehold tradition among the rank and file American
colonists. With the emergence of capitalism, which gained
considerable momentum during the early years of the Renaissance,
"freehold tenure took on real meaning. Not only could a man
possess his own farm, but he was his own master, rising and
falling by his own effort, bargaining in a free market (46)."
Although freehold tenure was often inequitably adjudicated and
only sporadically applied in Renaissance Europe and afterwards,
its legacy (or, its promise) of individual autonomy inspired most
of the seventeenth-century settlers who came to America.

18Schlebecker, p. 14.

19Gregory A. Stiverson, "Early American Farming: A Comment,"
in W. ed. Vivian Wiser
(Washington, D.C.: Kimberly Press, 1976), 37-44.

20Johnstone, "Turnips and Romanticism," 231-33. According to
Johnstone, the ”agricultural enthusiasm was without doubt one of
the singular features of the eighteenth century. Farming came to
engage of attention of kings, queens, princes . . . courtiers,
and burghers who previously could not distinguish flax from
turnips (233)."

55

21Commager, p. 3.

22Wood, p. 17. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that
all, or even most, influential Americans were committed to such
strictly empirical pursuits. As May notes, the powerful
Protestant clergy were not nearly as interested in the scientific
aspects of revolutionary politics and history as they were in the
theological dimensions. Even a philosopher-statesman like
Madison waged a lifelong struggle between piety and rationalism,
guided by a moderate Calvinism, on the one hand, and moderate
Enlightenment doctrine, on the other (pp. 54-96).

23Until recently, Jeffersonian scholars generally agreed that
while the origins of Jefferson's intellectual development were
complex and wide-ranging, he was primarily influenced by John
Locke, the French radicals and Greek and Roman Classicism. In
Inventing Anetiee; defterson'e heeletetien of lndenendenee
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978), Garry Wills argues
convincingly that Jefferson was also greatly influenced by the
Scottish radicals. Wills contends that the major ideas in both

the Declaration of Independence and Hetes on the §tete ef
ginginie were "not derived, primarily, from Philadelphia or

Paris, but from Aberdeen and Edinburgh and Glasgow . . . the real
lost world of Thomas Jefferson was the world of William Small,
the invigorating realm of the Scottish Enlightenment at its
zenith (p. 180)." Other recent treatments of Jeffersonian
thought include Commager, pp. 33-92: May, pp. 287-302: and
William Bruce Wheeler, ”Jeffersonian Thought in an Urban

Society," in he rar rad' 'o ' America c e :
on the Peenle and the Land in an Ete ef Changing Valnee, eds.

Bradley J. Deaton and B. R. McManus. A Bicentennial Forum--The
Institute of Agriculture, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville,
Tennessee, July 16-8, 1976.

24Rohrer and Douglas, p. 30.

25Quoted in Marx, p. 138.

26"To George Washington," 14 August 1787, The Wethe e: Thenas
dejteteen, ed. H. A. Washington, II (New York: Townsend Mac

Coun., 1884), 252.

27"To John Jay." 23 August 1785. flashington1_deffereon1

Lineeln_end_Agzienltnte, Bureau of Agricultural Economics
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1937), p. 37.

28Thomas Jefferson. Notec_on_tne_§tate_of_Yirginia. ed-
William Peden (Chapel Hill: Univ. of N. Carolina Press, 1955), p.

165.

29Marx, pp. 75-88.

56

30Robert Beverly, The Hietezy end Present State of Virginia,
ed. Louis B. Wright (Chapel Hill: Univ. of N. Carolina Press,

1947), p. 319.

31J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters frem an American
rennet (1782: rpt. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1968), pp. 30-

32Crevecoeur. Lettere_from_an_American_£armer. p- 46-

33Although Jefferson knew and admired many of the French
physiocrats--and maintained a lifelong friendship with Du Pont de
Nemours--he became increasingly impatient with what he felt was
the abstract, rigid and exclusive nature of their economic
agrarianism. Jefferson’s agrarianism was, above all, democratic
and pragmatic. Taylor’s agrarianism, by comparison, was more
doctrinaire. Writing primarily in response to Hamiltonian
challenges, Taylor accepted the physiocratic belief that the land
was the true source of all wealth, that farmers and miners were
the only productive class and that trading and financial
interests were merely parasites feeding on the producers. There
were other differences between these two major proponents of
classical agrarianism, but, in general, Jefferson’s was the more
fluid and flexible, Taylor’s the more rigid and polemical.
Commager, pp. 50-5: Rohrer and Douglas, pp. 31-6: and Grant

McConnell. Tne_Decline_of_Agrarian_uemocracy (Berkeley: UniV- of
California Press, 1959), pp. 6-8.

34McConnell. Tne_Decline_of_Agrarian_democracy. p- 7-

35John Taylor, "The Pleasures of Agriculture," in M. Thomas

Inge. ed-. Agrarianiem_in_American_Literature (New York: Odyssey.

1969), p. 12. The passage was taken from Taylor’s, Azetet, heing
a e e . :o -a s P 1 ca and Po ' ._, Fifth

Edition (Petersburg, Va.: Whitworth & Yancey, 1818), pp. 138- 41.

361211.. p. 12.

37Hofstadter, p. 26: and Eisinger, "The Freehold Concept in
Eighteenth-Century American Letters," 53-8.

383enjamin Franklin. Tne_Kritinge_of_neniamin_zranklin. ed.
Albert H. Smyth, V (New York: Macmillan, 1906), 200-2.

39Ibidl. x (1907), 117-8.

40Alexander Hamilton, The WQIKS ef Alenanden Henilten (New
York: Williams & Whiting, 1810), III, 215-6. Having dutifully

paid homage to agriculture, however, Hamilton goes on to assert
that the rapid development of American manufacturing would
further agrarian interests.

57

41Smith. Yirgin_Land. p. 126.
42Wood, p. 7.

43Commager, pp. 157-95.
44Wood, p. 118.

45Eisinger, 46-7. Just as the agrarian myth could accommodate
various and sundry ideas from Antiquity, the Enlightenment and
Protestant theology, so, too, could it accommodate Romanticism.
Early nineteenth-century American Romanticism, unlike its
European counterpart, was essentially forward looking. Except in
the South, New World romanticism generally did not associate
itself with the past, with class consciousness, with reaction or
with religion. Rather, it was concerned with the U. S. forests
and farmlands, with burgeoning nationalism, with territorial
expansion and with unlimited opportunity. It was optimistic
rather than melancholy, buoyant rather than brooding. Just as it
helped spread nationalistic fervor, American Romanticism also
helped spread the agrarian myth. While a well-kept farm was not
quite as majestic as an untrammeled forest or a rustic yeoman not
quite as heroic as a frontier woodsman, the agricultural ethos
was democratic, egalitarian, progressive and, hence, romantic.
(Commager, pp. 193-6.)

46Crevecoeur, p. 56.

CHAPTER 2--Yeonanry Enshrined: The Image of the Farmer in the

Early and Mid-Nineteenth-Century Agricultural Press

In the initial issue of the Agtienltntel_hn§enn, America’s
first exclusively agricultural paper, editor David Wiley printed
excerpts from a lengthy address by Enoch Edwards to the
Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and
Domestic Manufactures. Edwards’ speech, which had been delivered
twenty-one years earlier, on February 2, 1789, lustily affirms
the nobility and preeminence of husbandry.

Agriculture is a profession truly honourable:

venerable from its great antiquity, and dignified

by the extensive and universal blessings it daily

administers to mankind. It appears, from the sacred

writings, to have been, in some measure, understood

in the first ages, and is almost co-eval with our

knowledge of the world.1
In the florid oratory of the time, Edwards proclaims that
agriculture is the basis of morality and religion, that it
provides the foundation for manufacturing, commerce and economic
prosperity and that it promotes peace, happiness and national
pride. Those fortunate enough to be farmers enjoy lives of
"sweet and innocent repose, out of the way of difficult and
dangerous temptations," a situation for which they "express

gratitude for all the boundless mercies of heaven."2 With the

Edwards’ address, Wiley sounded the editorial tone the Museum

58

59

would follow until its demise two years later. Although short-
lived and, therefore, comparatively uninfluential, the hneenn
heralded the apotheoses of agricultural life found in three more
important pioneer farm newspapers which followed it: the
American_farmer. Ine_£1ough_doy and the Neu_§ngland_farmer-3

John Stuart Skinner, generally considered the father of
agricultural journalism in the United States, established the
Anetieen_£etne; in Baltimore on April 2, 1819. Raised on a
Maryland farm, trained in the law and employed in government
service, Skinner decided to launch the Anetieen_§etnet after
reading John Taylor’s writings.4 The editor’s primary aim was
"to collect information from every source, on every branch of
Husbandry . . . to enable the reader to study the various systems
which experience has proved to be the best."5 Despite this very
practical, somewhat reserved statement of editorial policy,
Skinner was seldom reluctant to sprinkle his paper with more
colorful poems, prose and correspondence extolling the virtues of
husbandry. One early issue featured the poem, "Agriculture,"
which frequently reappeared in farm papers throughout the first
half of the nineteenth century.

Thou first of arts, source of domestic ease,

Pride of the land, and patron of the seas,

Thrift Agriculture! Lend thy potent aid;

Spread the green field where dreary forests shade:

Where savage men pursue their savage prey,

Let the white flocks in verdant pastures play:

From the bloom’d orchard and the showery vale,

Give the rich fragrance to the gentle gale:

Reward with ample boon the laborer’s hand,

And pour thy gladdening bounties o’er our land.
Columbia’s sons, spurn not the rugged toil:

60

Your nation’s glory is a cultur’d soil.

Rome’s Cincinnatus, of illustrious birth,

Increas’d his laurels while he till’d the earth;

E’en China’s Monarch lays his scepter down,

Nor deems the task unworthy of the crown.

Such sentiments were not limited to poetic renderings. One
typically enthusiastic reader, identified only as "Cincinnatus,"
pronounces that the ”tiller of the ground, who earns his bread by
the sweat of his brow . . . may with religious confidence,
partake of the fruits of his earning."7 The writer concludes
that the farmer is the most independent of men and profits
materially and spiritually from his vocation. "Every blade of
grass affords a medium, and every kernel of grain a subject of
devout speculation, fortifying to his [the farmer’s] faith and
confidence in Deity."8 Even Skinner, decidedly less effusive
than correspondents like Cincinnatus and somewhat more
editorially subdued than many of his counterparts, elected to
grace his paper’s banner with a motto borrowed from Virgil: "’O
fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint, Agricolast’"9

More ebullient in his glorification of agrarian life was
Solomon Southwick, editor of The_£lengh_§ey, first published in
Albany on June 5, 1819. Writing under the bucolic pen-name,
Henry Homespun, Jr., Southwick wasted little time in explaining
his paper’s prosaic name. After establishing that George

Washington and Cincinnatus were, first and foremost, "plough

boys,” Southwick maintains that the shibboleth conveys:

61

. . . the idea of a real, unsophisticated American:

a virtuous, intelligent, brave, hardy and generous

yeoman, who despises alike the trappings of Royalty

or Aristocracy: who abhors the idleness, luxury and

dissipation, which subvert private happiness and

public liberty: and firm as his native hills, wraps

himself in the simple dignity of his condition, and

imitating his glorious ancestors, resolves to live

free or to die.
Like most of the early agricultural editors, Southwick vowed to
eschew political wrangling. If forced to side with one party or
another, he would always choose the "HOMESPUN PARTY--the party of
the PLOUGH BOYS," those "true republicans whose first leaders
were the patriarchs of the human race."11 And whereas Skinner
had foraged among the classics for a suitable motto to grace his
paper’s banner, Southwick reached into the somewhat more familiar
book of Ecclesiastes: "’He that observeth the wind shall not
sow: and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.’--BUT--’He
that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread.”12

The third important agricultural paper to appear in the first
quarter of the nineteenth century was the New En land Farme ,
first published in Boston on August 3, 1822. The new periodical
was edited by Thomas Green Fessenden, a 1796 graduate of
Dartmouth College and a close friend to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Like Skinner, Fessenden was raised on a farm, and he retained a
lifelong commitment to agricultural advancement.13 In his
"Prospectus," Fessenden explains the importance of his paper by
averring that "Every human being has an interest in that art

which is the foundation of all other arts, and the basis of

civilization."14 Unique among his editorial peers, Fessenden

62
often conveyed his views of rural life through poetry. One of
his most popular poems, "The Farmer,” expresses many of the

themes central to the agrarian myth.

Let monied blockhead’s roll in wealth,
Let proud fools strut in state,

My hands, my homestead and my health
Place me above the great.

I never fawn, nor fib, nor feign,
To please old Mammon’s fry:

But independence still maintain
On all beneath the sky.

Thus Cincinnatus, at his plough,
With more true glory shone,
Than Caesar with his laurell’d brow,
His palace and his throne.

Tumult, perplexity and care
Are bold ambition’s lot:

But those intruders never dare
Disturb my peaceful cot.

Blest with bare competence, I find
What monarchs never can,

Health, and tranquillity of mind,
Heaven’s choicest gifts to man.

The toil with which I till the ground
For exercise is meet--

Is mere amusement, which is crown’d
With slumber sound and sweet.

But those who toil in pleasure’s rounds,
Sweet slumber soon destroy:
Soon find, on dissipation’s grounds,
A grave for every joy.1
The didactic tone of "The Farmer" is indicative of most poetry
printed in the early rural press. Fessenden, in particular,
brought a strong reformatory zeal to his editorial work, and the
hey_§nglend_£eznet contained numerous attacks against tobacco

use, lotteries, cruelty to animals and alcohol consumption.

63

Proud of the high moral posture of his paper, Fessenden once
boasted that its pages "had never been stained with a statement,
sentiment, or expression which would raise as blush of shame on
the cheek of modesty, or infuse poison in the uncorrupted
mind."16

The Anetieen_£eznen, The_£lengh_§ey and the new England Eermer
served as models for most of the agricultural newspapers which
came after them. Such important papers as The_§eneeee_£ezne;
(Rochester, N.Y., 1831), the heine_£etnet (Winthrop, 1833), The
intiyetet (Albany, 1834), the heeten Qultivato: (1839), the
Prairie_farmer (chicagO. 1840). the Massachusette_£lougnman
(Boston, 1841), the Ame:ieen_Agtienltnziet, (New York, 1842), the

Michigan_£armer (Jackson. 1843). the Indiana_rarmer
(Indianapolis, 1845), and the the_gnltiyeten (Columbus, 1845)

closely resembled the appearance, content and tone of their three
predecessors. Like Skinner, Southwick and Fessenden, most later
editors dedicated their papers to practical husbandry, carefully
avoided political issues and staunchly advocated the application-.
of scientific principles to agriculture. They also idealized I
farmers and farm life. In so doing, they were reinforcing and
popularizing the agrarian myth. Oblivious of the mythology, pen
ee, and the precise reasons for its development, these early
editors printed poems, letters, speeches and editorials they
believed would appeal to their readers. In the process, the
lofty agrarian sentiments of Virgil, Crevecoeur, Jefferson and

Taylor were randomly mixed with various Protestant theological

64
maxims and with popular, sometimes romanticized notions about
agricultural life. Poems like ”Agriculture" and "The Farmer,"
speeches like Edwards’ and letters from subscribers like
Cincinnatus contain a potpourri of ideas and impressions which,
while clearly linked to the rich intellectual traditions already
discussed, also reflect the experiences and beliefs among
nineteenth-century American farmers. By carefully reading and
analyzing these various forms of journalistic and literary
expression, there emerges a fuller understanding of the yeoman as
he appeared in the early agricultural press.

The yeoman image, like the agrarian mythology which
circumscribes it, cannot be explained in a few words of phrases.
Instead, it derives from a montage of beliefs, feelings and
impressions which crystallized to form a powerful and pervasive
cultural symbol. For purposes of discussion, however, I have
grouped these various thoughts and feelings into three general
categories corresponding to the l) moral, 2) economic, and 3) ”
nationalistic dimensions of the yeoman image. The first category
encompasses the yeoman’s uniquely virtuous personal qualities--
qualities which are derived from God through Nature. The
yeoman’s inherent moral goodness is frequently contrasted to the
corruption and sinfulness found among urban dwellers. The second
category includes the yeoman’s complete economic independence,
the virtue of hard work and the concept of agricultural

fundamentalism, i.e., the belief that farming is the basis for

all other economic endeavors. The third category contains those

65
ideas which link the yeoman’s well-being to America’s continued
growth and prosperity. Although the categories are considered
separately, the concepts they contain are closely interrelated
and mutually reinforcing. Together these concepts form the

essence of a singular cultural image.

The Moral Dimension

Central to understanding the yeoman’s unique moral
characteristics is the proposition that the farmer enjoys God’s
special favor. Most agricultural editors and their readers
shared a fundamental conviction that after God had created a
beneficent and harmonious natural kingdom, He charged mankind
with the responsibility for its stewardship. The Bible provided
ample evidence that the farmer was Divinely sanctioned. Writing
to the tho gultivetez in 1845, Joseph S. Sullivan maintains that
agriculture "dates from creation” and is the only art that "has
directly received the approbation of the Almighty." The writer
further explains that after God created the "Garden of Eden, He
ordained" that man "dress and keep it."17 Because the yeoman has
remained faithful to that original mandate, he has also retained
his favored status under Heaven. This sentiment is poetically

expressed in "The Farmer," which first appeared in The

cultiyator. in 1839-

Drive on thou sturdy farmer,

Drive cheerfully o’er the field:
The pleasures of a farmer’s life,

No other life can yield.

66

Thou risest with the morning sun,
To till the fruitful earth,
And when thy daily task is done,
Thou seek’st thy peaceful hearth.

Thou lovest not the gaudy town,
With its tumult’ous roar:
Plenty and peace thy fireside crown,
And thou dost ask no more.

Monarch with robes in crimson dyed,
Are low, compared with thee:

They are the pampered sons of pride,
Thou’rt God’s nobility.

Go on thou sturdy farmer,
Tread proudly on the sod,

Thy proud and goodly heritage
Thou chosen man of God. 6

It was very important, however, that the farmer not take his
exalted status for granted. Besides attending to all the tasks
husbandry demands of him, the yeoman must always remain mindful
and appreciative of God’s blessings. The final two stanzas of
"Agricultural Hymn," which appeared in the heine Farme; in 1854,
constitute a gentle reminder to thank the Almighty for Nature’s

bounty:

The farmer, when the seed-time’s o’er,
Joys in the mercies given--

Thinks on thy promised harvest store,
And smiling looks to Heaven.

God of the Sheaf! to thee alone
Are due our thanks and praise,

When Harvest’s grateful labor’s done,
On Plenty glad we gaze:

Then shall our thoughts on heaven rest:
Thy grace we will adore,

And thank that God whose mercies blest
Our basket and our store.

One primary advantage of doing God’s work is that the yeoman

thereby enjoys a "constant, intimate and sensible" relationship

67

with all that God has created. In the agricultural press, the
farmer becomes, in effect, natural man. By working in Nature,
the farmer "observes the regularity and order in all his
conduct." He learns from the sun and the moon that "industry is
required at his hands," and he looks to Heaven through the "rains
and dews for the reward of his labors."20 Consistent with the
spirit of the Enlightenment, there is no suggestion in the early
farm papers that Nature is the least bit malevolent. At worst,
it may occasionally prove capricious, particularly during
harvest. For the most part, however, Nature represents balance,
order and harmony. If properly understood and managed, it will
serve the farmer’s best interests. In language reminiscent of
the classic pastoralists, Ephraim Abbott, the editor of The
yelley_Eennet celebrates the intimate relationship between the
yeoman and his natural environment:

The farmer! What a glorious occupation is his! Free

from noise, the bustle, the dust, the pent up air and

noxious gasses of the city, he breathes the pure air of

heaven enriched by the sweet perfumes of a thousand

flowers, drinks pure water from the fountains of nature,

receives his food from his mother earth, enraptured with

the merry songsters of nature which pour forth their‘

praise, not like the dolorous singers of unfelt psalms,

but with thrilling gladness--in short, the farmer

. . . is the only nobleman.
Nature provides the yeoman with much more than a pleasant place
to work, however. It is also the source of his physical and
mental well-being. In a long letter to The_§nltiyetet, James

Tufts suggests that because farmers breath fresh air and listen

to the "songs of birds," they are seldom "troubled with

68
hypochondria, dyspepsia, and indigestion . . . which are
injurious to happiness and health." Who, he asks, fails to envy
the ”health, strength and cheer of the wood chopper, the reaper,
the mower or the plowman . . .?"22 A robust physical condition
is all the more important because it is prerequisite to mental
health.
Can there be any doubt that the occupation which
gives such health and cheer to the farmer is favorable
to the development of the mind, and the pursuit of
knowledge, especially when we consider the intimate
connection between health of body and health of mind,
and how many minds are necessarily feeble, stinted
and sickly, because dwelling in a feeble and sickly
body?23
Unlike the merchant, mechanic or lawyer--confined to shop,
workbench or desk--the farmer is free to labor in the midst of
his fields, forests and flocks. Each season of the year presents
new challenges and calls for a variety of different tasks. Thus,
the yeoman’s mind is never dulled by the monotonous routine that
often plagues those in other professions. The constant
variability of the seasons, with each bringing its own demands
and rewards, furnishes the theme of the "Farmer’s Song," which
appeared in several agricultural papers in the early 1840’s.
When the sweet smiling Spring sheds its perfumes around,
And musk enchants every tree,
With glittering plowshare he furrows his ground,
With a mind independent and free.
When summer to fruit the sweet blossoms transforms
And his harvest fields wave with the breeze;
Sweet anticipation unfolds all her charms,
And points to contentment and ease.

When bountiful Autumn her treasures bestows,
And her fruits are all gathered and stored:

69
His heart to the giver, with gratitude glows,
And plenty presides at his board.
When Winter howls dismally over the earth,
And want tells her tale at his door:
Serenely he sits by his clean blazing hearth
And dispenses relief to the poor.
singularly blessed by God, intimately and joyously associated
with nature, physically hardy, and mentally alert, the yeoman
enjoys a much greater measure of happiness than anyone. Such an
enviable way of life is not without its conditions, however. To
ensure the continuance of his Divine approbation, the yeoman must
demonstrate the highest moral standards. The yeoman’s inherent
moral rectitude is seldom, if ever, compromised because he spends
most of his time and energy tending to the business of husbandry.
Therefore, he has neither the inclination nor the hours for the
sundry vices which often seduce the more indolent segments of
society. The yeoman’s upright moral character is particularly
important because it guarantees social and civil equilibrium.
Jesse Buel, the widely respected editor of The intivetot,
contends that farmers serve as a vital counterpoise to those
"mass of persons" who are:
. . . idle and profligate, who herd together . . .
and who, having nothing to lose, are always ready
for every innovation, or every disturbance that
threatens convulsion and overturn, as in the general
scramble they may obtain plunder and power.
Ultimately, it is the moral leadership provided by the yeomanry
which prevents the anarchy which stems from moral decay and

becomes "the surest index to the general happiness of a people,

and to the stability and excellence of their institutions."26

70

The specific provisions of the yeoman’s moral code varied
considerably, depending on the editor or correspondent. In
general, the virtues were consistent with the conventional
strictures which emanated from the then predominantly Protestant
pulpits. Dan Bradley, writing to The_§eneeee_£etnet, lists
several "plants of righteousness" which, "before the fatal
apostasy, grew in the delightful Garden of Eden."

Among them, and first in order, stand Piety and

Philanthropy: next, Temperance, Patience, Godliness,

Brotherly kindness, Charity. In connection with the

same Heaven-born group, stand also in bold relief,

Honesty, Justice, Goodness and Truth. What a cluster

of precious fruits.27
Other frequently mentioned virtues included honor, fairness,
industry and, of course, thrift. "Listen young farmer, to the
moral muse, / And catch the useful lessons of her song. / Be
frugal and be blest: frugality / Will give thee competence."28
In a "Letter of Advice" to a young farmer who had recently moved
from New York to Virginia, a more seasoned cultivator explores
the dimensions of "good moral character." After celebrating such
attributes as hard work, perseverance, economy, honesty and
prudence, the writer encourages his younger counterpart to "deal
honorably and uprightly, keeping your word on all occasions: be
careful about making contracts and promises, but when made,
fulfill them to the very letter."29 The "essence of morality,"
he concludes, is to follow the Golden Rule by "doing to others as

you would wish them to do to you."30

As with the most desireable virtues, the compendium of moral

71
transgressions was derived from the familiar teachings of
Covenant Theology. Some of the most "noxious weeds which grow to
embarrass cultivation in the field of nature" are malice, greed,
envy, hatred, selfishness, prevarication, fornication and
adultery.31 Farmers were admonished by the farm papers to avoid
"evil thoughts" and to refrain from "mean or dishonorable deeds."
They were warned to eschew law suits and pecuniary speculation--
both of which could easily lead to economic ruin. Further, the
yeoman was not to gamble, curse, or, most importantly, to chew
tobacco or drink alcohol.32 These last two strictures were so
pervasive they warrant more detailed treatment.

Tobacco in any form was regularly attacked throughout the
nineteenth century, but particularly during the reform years
between 1830 and the beginning of the Civil War. Editors and
readers were concerned that such a "filthy, extravagant habit"
was increasing "at an alarming rate."33 Ezekiel Holmes, editor
of the Meine_£eznet, writes that tobacco use is "as filthy and
degrading as the use of rum."34 The Eneitie_£etme: recommends
its value in killing lice and ticks, but urges readers to keep it
out of their mouths.35 It was often noted that smoking was
killing thousands of people each year because of lung disease,
and many editOrs urged the development of "Anti-Tobacco
Societies,” similar to the widespread Temperance Societies.36

Widely considered more venal and dangerous than any other
moral transgression, drinking, "the generalissimo of Satan’s

formidable host of diabolical p1ants,"37 could quickly usher the

72
unwitting yeoman to his doom. Alcohol keeps the tiller from his
fields, damages his familial bonds and, in extreme cases,
precipitates lawlessness and even murder. The Genesee flatnet
somberly recounts the fate of Richard Sinkey who was accused of
manslaughter following a libationary log-rolling near his home in
Johnstown, Ohio. The editorial urges the banishment of whiskey
from all "logging bees" and "raising bees" where the "worm of
the still creeps along and frequently raises its ugly head,"
transforming rational and decent men "into beasts . . . to
triumph by force of strength over their brother animals."38 The
editor of the fleetetn_Tillet expresses similar disgust at the
quantity of corn used in whiskey production. Why not use that
same corn to "improve the condition of four-footed hogs" instead
of "making an article used only to increase the number of their
two-legged imitators."39 Writing to the Ohie gnltiyete; at the
outbreak of the Civil War, a distraught correspondent wonders why
the Americans continue to consume an "accursed poison" that
causes every bit ”as much misery and demoralization as the
present war?"40 In "The Little Boy’s Appeal to His Parent,"
which appeared in the heeteh_§nltiyeten in 1847, ”Clara" takes a
more poignant approach:
Oh! father, won’t you sign the pledge,
And never drink again:
And let us go to that dear home,
From whence we long since came.

Oh! we were very happy then,
And now we’re very sad:

If you will only sign the pledge,
We all should be so glad.

73
Dear mother now is very dull,
And weeps when you are gone:

She does not seem so happy now,
As when in that dear home.

Oh! we should be so happy then,
And suffer no more pain:

Oh father won’t you sign the pledge,
And be a man again.4
Despite such colorful and obviously heartfelt diatribes
against selected blasphemies, it is important to note that farm
editors and their readers expended far less energy analyzing the
"bad moral soil" around them than they did in examining the good.
This was due, in part, to the general moral optimism of the age
but, in much larger part, to the conviction that wickedness,
temptation and corruption were absent from rural life. If one
wanted to seriously examine evil in the world, one needed only to
consider the realities of urban life. Like agricultural
commentators from Virgil to Jefferson, the editors and readers of
the nineteenth-century agricultural press found in the city all
that was morally antipodal to the virtues of country living.
Just as the countryside was considered the natural home for
man, the city was widely portrayed as a hostile, alien
environment which was, at best, dreary, and at worst, morally and
physically destructive. In "The Farmer Boy," a poem appearing in
the the_§nltiyetet in 1862, "Aunt Fanny" exclaims:
I would not live in the crowded town,
With its pavements hard and gray,

With its lengthened streets of dusty brown,
And its painted houses gay--

Where every boy his ball may bound
Upon his neighbor’s dome,

And every shout and eVery sound
Disturbs some other’s home.

74

In a letter to The_§nltiyete;, "C.W." notes that "the inhabitants
of cities fly to the country for health and fine air." Anyone
who seriously doubts the salubrity of rural life should simply
"contrast the pale and sickly appearance of many children
inhabiting our large cities, with the rugged and healthy look of
our farmers’ boys and girls."43

In a more strident commentary, the editor of the Tndiene
Fennet contends that those who leave the "pure atmosphere" and
the "vital renovating influence of pure country air" and move to
the city will "naturally degenerate, both physically and
morally."44 In the same issue, reader William Coggeshall refers
to the city as "selfish . . . egotistic, sensual, superficial."45
On the surface, the city offers a variety of temptations, but
those who are unwittingly lured to urban areas often become
"shipwrecked and lost, and their characters utterly ruined."
Warming to his topic, "A Lover of the Country" argues that city
life "crushes, enslaves, and ruins so many thousand of our young
men,” driving them to "dissipation, reckless speculation and
ultimate crime."45 Writing to the heeeeehneette_£lenghmen, B.F.
Wilbur ruefully concludes that such moral destruction will
continue ”so long as the glitter of wealth and.the prospect of
gain . . . fix the attention of our young men to the exclusion of
the more humble and christian-like walk of the farmer."47

To graphically illustrate the sordid dimensions of city life,
farm editors frequently published detailed accounts of urban

poverty, both in the United States and in Europe. In an article

75

entitled, "Destitution in England," the heeeeehneett§_£lenghnen
recounts the tribulations of several urban unfortunates. Typical
of these is the saga of Esther Pierce, "a pale, consumptive-
looking girl" who tries to pawn a scarf she has been hired to
embroider, "driven to it to save herself from starvation." The
charges against Esther are dropped, and the "poor fainting girl"
is escorted to the "parish work house" to recover from her
ordeal.48 Under the provocative headline, "Filth in New York
City," the editor of the heine_£etnet reprinted a New 2923
Ttihnne interview with that city’s Superintendent of Sanitary
Inspeétion. In his preface to the Superintendent’s account,
editor Holmes finds it "incredible that there could be so much
filth concentrated in any one place" and strongly sympathizes
with anyone who has to live and work in "the horribly foul
localities of New York."49

In most of the anti-urban commentary in the farm press, the
city dweller is not considered inherently evil: rather, it is the
unnatural urban environment that has distorted or destroyed_man’s
fundamental moral sense. Even the most righteous yeoman would
eventually become corrupted living in such virulent conditions.
As one Indiene_£ezme1 reader proclaims: "The farm is the natural
home of man. Placed in any other condition he naturally
degenerates, both physically and morally, and soon acquires an
inferior type."50 Those "inferior types" included not only

criminals, but also such selected malefactors as bankers, lawyers

and speculators. The Nen_Englend_£etnen, for example, advised

76

farmers to avoid "the door of a bank as you would an approach of
the plague or cholera."51 For a time, at least, reference to
specific urban villains was infrequent and not without a somewhat
sardonic humor. Lawyers and bankers could join politicians in
serving as the occasional butt of an editor’s or reader’s joke.
It would not be until the latter part of the century that these
urban knaves, and others, would appear to many agrarians far more

sinister than laughable.

The Economic Dimension

The yeoman provided more than America’s moral foundation: he
was also the economic bulwark of the Republic. The economic
importance of the farmer was based on two related propositions,
both central to the agrarian mythology. First, the yeomanry was
considered the most economically independent working class, and,
at a time when farm production was primarily designed to provide
for the needs of the immediate family, the "dOctrine of rural
independence clearly harmonized with reality." Secondly, the
yeoman’s occupation was viewed as the basic employment of man--
the employment upon which all other economic activities are
dependent. This doctrine, derived in large part from
Physiocratic influences filtered through Taylor, Jefferson,
Timothy Pickering and others, is often referred to as
agricultural fundamentalism.52 These two propositions
undoubtedly appealed to the approximately 90% of the American

citizenry employed in agriculture, and they were frequently

77
articulated in the agricultural press.

Just as Nature is the source of the yeoman’s physical and
spiritual well-being, it also provides the basis for his economic
autonomy. As a Stark County (Ohio) farmer attests in his letter
to the the_gnltiyete;, the yeoman "possesses a conscious
independence . . . that soars above the common business of life."
The major reason for this self-reliant condition is that the
farmer is dependent on "none but old mother earth for his
sustenance or means of living." His livelihood does not derive
from exacting "extortionate prices" from others: rather, it is

"drawn from the bosom of the earth by the sweat of his brow."53

In a similar letter in the hiehigen rennet end Weetern
Agriculturist (later to become the EM) . "Bur-L."

agrees that the "occupation of farming" provides "a sweet and
cheering feeling of independence" as the yeoman "gathers from
nature those rich and substantial blessings the God of Nature
designed he should enjoy."54

Unlike the manufacturing and commercial classes, the farmer is
"as independent of his fellows, as in civilized society it is
possible for any man to be."55 In a lengthy editorial in the
Bteitie_§etnet, John S. Wright maintains that it is agriculture,
"and only agriculture," that "enables so many men to live as
independent principles."

In almost all other pursuits men are, as employers

and employed, woven into the fabric, so that no thread

can be separated without violence from the whole. . . The

clothier cannot eat his fabrics, nor the carpenter wear his
structures, nor the mason sleep upon his brick and mortar,

78
nor the smith feed hungry mouths from his anvil. . . . The
husbandman alone can find in his province the elements of
living--food, raiment, shelter, and the raw material for
almost every physical want.
Because he provides all his family’s needs, the farmer is under
obligation to no other man. This economic independence also

enhances the yeoman’s social standing. Writing to the Union

 

A ' r' We ' '1 e (later to become the

gteitie_£eznet) in August, 1841, an anonymous correspondent

proclaims that:

The farmer is the most noble and independent man
in society. He has ever been honored and respected from
the days of Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer, to the present
time. . . . He is not placed in that station which requires
him ever to be seeking or courting popular favor, bowing
and bowing to this or that man to gain favor.

Professor John Platt, of Greenville College (Ohio), eloquently
expresses similar sentiments in his address to the Licking County

(Ohio) Agricultural Society:

There is, in rural occupations, a state of comparative
independence. If any man is free, the lord of the soil
is that man. Of all men, he lays and executes his plans
with the least dictation . . . is most his own to go
whither he pleases, and to do what he pleases: and

can best secure, within himself, as you say, the

means and ends of life. The lord of the soil . . .

is the only true king, owning his domain as no

other king does, invested with a right over his sub-
jects--his flocks and his herd--as no other king is.

In his regal, albeit humble, state the yeoman "walks erect in the
elevated consciousness of his own dignity and independence." He
answers to "no mortal superior, but feels himself equally aloof

from the impertinent intrusions of the landlord and the arbitrary

requisitions of the despot."59

79
Yet, just as the yeoman must observe a strict moral code in
order to ensure and perpetuate Divine favor, so, too, must he
work long and diligently in order to guarantee continued economic
well-being. Agricultural editors and their readers could
scarcely gainsay the toil associated with husbandry. Any such
attempt would have been contrary to experience. Instead of
portraying physical labor as a tribulation, however, the farm
papers emphasized its virtues. Frances D. Gage, the widely
respected Woman’s Editor of the the_§nltiyeten, frequently
celebrated farm work in her poems and prose. In "The Sounds of
Industry,” for example, she writes that the "plowman’s whistle,"
the "reaper’s cheerful song," and the "warm voice of the
dairyman," continually remind her that:
Yes! There is good in labor
If we labor but aright,
That gives vigor to the day time
And a sweeter sleep at night.
A good that bringeth pleasure,
Even to the toiling hours--
For duty cheers the spirit
As dew revives the flowers.60
For Gage, and many other commentators, labor is not "Jehovah’s
curse" on man: rather, "it is his richest mercy, / And will
scatter all life’s gloom.”61
The inherent goodness of agrarian toil was regularly
contrasted to the odiousness of excessive leisure. "Who are the
unhappy?" asks Luther Tucker, the influential editor of The
Qeneeee_£etnen. "Are they not those who are inactive, and sit

still, and tell us, if fortune had only thrown this and that in

80
their way, that they should be far happier?"62 In an address to
the Kennebec County (Maine) Agricultural Society, Sidney Perham
contends that "heaven could send no greater evil than to exempt
us from all necessity for labor.” In those countries where
inhabitants are sedentary and slothful, one finds the people
"sunk in sensuality, morally degraded and intellectually
debased."63 .

The belief that physical labor was detrimental to intellectual
and spiritual development was considered an unfortunate legacy of
European culture. According to The_§nltiyeten, such a view might
yet prevail in "ancient forms of society," where "one man is born
with a golden spoon in his mouth, and another with an iron chain
around his neck, freedom from which is impossible." But in
America, where every yeoman is free to forge his own destiny, the
idea that labor is "disgraceful or degrading is a gross
perversion of terms."64 On the contrary, the most admired and
respected American husbandmen, according to numerous accounts in
the farm press, are those who are the most industrious. The
"slothful farmer," on the other hand, earns only the "scorn and

contempt" of his fellows and the ”wrath of an offended Deity."65

More than an economic necessity, then, labor becomes another
moral imperative. Hard work is consistent with God’s law and
ensures fair measures of prosperity, happiness and community
standing.' Conversely, economic gain without toil is unnatural

and, in the case of speculators and confidence men, for example,

81

morally reprehensible. Indolence offends the Almighty and
inexorably leads to fiscal and spiritual ruin. The message to
the readers of the farm press was clear: find a farmer who has
failed, and you will also find a lazy farmer: find a happy,
prosperous yeoman, and you will also find a hard-working yeoman.
The myriad rewards of labor are extolled in "The Tillers of the
Soil," which appeared anonymously in the Meine_£etnen in 1854,

and in several other agricultural papers over the next decade.

Whose are the sturdy hands
That drive the bright plowshare,
And make the barren lands
Look beautiful and fair?
Who are that little band, .
Who labor, sweat, and toil?
The bulwark of our land--
The tillers of the soil!

Who makes the barren earth,
A paradise of wealth,
And fills each humble hearth
With plenty, life and health?
Oh! I would have you know,
They are the men of toil--
The men who reap and so --
The tillers of the soil!

Oh! let me hold the plow,

And drive the bright plowshare,
And feel that on my brow

Toil’s honest sweat is there!
Oh! let me sow and reap,

And learn to bind and coil
The yellow, ripened sheaf,

Like a tiller of the soil.

Ye are a nation’s stay,
Ye men of worthy strife--
The stars that light the way
To happiness and life.
Then still the plow caress,
Shall be your watchword, Toil!
And may God ever bless
The tillers of the soil.66

82

Hard work, then, is crucial to the farmer’s well being which,
in turn, affects the well being of everyone else. The continued
economic independence of the farmer is vital because of the
corollary proposition that those in all other walks of life are
economically dependent on the yeoman. This notion of
agricultural fundamentalism is clearly articulated by editor Buel
in an 1836 issue of The_intiyete;. "Every business of life is
mainly dependent, for its prosperity, upon the labor of
agriculture.” Other classes ”cannot thrive . . . without the aid
of the farmer: he furnishes the raw materials for the
manufacturers, he feeds the mechanic, and freights the bark of
commerce."67 Occasionally, this dependency on the farmer was
extended beyond the economic arena. In a letter to the hey
Englend_£e:ne1, H.S. Dearborn declares that the "culture of the
earth" is the "precursor of letters, science, the arts,
manufactures, navigation, and commerce."68 Most commentators,
however, avoided such universal claims, preferring instead to
focus on the specific relationship between agriculture, commerce
and manufacturing.

Speaking to the Rensselaer County (New York) Agricultural
Society, 8. Blydenburgh states that in America, the "more
subservient mechanic arts” have progressed "as a corps of
faithful pioneers . . . leaving agriculture to move with slow but
becoming dignity, as the main body in the center, while commerce,
in the flank and rear, closes the procession."69 The primacy of

agriculture is echoed by H.K. Oliver in an 1858 address printed

83

in the Anerican Earmers’ Magazine:

[T]he whole pulse of commercial and monetary
operations is affected by the healthful and un-
healthful beatings of the agricultural heart: that
stocks and prices in the market and on ’change,’
rise and fall as the agricultural tide ebbs and flows:
that, as come the crops, either plenteous or meager,
so darts or limps the gigantic business of the busy
world.70
To provide proof of the economic centrality of agriculture, farm
editors frequently turned to history. The Indiana Farmer sadly
recounts the fate of Egypt, once "the cradle of agricultural and
mechanical arts." Now, when the "plow no longer furrows her
fields . . . and flocks and herds no longer graze in her
pastures," all that remains is the plaintive Nile rolling "its
solitary waves through regions once populous and active with the
enterprise of man."71 Citing more contemporary evidence, the
editors of The gultivator suggest that the 1836 crop failure in
England "deranged the monetary and commercial relations of the
globe" and demonstrated, that of "all the branches of industry,
there is none with which the prosperity of nations is so
intimately connected, and on which it is so dependent, as our
agriculture."72 In the Maine Farme , Ezekiel Holmes approvingly
quotes a similar argument from "a brother editor from Michigan":
"All other businesses and professions depend on the
farmers for prosperity. What benefits the majority
of farmers, benefits all. If the farmers are intel-
ligent and wealthy, the State is intelligent and
wealthy. If the farmers are ignorant and poor,

the State is ignorant and poor."73

Thus it was in the agricultural press that along with providing

84
the nation’s moral leadership, the yeoman was also responsible
for its economic well-being. As the farmer went, so went the
nation. It was a small and rather logical leap from these
premises to the conclusion that the yeoman, "the nation’s stay,"
and "the bulwark of our land," was also the key to the future of

a young, energetic and flourishing nation.

The Nationalistic Dimension

During the first several decades of the nineteenth century,
most Americans believed their young republic was destined to
become one of the greatest nations the world had ever seen. More
than a popular opinion, it was, in Paul Johnstone’s words, "an
unreasoned basic attitude"74 that the Almighty had given
Americans the unprecedented historical opportunity to create a
truly utopian society. The hard-fought military victory over
Great Britain, the vast abundance and ready availability of
fertile land, the rapid westward expansion, the dramatic
technological advancements, and the comparative prosperity of the
new nation provided ample evidence that America would become an
earthly paradise. This pervasive optimism, along with the
corollary belief in the inevitability of social and technological
progress, suffused the agricultural press. In another letter to
the ney_Englend_Eeznet, this one appearing in 1849, H.A.S.
Dearborn confidently, and somewhat sententiously proclaims that
"the people of this republic have the natural resources and other

advantages for becoming the most distinguished in individual and

85
national independence, wealth, and happiness, and [those
blessings] are beyond those God has ever granted to any other
portion of the globe."75 Several years earlier, and some
distance to the west, G.A.O. Beaumont addressed a similar topic
before a group of agriculturalists who were determined to
organize an agricultural society in Ottawa, Illinois. In
language reminiscent of Robert Beverly and Crevecoeur, Beaumont
begins by explaining that America, like Illinois, is still "in
the childhood of her existence," and that her future looms
exceedingly bright:
We have found a land fairer and more fruitful than

the promised land with which Heaven endowed its chosen

people. The richness of its soil is only equalled by

the beauties of its landscapes. It would seem, indeed,

as though Providence, in the fullness of its bounty,

had determined to prepare and perfect a land . . . where

nothing should be wanting. . . . We look abroad upon

the rolling prairie, as it were an ocean . . . we behold

a garden more beautiful than those which Oriental

luxury has formed for its princes . . . and ask ourselves

the involuntary question, "Could man ask for more?"76

As the republic’s most virtuous citizen, as well as its
economic foundation, the yeoman would naturally be expected to
blaze the trail leading toward national expansion and prosperity.
In "The Plough Boy,” a poem written especially for the
agricultural paper of the same name, William Ray urges farmers,
those:

Sons of America! awake, arise!

Lo, bright before you what a prospect lies!

A wide-extended country, blest and free--

Majestic rivers--many an inland sea--

Waiting the spade and plough to bid them pour
Through vales that never saw nor heard them roar--

86

Land rich, productive, facile to obtain,
Pledge to reward your industry with gain.77

In an early issue of the hennehee_£etnen, which later became the
Ma' e Farme , the lead editorial stridently avers that America’s
greatness is, and will continue to be, based on "an active,
intelligent, enlightened and enterprising yeomanry--upon men
whose hopes, and the hopes of their children are attached to the
fertile American soil."
Who will cling faster to his country than the
farmer?--Engaged in his peaceful occupation,
remote from the allurements of political
ambition, his mind untainted by sordid desires
and surrounded by all that is necessary to his
comfort and happiness . . . he will become more
and more devoted to "his home, his country, and
his brother man." '
A similar sentiment, containing the added weight of historical
allusion, is sounded in the final two stanzas of "The Farmer’s
Summons,” by "H.E.G." which appeared in the the_gnltiyete; in
1845.
0! your spreading lands are a noble dower,
And a kingly blade ye wield:
For we call, like Rome in her days of power,
Our sovereigns from the field
And they are our bulwarks, who bear their part,
In the peasant’s sturdy toil,
For the fountains that nourish the nation’s heart,
Lie deep in our teeming soil.79
Historical authority was often cited in explications of the
inextricable union of agricultural progress and national

development. After contrasting the American yeoman to the

hapless Russian serf, an anonymous correspondent to the Tndiane

87

Tether suggests that:

The history of the world proves that the
march of the human mind and progress of civiliza-
tion correspond, in great degree, with the agri-
cultural condition of States, or nations. . . . No
country can exist without agricultural intelligence
and labor.80

A more lyrical expression of the historical link between the
yeoman and America’s destiny is found in "The Plough and the
Sickle," submitted to the ney_nnglend_fietne1 in 1849 by T. Burges
of Rhode Island:

With a Pioneer Axe, what a conquest is made!
What a field from the forest is won!

What regions, reduced from the wilderness shade,
Are now warmed in the beams of the sun!

From the rock where our fathers in exile first landed,
Their clearing from river to river has spread:

And mountains and plains by their sons are commanded.
Till now on the beach of Pacific they tread.

What a farm for a nation to cultivate now,

And gather the wonderful harvest it yields!
’Tis an Empire reduced to the Sickle and Plough,

An Empire of gardens, and orchards, and fields.

Hail, Nation of Farmers! rejoice in your toil,
' And shout when your harvest is o’er:
Receive the oppressed to your land with a smile,
But frown every foe from your iron-bound shore.

And he who, by deeds, has now reached a high station,
And is called to preside o’er the commonwealth now,
Must relinquish his farm to save our young nation,
As for Rome Cincinnatus relinquished his plough.

The Plough and the Sickle shall shine bright in glory,
When the sword and the scepter shall crumble in rust:
And the farmer shall live, both in song and in storyi
When warriors and kings are forgotten in dust.
The poem, which contains an unusually rich complement of agrarian

themes, also sounds an important note of caution which may be

88

muffled amidst the general chorus of optimism regarding America’s
future. Burges suggests that regardless of how vast and powerful
the new nation may become, its enduring greatness will not hinge
on sustained military might. Rather, it will be the industrious
yeomen who will nurture the nation in peacetime. In the
unfortunate event of war, the military heroes will not emerge
from the ranks of professional soldiers, but, like Washington and
Cincinnatus, will come reluctantly but dutifully from their farms
to command their agrarian brethren in battle. This was one of
history’s most important lessons--a lesson that had been
reinforced by the victory of the "embattled farmers" over George
III’s professional army. In an address widely published in the
agricultural press, Marshall P. Wilder, the President of the
United States Agricultural Society, concludes:

While the nations of the Old World seek for glory r

in war and acquisitions of the sword, let us

cultivate the arts of peace, and let us remember

that the history of a noble, happy and prosperous

people is inscribed, not on the star spangled

banner of military fame, or of political preferment

and power, but it is seen in the peaceful triumphs

of the plough, in fields of waving grass and grain,

in thriving flocks and herds, in highly cultivated

farms and gardens, in the refined arts of rural life

and cultivated taste, and in the grateful incense

which rises from the altars of an industrious,

intelligent and virtuous yeomanry.
So pervasive was this view, that no less a warrior than Andrew
Jackson suggested in his 1832 message to Congress, which was
widely reprinted in the agricultural press, that: "The wealth
and strength of a country are its population, and the best part

of that population are the cultivators of the soil. Independent

89

farmers are everywhere the basis of society and the true friends
of liberty."83

During the forty years following the publication of John
Skinner’s Anezieen_£exnet, it was relatively easy for agrarians
to believe in and embrace their leading role in the unfolding
American drama. The first half of the nineteenth century was a
relatively stable, contented and prosperous time for most
Americans--a large majority of whom were farmers. They were
readily and enthusiastically caught up in the prevailing optimism
of the age. Even the Civil War, which temporarily disrupted
farmsteads throughout the land, could not permanently dampen
northern agrarian faith in the American dream. With the
cessation of hostilities between the North and the South, most
farmers and farm editors breathed an aggregate sigh of relief.
The Union had been preserved, and the agricultural prosperity
they had enjoyed before and during the war could now continue
without any accompanying bloodshed. What they could not
envision, however, were the tumultuous events of the second half
of the century--events that would forever change the face of
American agriculture, and, in the process, shatter many of rural

America’s most ardent beliefs.

NOTES

1Enoch Edwards, "Address to the Philadelphia Society for the
Promotion of Agriculture and Domestic Manufactures," Agrieultural
Museum, 4 July 1810, p. 4.

2loial. p. s.

3In e ' a A icultura Per di a ' ' ica S
(Albany: Privately Printed, 1909), Gilbert Tucker includes these
three agricultural papers among "the five pioneers of the
American agricultural press (p. 71)." The other two were the Men
Yorh Earmet, first published in New York City in about 1827, and
the §outhetn Agtieulturist, first published in Charleston, S.
Carolina, in 1828. The first five volumes of the hey Yotk Eetner

are apparently lost, and the Southetn Agtienltntiet falls outside
the scope of this study.

4Dumas Malone, ed. Dictienaty of Anetieen Biegtanhy IX (New
York: Scribner’s, 1964), pp. 199-201. Early issues of the

Ameriean Eatnen contain frequent communications from such
notables as Taylor, Jefferson, Madison and Timothy Pickering.
Skinner remained editor until 1830, when he sold the paper for
$20,000. After several other publishing endeavors, he
established The Plough, the Loon end the Anvil in Philadelphia in
July, 1848. This unique paper explored the common economic bonds
between agriculture and industry, advocating, for example, a
protective tariff for each. Skinner remained editor until his
untimely death (from a fall) in 1851.

5John S. Skinner, "To the Public," Anetieen_zermer.
2 April 1819, p. 5.

6"Agriculture," Ametiean Fetmer, 13 Aug. 1819, p. 160.

90

91

7Cincinnatus, "To the Editor of the Anetiean Fermer," Anetican
Tennet, 7 May 1819, p. 46. References to Lucius Quinctius

Cincinnatus were common in the agricultural press. According to
legend, the tribe of Aequi was besieging a Roman army on Mount
Algidus in 458 BC, and Rome was in danger of losing many of its
finest soldiers. Amidst this crisis, the Senate elected
Cincinnatus, a humble farmer, as temporary dictator. The
delegation dispatched to inform him of his ascension found him
working his fields, clad only in a tunic. His wife, Racilia,
brought a toga from their cottage, and he was pronounced
dictator. He proceeded to Mount Algidus, saved the army,
immediately resigned his dictatorship and, within fifteen days,
was back in his fields. Cincinnatus probably lived, but it is
likely that many of the stories about him are mythical. In the
American agricultural press, Cincinnatus is the classical
equivalent of George Washington--each representing the
quintessential agrarian hero who returns to his farm after
reluctantly leading his nation in battle. Michael Grant and John
Hazel. Nno_e_flno_in_claceical_NYtnolocy (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicholson, 1973), pp. 115-6.

81bid,, p. 46.

9Loosely translated, the motto means, "How happy is the
farmer’s state". At the time the Anetieen_£e;nez was first
published, mottoes were considered an indispensable part of a
newspaper, although most quotations were in English rather than

Latin-‘ A-L Demaree. Ine_American_Agricultural_£reee. p- 26-

. 10Solomon Southwick, "Original, " The_2lengh_fley,

5 June 1819, p. 2. Southwick, an ardent Jeffersonian, served as
editor of The_£lengh_§ey until 1823 when he apparently tired of
agricultural journalism. He twice ran unsuccessfully for
governor of New York, in 1822 and, again, in 1828. He was an
eloquent, often inflammatory speaker whose penchant for biting

phrases in evident in his writing. Dietienety_et_Anetieen
uiogranny IX. PP- 413 14-

11Thidy, p. 1. Skinner, too, expressly avoided political
issues. In the May 14, 1819 issue of the Anetigen_£e;nez, he
wrote: "Once and for all, then . . . not a word of party
politics will ever be allowed to enter these columns (p. 55)."

121t appears Southwick took some editorial liberties in
attributing his entire motto to the Bible. The language before
the conjunction "BUT” is from Eccl. xi. 4, King James Version.
The language following the conjunction seems to be Southwick’s
own.

92

13Prior to establishing the Mey_§nglend_£ezne:, Fessenden, a
staunch Federalist, was best known for his Demoezecy Unveiled:
0 an St ' ed t a b P triotism (1805), a virulent
attack on Jefferson and other Democratic leaders. Fessenden

edited the Mey_§nglend_£etnez until his death in 1837.
uictionary_of_American_niograony III. pp. 347-8-

14Thomas Green Fessenden, "Prospectus of the New Englend
Farmer.” Neu_England_£armer. 3 Aug- 1822. p- 1-

15Fessenden, ”The Farmer,” Mey_£nglend_£e;nen, 29 March 1823,
p. 280.

16Fessenden. "To the Public." Neu_England_Earmer.
2 Jan. 1839, p. 207.

17Joseph S. Sullivan, "Agriculture is a Science as Well as an

Art. " onio_cultiyator.1 Jan- 1845. p- 7-
18."The Farmer," The_gnltiyete;, Feb. 1839, p. 197.
19"Agricultural Hymn," Meine_£eznen, 1 June 1854, p. l.

20"The Farmer’s Life," Beeten_gnltiyetet, 16 July 1853,
p. 227.

21Ephraim Abbott, "The Farmer!," V e e ,
Dec. 1853, p. 436.

22James Tufts, "The Life of the Farmer Favorable to the
Pursuit of Knowledge,” The_§nltiyeten, Aug. 1850, p. 262.

23laial. p. 262.

24”The Farmer’s Song." Boston_cultiuator. 22 July 1848.
p. 240. Frequently, poems and letters were reprinted in

agricultural papers, without any editorial note regarding where
the material first appeared. Therefore, it is often difficult to
ascertain where a poem like "The Farmer’s Song" first appeared.

25Jesse Buel, "Editor’s Table," The_§nltiyetez, Feb. 1839, p.
198.

25laial. p. 198-

27Dan Bradley. ”A Moral Garden." Ine_deneeeel£armer.
7 Jan. 1832, p. 3.

28James S. Babcock, "Song of the Plowman,” The_yelley_£e;nen,
May 1850, p. 167.

93

29Old Agricola, "Letter of Advice," r A ric 1 u 'st,
Oct. 1856, p. 305.

3°lhial. p. 306-
31$. Rhodes, Jr., The_§ene§ee_£etnet, 29 Jan. 1831, p. 27.

32Several moral admonishments are cited below. Other examples

include items in the Eraizie Eeznez, 14 April 1859, p. 234: the
American_Agriculturiet. June 1859. p- 183: the tho_farmer. 18

Aug. 1855, p. 132: and the Mey_Englend_£e;net, 20 Nov. 1833, p.
145.

33Anti-Tobacco, "Anti—Tobacco Society," Meine Farmet,
12 Dec. 1834, p. 371.

34Ezekiel Holmes, "Street Smoking,” Meine_£etnen, 20 Nov.
1838, p. 326.

35J. Ambrose Wight, "Tobacco," Eteitie_fienne;, Aug. 1855,
p. 263. -

35Burel_ney;xg;neg, 28 March 1857, p. 104; 11 April 1857,
p. 120. Cited in Demaree, p. 77.

37Dan Bradley, "A Moral Garden,” The Genesee Fennet,
7 Jan. 1832, p. 4.

38Luther Tucker, "A Somber Lesson," The_§eneeee_£etnen, 20
April 1833, p. 121.

39"Demon Rum," Meetetn_Tillet, 14 July 1859, p. 163.

4oAlethea, the_§nltiyetgn, 15 March 1845, p. 45.

41Clara, "The Little Boy’s Appeal to His Parent," fleeten
intiyetet, 30 Jan. 1847, p. 35.

42Aunt Fanny, "The Farmer Boy," the_§nltiyetet, 1 Oct. 1862,
p. 316.

43C. W., "Agriculture--Its Labors, its Profits, its
Pleasures.," The_intiyetet, Nov. 1850, p. 354.

44"The Farm vs. The City," Tndiene_£etnen, June 1858, p. 65.
Echoing Jefferson, the editor later suggests that "cities are at
best a necessary evil, and should never be considered the abode
of man, in successive generations."

45Wm. T. Coggeshall, ”City and Country Life," Tndiene_£e:nen,
June 1858, p. 67. .

94

46A Lover of the Country, "Poetry and Profit of City Life,"
Prairia Earmar, Jan. 1850, pp. 18-19.

47B.F. Wilbur, "The Farmer's Life," Massachusetts Ploughman,
24 Aug. 1844, p. 1. (This paper is not consecutively paginated.)

48"Destitution in England." Massachusett§_zlgughman.
16 Nov. 1844, p. 4. Other cases include those of "a poor

milkman, named Davis," "John Coggins, laborer," "a poor, sick
woman named Phillis Peddor," and "an inmate of a Union work
house." A farmer from Highworth tells the magistrate: "I have
to work in the harvest from daylight to dark like a slave, to pay
what I get behind at the shop, and I can't do it then, . . .
something must be done. What will be the end of it, I know not.
I can't stop longer to see_my wife and children nearly half-naked
and half-starved."

49Ezekie1 Holmes, "Filth in New York City, " naina_£armgr,
17 Aug. 1854, p. 2.

5°"Correspondence," Iagiana_£armar, June 1858, p. 65.
51Thomas G. Fessenden, Nag_£nglang_£armgr, 27 May 1835,
p. 368.

52Scholars using the term, "agricultural fundamentalism,"
include Paul H. Johnstone, "Old Ideals Versus New Ideas in Farm
Life," in ' W -
Agrigaitura. 1240, ed. Gove Hambidge (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Dept. of Agriculture, 1940), p. 117; Gilbert Fite, Amerigan

Earmar§;_Ina_Naw_ninQriry (Bloomington: Univ. of Indiana Press,
1981), p. 4; Wayne C. Rohrer and Louis H. Douglas, The Agrarian
on - s (Indianapolis: Bobbs-

Herrill, 1969), pp. 28-9.

53A Stark County Farmer, "From Our Readers," QBlQ.QEl§i¥é§QI.
15 March 1845, p. 41.

54B.T.L., "Letter From a Ploughboy," h a F rmer d
Eastern_Agrisulturali§t. 1 June 1843. p- 58-

551he_§sne§ee_£armer. 7 Nov. 1835. p- 360-
56John 8. Wright, £rairia_£armar, Feb. 1848, p. 66.

57"The Farmer," gnign Agriggirarigr ang Westarn Prairia
Earmar, Aug. 1841, p. 63.

58John Platt, “Address to Licking County Agricultural
Society." Qnig_£ultixatgr. 1 April 1859. p- 112-

591121511. p. 113.

95

60Frances D. Gage, "The Sounds of Industry," Ohio Culrivator,
1 Jan. 1851, p. 16. Seven years after its initial appearance,
the editor of the Qnig_gairigargr said the poem had made the
rounds of the press once a year and had been "copied a thousand
times"; that it had "been copied, miscopied, and plagiarized
until its own mother would not recognize it." 0 i C 'vator,
15 Nov. 1858, p. 351.

61Frances D. Gage, "Work," thg_§airiyargr, 15 Dec. 1853,
p. 379. -

6.2Luther Tucker, "Labor vs. Leisure," Ihg_§§n§§§g_zgxm§I.
20 April 1833, p. 121.

63Sidney Perham, ”An Address to the Kennebec County
Agricultural Society," naiaa_£armar, 2 March 1848, p. 35.

64Luther Tucker, "Labor is Disgracefu1?," Ina_gglriyargr, May
1852, p. 91.

551511.. p. 92.

66"The Tillers of the Soil," naina_£armar, 16 Feb. 1854,
p. 1.

67Jesse Buel, "Matters of Interest to All," Cu r,
Aug. 1836, p. 72.

58H.A.S. Dearborn, fl§g_fing1ang_£armgr, 20 Jan. 1849, p. 34.

69S. Blydenburgh, "Advance of Agriculture," h en 5
Earmgr, 28 Feb. 1835, p. 66.

70H.K. Oliver, "Extract from an Address," Amarigan_£armarar
Hagarigg, Jan. 1858, p. 23.

718Agricu1ture," Indiana_£armar, 15 Feb. 1853, p. 187.

72Willis Gaylord and Luther Tucker, "Introductory," The
gultizatgr. Jan. 1840. p- 5-

73Ezekiel Holmes, "County Agricultural Schools," Maina_£armgr,
23 March 1854, p. 2.

74Johnstone, "Old Ideals Versus New Ideas in Farm Life,"
p. 124.

75H.A.S. Dearborn, Nag_Egglang_£armar, 20 Jan. 1849, p. 34.

96

76G.A.O. Beaumont, "Address before meeting held at Ottawa on
Nov. 11, 1840," The Union Agriculturist, Feb. 1841, p. 9.

77William Ray, "The Plow Boy," The Plough Boy, 31 July 1819,
p. 66.

78"The Farmer," Kennebec Farmer, 21 Jan. 1833, p. 4.

79H.E.G., "The Farmer's Summons," Ohio Cultivato ,
1 May 1845, p. 69. The editor introduces the poet as ". . . a
young lady, whose initials are familiar to the readers of
fugitive poetry in Ohio, and several of her pieces have found
their way into the widely circulated periodicals of the east,
justly taking rank among the productions of the first poets of
our land."

80"Agriculture and History," Indiana Farme , 15 Feb. 1853,
p. 185.

81T. Burges, "The Plough and the Sickle," New England Farmer,
8 Dec. 1849, p. 408.

82Marshall P. Wilder, "First National Cattle Show," Maine
Farrar, 23 Nov. 1854, p. 1.

83Quoted in Fite, American Farmers, p. 4.

CHAPTER 3--Agrarians in Conflict: Agriculture in tho Gilded Age

During the first six decades of the nineteenth century, one of
the most significant characteristics of agricultural life in the
northern United States was its stability. With the exception of
the restless westward migration which continued unabated
throughout the period, the years between 1800 and 1860 provided
rural Americans with large measures of social and economic
equilibrium. Change was usually gradual, often predictable and,
therefore, seldom convulsive. The traditional subsistence
farming of the colonial period was continued along the successive
agrarian frontiers, then gradually replaced by small-scale
commercial agriculture as domestic and foreign markets expanded.
Improved tillage, cultivation, and harvesting practices enabled
farmers to produce more commodities with less labor and risk.
Transportation advances made it easier and more economical to
move those surplus commodities to the marketplace. Despite
sporadic episodes of financial uncertainty, like the depression
of 1819-21 and the panics of 1837 and 1857, most farmers were
relatively secure, content and optimistic about the future.

As we have seen, the agrarian optimism of the first half of
the nineteenth century was sustained, in part, by a pervasive
rural belief in agriculture's moral, economic and political

importance to the new nation. From a more practical standpoint,

97

98

there was also the security of knowing that if farming proved
unremunerative in one region, one could always try again a few
hundred miles to the north or west. The uncertainty of moving to
a new location was tempered by the realization that farm
practices and farm life were much the same in Connecticut as they
were in Pennsylvania or Ohio. Westward expansion also created
more new markets for agricultural goods. The increased demand
kept upward pressure on commodities prices which, in turn, meant
greater profits for the farmer. Finally, despite some rather
violent fluctuations, land values rose progressively from 1815-
1860. Rising land values meant greater net worth, and, with
greater net worth, the farmer could command greater credit. He
could use his credit to expand his acreage, purchase better
equipment and improve the quality of his life. By the eve of the
Civil War, most northern farmers were convinced that the agrarian
promise was gradually being fulfilled and that even better days
loomed ahead.1

Although the Civil War shook their faith in American unity and
progress, it did little to hurt farmers' pocketbooks. The
sadness of seeing their sons leave the farmstead to serve in the
armies was somewhat assuaged by the vigorous demand for
agricultural products. The increased demand was the result of
several factors including European crop shortages between 1860-
62, the necessity of feeding and clothing a vast army and the
continued population growth, particulary in eastern urban areas.

Even though England began buying fewer commodities after 1863,

99

strong greenback prices raised even greater hopes for prolonged
prosperity. The result was that most northern farmers remained
thoroughly optimistic despite the tumult and tragedy of the war.2

Following the Civil War, both the constancy and the prosperity
which had characterized nineteenth-century agricultural life were
eroded by the powerful currents of change which swept across the
American landscape. The comparative stability of the antebellum
period gave way to the accelerated and often turbulent change
which occurred during the Gilded Age. Dramatic developments in
commerce, industry, and transportation, along with staggering
technological advances and severe socio-economic dislocations,
created bewilderment and confusion throughout America. Like
other groups, farmers had difficulty understanding and
assimilating all that was swirling around them. On one hand,
they could embrace new technology, adopt innovative business
strategies and welcome rapidly expanding urban markets. On the
other hand, they became increasingly fearful of foreign
immigration, they deeply resented growing corporate economic
power, and they regarded urban life with unprecedented suspicion
and hostility. As a noted agricultural historian has observed,
the question for millions of rural people during the Gilded Age
was:

To be or not to be . . . should they wholeheartedly

accept the emerging commercial system with all of

its disturbing elements and conflicting values--

a 'culture that threatened the familiar order with

strange, even dangerous ideas,’ or should they

deny and resist the new age and remain rooted in
a more comfortable rural ideology.3

100

To better understand the dilemmas facing farmers in the three
decades after the Civil War, it is important to consider some of
the major changes in agrarian life which occurred throughout the
nineteenth century. In this chapter, I will examine, in a
general way, key agricultural developments in the northern United
States between 1785 and 1900. I will discuss westward
expansion, transportation improvements, increased mechanization,
specialized farming and coincidental economic and political
developments. This analysis will also include a brief overview
of the Gilded Age and a more detailed treatment of two
developments which exerted a major influence on farmers during
that period: 1) the ascendancy of business power and influence
in American life and 2) the ambiguity and ambivalence produced by
a dramatically changing society. Both posed serious questions
about the continued efficacy of the agrarian creed and also about

the vitality of the mythology which arose from it.

From the Atlantic Seaboard to the Plains: American Agriculture

Between 1785 and 18654

Beginning with the Ordinance of 1785, the United States
government spent prodigious time and energy trying to determine
equitable ways to distribute the vast public domain. The
Ordinance provided for the sale of federal lands to private
individuals at public auctions. The minimum lots of 640 acres
were sold at a price of not less than $1 per acre, and the terms

were cash. The provisions of the Ordinance were based on two

101
fundamental objectives: 1) land disposal would encourage
westward expansion and national growth and development along
agricultural lines and 2) the new government could accumulate
some much-needed revenue to bolster its strapped treasury.

Unfortunately, the sales proceeded much more slowly than
anticipated. Settlers were discouraged by the British—induced
Indian troubles north of the Ohio River. In addition, many
states had thoughts of raising land-sale revenues of their own.
Thus, state officials viewed the federal program as unwelcome
competition and did little to encourage participation. The most
serious determent to brisker sales, however, was the simple fact
that most pioneer farmers could not afford the $640 required for
the minimum purchase. Therefore, many settlers "squatted" on the
unsurveyed, vacant lands and formed protective associations to
ensure continued occupancy.

Undaunted, and still determined to raise money, the federal
government passed subsequent land acts in 1796 and in 1800. Both
proved inadequate because the prescribed land price was still
more than most farmers could afford, and the required minimum
acreage was far in excess of what any farmer could hope to clear
and cultivate in a lifetime. In many instances, the lands were
purchased by speculators who would offer settlers much smaller
lots, but at per-acre prices much higher than the speculator had
originally paid to the government. Such practices angered many
frontier agrarians, and they began agitating for a more

liberalized land distribution system that would discourage

102

speculation and put more acreage in the hands of small farmers.

The result was the Land Act of 1820 which, among other things,
out the minimum bidding price at public auctions to $1.25 per
acre and reduced the minimum parcel to 80 acres. Although an 80-
acre tract was still more than most farmers could successfully
till, and the per-acre price was still more than many
impoverished pioneer farmers could afford, the more liberal
provisions of the new act helped many people become first-time
land owners. In addition, the Act of 1820 was the first major
legislative step in the direction which would eventually lead to
a policy of free land distribution. Throughout the 18408, a
vociferous group of land law reformers urged the passage of
homestead legislation as a means of alleviating the economic woes
of urban factory workers. Meanwhile, the Preemption Act of 1841
and the Graduation Act of 1854 further encouraged the disposal of
public lands, although huge tracts continued to fall into the
hands of speculators and timber and mining companies.5

As a result of continued pressure from urban reformers and
from the agrarian west, the first serious homestead legislation
was introduced in Congress in 1852, but it failed to clear the
Senate. In 1860, President James Buchanan vetoed a homestead
bill, and Congress failed to override. It was not until the
enactment of the Homestead Law on May 20, 1862 that the federal
government established a policy to distribute free land to
farmers. Under the provisions of the Homestead Act, any person

could file for 160 acres of unappropriated public land provided

103
he or she met certain age and citizenship requirements. In order
to secure a fee-simple title to the land, the farmer had to live
on or farm the claim for five years after filing.

Like the older land laws, the Homestead Act had some major
shortcomings. As originally passed, the law excluded anyone who
had fought against the United States. This restriction was
modified in 1866 so that Confederate veterans could file claims,
but some Mexicans, Canadians and Britishers remained ineligible.
A more serious problem was that a large portion of the best
farmland on the Great Plains quickly went, via federal land
grants, to states and to railroad companies. As a result, there
was very little first-class frontier cropland available for
homesteading during the 1870s and 18803, especially in western
Iowa and Minnesota and in eastern Kansas, Nebraska and the
Dakotas. In addition, an exceedingly lax federal regulatory
policy encouraged continuous, and often unscrupulous, land
speculation. Despite these drawbacks and inequities, the fact
remains that many American settlers found it easier and cheaper
to secure farmland as the nineteenth century progressed.6

Whether stimulated by the increasingly liberal land laws or by
the lure of greater economic opportunity or by wanderlust,
Americans moved West in increasing numbers between 1820 and 1860.
Settlers quickly and aggressively populated the vast interior
east of the frontier line--an area lying between the Appalachian
Mountains and the Mississippi River, excluding Michigan,

Wisconsin and northern portions of Illinois, Indiana, and

104
Mississippi. Other pioneers gradually pushed the northern
frontier line west and north through southern Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota, northern Indiana and Illinois and on
into Iowa and eastern Kansas and Nebraska.7 Between 1815 and
1860, fifteen new states were admitted to the Union, and most
were located in the Mississippi River valley. The population of
the United States increased from 9.6 million in 1820 to 31.5
million in 1860. The population of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan and Wisconsin alone grew from approximately 800,000 in
1820 to almost 7 million in 1860-—more than a seven-fold increase
in just forty years.

Those who had first crossed the Appalachians between 1775 and
1790 moved either along the available waterways--primarily Lake
Erie and the Ohio River--by canoe, small sailboat or flatboat, or
they travelled along old Indian trails by horseback. Such
limited modes of transport and travel meant that westernmost
farmers had no reliable way to move surplus commodities to more
densely populated markets. The introduction of the steamboat
helped resolve this problem. By 1820 steamboats were regularly
working the eastern seaboard, the Great Lakes and some of the
larger western rivers. In the East, steamboats were built for
speed and dependability in order to attract passenger traffic and
cargo hauling contracts. But the boats on the western rivers
were designed for durability and greater cargo capacity, rather
than speed. The steamboats which worked the Mississippi and Ohio

rivers and their many tributaries had to operate in shallow and

105
often treacherous waters while hauling such bulky agricultural
products as cotton, grain and livestock. In so doing, these
sluggish but reliable vessels helped expand the market for the
agricultural products of the interior and provided a substantial
impetus to commercial farming.

Another major transportation advance occurred between 1815 and
1840 when Americans undertook--with the help of state government
funding--an extensive program of canal construction. In those 25
years, canal mileage increased from 100 to 3,300 miles. Although
many of the canal building enterprises were abruptly halted
during the Panic of 1837, the Erie Canal proved a notable
exception. It was built across relatively flat terrain which
helped keep construction on schedule and within budget. When it
was completed, the Erie Canal connected the Great Lakes system
and the Hudson River. Grain produced in the Northwest Territory
could then be shipped from Chicago to New York by water. Like
the steamboats, the Erie Canal helped open new markets for the
surplus commodities produced by farmers in Ohio, Indiana,
Michigan and Illinois.

The preeminence of steamboat and canal transportation was
first challenged and later eclipsed by the rapid railroad
expansion between 1840-60. In 1830, the United States had just
23 miles of operating railroad.~ Ten years later, track mileage
had increased to 3,000, and by 1860, America boasted over 30,000
miles of track. Most of the new construction occurred in the

Northeast and in the Northwest Territory. By 1860, the railroads

106
had captured most of the passenger traffic east of the
Mississippi River and a large portion of the freight business, as
well.‘ Although they charged higher freight rates than the
steamboats and barges, the railroads proved faster and more
dependable. Thus, by the Civil War, the railroads were hauling
an important share of the surplus agricultural products of the
Midwest to the expanding markets along the East Coast.8

In order to produce the commodities necessary to meet growing
market demands, the farmer needed more sophisticated tools and
implements. The axes, hoes, scythes and wooden plows used by the
pioneer farmers were inadequate for a budding commercial
agriculture. Throughout the nineteenth century, more efficient
farm equipment was developed--beginning with the first cast-iron
plow, patented by Charles Newbold in 1797. This implement was
improved continuously over the next twenty years, and in 1819
Jethro Wood patented a cast-iron plow with an innovative
moldboard design and interchangeable parts. Wood's breakthrough,
along with concomitant improvements in cold chilling the cutting
edges of the plow, enabled farmers to till and prepare the soil
with far less human labor and/or animal power.

Breaking the rich, dense prairie soils in Illinois and Iowa
brought new problems, however. The light-weight, cast iron plows
could not cut through the heavier prairie sod. Plowshares were
easily broken off, and the rough moldboards would not properly
purge (scour) the thick soil. Thus, for a time, prairie farmers

had to fall back on the cumbersome wooden plows with heavier,

107

iron shares. Help came first from John Lane, who made a
moldboard with a highly polished surface which scoured easily.
In 1837, John Deere developed what became known as "the singing
plow," a one-piece iron implement with steel cutting edges. By
1857, Deere was producing about 10,000 plows a year, and other
manufacturers were marketing equally popular competitors.9

Concomitant with advances in plowing technology were
improvements in cultivating, planting and harvesting devices. In
the 1840s, a two-horse, hinged harrow with iron or steel spikes
was introduced. About the same time, a field cultivator appeared
that was attached to several small shovel plows that could both
break soil and cover seeds. The use of grain drills for planting
became increasingly popular in New York and Pennsylvania in the
18403, and a decade later, they were used throughout the Middle
Atlantic states. The practice of planting grain crops with
mechanical planters or drills spread do the Midwest during and
after the Civil War. In the early 1850s, Cyrus McCormick, after
two decades of experimentation, was producing a highly successful
mechanical reaper. This important breakthrough meant that
farmers no longer had to use the slow and cumbersome grain
cradles to gather their crops. More acreage could be harvested
in a shorter time and with far less effort.

All the new machines and implements--plows, harrows, planters,
cultivators, and reapers--gradually came into widespread use at
about the same time. They were developed in the 1820s and 18305,

adopted commercially by innovative farmers in the 1840s, and more

108
broadly accepted in the 1850s. Because farming operations were--
and are--highly interrelated, advances in one required
improvements in the others. It does little good to improve the
efficiency of planting, for example, when the task of cultivating
remains slow, tedious and frustrating. By the 18503, farmers in
the North and East had achieved a reasonable degree of efficiency
in all aspects of grain production--from plowing to harvesting.
They had become willing, though cautious consumers of improved
agricultural technologies.

Pioneer farmers in the Old Northwest had, until about 1820,
essentially the same experiences as settlers along the Atlantic
Seaboard during the two centuries of the colonial period. The
pioneer farmer first cleared one to three acres of forest land by
girdling the trees and digging out the stumps. He planted corn
and vegetables in the clearing, while the surrounding forests and
streams provided fish, wild game, berries, nuts and other
indigenous foodstuffs. As more land was cleared, the pioneer
yeoman expanded his corn production and planted some wheat. The
wheat was hauled to the local gristmill to grind into flour,
which was consumed by the family and neighbors. Gradually, and
with the aid of the newly developed farm implements and machines,
the farmer expanded his operation until he was producing a small
surplus which could be shipped to outside markets. By the mid-
18203, agriculture in the Northwest had taken a decided turn
toward commercialization. ‘

New York and Pennsylvania were the leading wheat-producing

109
states during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Wheat
production.wa3 moving steadily westward, however, and by the
18303, Ohio had become an important producer of wheat and wheat
flour. During the 18403 and 18503, wheat production continued to
move westward north of the Ohio River. By the outbreak of the
Civil War, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were
supplying about one—half the wheat produced in the United States.
Wheat had quickly become the leading cash crop in the Old
Northwest. '

Hardier and higher yielding than wheat, corn was the universal
grain raised by nineteenth-century American farmers. Like wheat
growing, corn production also moved north and west, although much
more slowly. In 1840, the first year for which there are
statistics, the leading corn-producing states were Virginia,
Kentucky and Tennessee. During the next two decades, a corn belt
developed north of the Ohio River. By 1860, Illinois, Ohio,
Indiana and Missouri had become the leading corn-producing states
of the Union. Up until the late 18303 and early 18403, corn was
consumed by the farmer's family or fed to his livestock. With
the increased production coming from the new northern Corn Belt,
more surplus grain was available for use in the more profitable
animal production. By 1860, a thriving hog slaughtering and
packing industry had developed in such centers as Cincinnati,
which became popularly known as "Porkopolis."10

The range cattle industry had long been a33ociated with the

frontier north of the Ohio River, where grazing land was more

110
plentiful. As early as 1805 cattle were driven to east coast
markets from northeastern Ohio and Pennsylvania. By 1840 farmers
in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana were driving cattle overland to
Philadelphia, New York, and even Boston. This long, arduous and
expensiVe process came to an end with the railroad expansion of
the 18503. The cattle-feeding industry expanded as the northern
Corn Belt developed, and by 1860, more and more farmers were
shipping their beef cattle by rail to the eastern markets.

Between 1820 and 1860, then, the region lying north of the
Ohio River and stretching from Ohio to Iowa became America’s
agricultural heartland. Surplus wheat was shipped eastward
through the Great Lakes to the Erie Canal or south along the Ohio
and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. Surplus corn was used to
support growing hog and beef-feeding industries. By 1860,
agriculture in the Upper Midwest had gradually assumed the
principal characteristics of its modern commercial form. Wheat
production would continue to move westward after the Civil War,
but the feed-livestock business would remain as an economic
mainstay of the region.

Agricultural development in New England and the Middle
Atlantic states during the first half of the nineteenth century
was a somewhat different story. As settlers moved west, eastern
agriculture remained comparatively stagnant. Years of primitive
and largely exploitative farming practices had depleted valuable
soil nutrients: orchards and livestock were often poorly managed.

Had it not been for the rapidly growing urban population,

111
competition from the West may have eliminated much of the
agriculture along the Atlantic Seaboard. Instead, the growing
cities of New England and the Middle Atlantic region, with their
flourishing industry and commerce, created a strong demand for
dairy products, poultry, eggs, vegetables, fruit and mutton. In
addition, the urban dwellers needed dray horses, carriage horses
and the hay and grain to sustain those indispensible steeds.
These developments created a shift from general grain and
livestock farming to a more highly specialized agriculture
throughout the East.

The form of agricultural specialization in a particular area
depended on soil type, climate and location. Market gardening
and dairying developed in the immediate vicinity of the urban
centers, notably around Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New
York. The eastern cattle-feeding industry was concentrated in
the Connecticut River valley and in southwestern Pennsylvania,
where there was a grain surplus. Butter and cheese production
flourished in central New York, where ample grazing lands existed
and where the Erie Canal provided a ready access to eastern
cities. A carriage horse--the Morgan--was developed in Vermont
for easy delivery to urban population centers. While farmers in
New England and the Middle Atlantic states were losing their
grain, pork, wool and beef markets to western producers, their
diversification into perishable products and specialized equine
livestock enabled many to survive and prosper during this period.

By the 18503, there were both broad belts and highly

112

specialized regions of commercial agriculture established in the
United States. Many farmers were still operating at a
subsistence level, but east of the Mississippi River there were
extensive areas in which a great many farmers were producing
surplus commodities. In expanding output and creating a surplus
for sale, farmers applied the cheap factor, land, to the scarce
and dear factors, labor and capital, to the maximum extent
possible. A surplus was created and a state of commercialization
was achieved, not by increasing yields per acre, but by
cultivating as many acres as was technically and economically
feasible.11

Most agricultural historians agree that despite problems that
regularly beset farmers between 1800 and 1865--problems of soil
and livestock management, rising and falling land values,
available credit, financial crashes, the need for markets, and a
war that depleted their labor supply--agriculture had made great
strides.12 'Farmers were becoming familiar with such scientific
advances as soil and fertilizer analysis. Favorable economic
conditions in the 18503 enabled them to buy improved implements
and machines. More knowledge of animal husbandry was giving
farmers better returns on their capital and labor.

Even the comforts of life were being introduced

not only by the landed gentry . . . but by the ordinary

farmer. Drafty log houses, with their crude interiors,

were being abandoned for frame structures with decorative

fireplaces, sturdy stoves with provisions for heating

water, sufficient bedrooms to provide for the growing

family, and a well-shuttered parlor for the entertainment

of visiting clergymen, politicians, and relatives.

Government was just beginning to show a greater responsiveness to

113
rural needs. Free homesteads were just around the corner, the
Agricultural Division of the Patent Office, established in 1839,
was publishing useful educational and statistical information,
and state governments were increasingly encouraging agricultural
fairs and supporting agricultural societies. Government aid to
railroads was bringing modern transportation to previously
isolated farms, and America's wide—open immigration policy seemed
to promise more lucrative domestic markets. Finally, the
election of 1860 brought to power a new party pledged to provide
free homesteads, support transcontinental railroads and aid
agricultural education.

In 1865, things seemed to be going very much in the farmer's
favor. However, new forces were taking shape within the nation
which neither farmers nor anyone else could clearly foresee.
Ironically, the growing commercialization of agriculture would
make the farmers increasingly vulnerable to the economic problems
which would develop during the Gilded Age--problems like
excessive and discriminatory freight rates, rapid inflationary-
deflationary cycles, inadequate credit structures and monetary
and banking difficulties. Farmers had gradually become cogs in a
complicated commercial and industrial machine about which they
knew very little. The next three decades would be spent trying
to understand and adjust to developments which, in 1865, most

farmers could not even begin to anticipate.

114

America in the Gilded Age: 1865-1900

In 1873, a year of severe and widespread economic misery in the
U.S., Mark Twain collaborated with a new novelist, Charles Dudley
Warner, to publish Ihg_§ilgag_Aga. The novel’s title, inspired
by passages from naghgrh and King_ggha, constitutes a triple pun
associating the gilt, guilt and guilds which the authors believed
characterized post-Civil War American life. More specifically,
the novel focuses on the pervasive greed, dishonesty, political
chicanery and intellectual superficiality during President
Grant's first administration (1869-72). In stereotypes like
Colonel Sellers and Senator Dilworthy, the reader finds
hypocrisy, mendacity, coarseness, and naivete. For Twain and
Warner, the insouciant optimism, the boisterous materialism and
the self-righteous chauvinism of the era were puerile expressions
of a crass and insecure period of national adolescence. The
lavish balls, garish mansions and other extravagant and popularly
captivating trappings of the nouveau riche were seen as awkward
attempts to paint a thin veneer of respectability over frequently
humble, lower-class origins. Beneath the glittering gilt
coating, however, was a drab iron core of economic self interest,
intellectual narrowness and cultural provincialism.

Although the Gilgag_5ga has received little critical acclaim
through the years, its title has endured as the name most often
associated with the period in American history from the end of
the Civil War until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Perhaps the novel's major significance was its profound influence

115
on three generations of American historians. As H. Wayne Morgan
has suggested, its picture of "bloated dreams, foolish optimism,
and grandiloquence" colored most early interpretations of the
period.14 The Gilded Age was portrayed by scholars as a
distasteful and mediocre interlude between Lincoln and Theodore
Roosevelt, or as a time of wanton materialism and coarse taste,
or, at best, as an unfortunate but necessary harbinger of the
more enlightened Progressive Era. Vernon Parrington dismissed
the period as "the Great Barbecue" and Charles Beard condemned
the "cash nexus" that allegedly produced the era’s vulgarities
and inequities. This view was reinforced by two widely read
works by Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons (1934) and The
Eoiiticos (1938), which portray a time of unmitigated political
and corporate greed, ruthlessness and corruption.15 Such
interpretations of the Gilded Age have withstood both the passage
of time and the appearance of more sophisticated scholarly
renderings. In America in the Gilded Aga (1984), for example,
Sean Dennis Cashman echoes the scathing judgments of earlier
historians:
If the age had a motto it might well be,

'The ayes have it,’ not only for the celebrated

interest in voting stock, but also for the eyes

that rejoiced in the glitter of gold, and the 1's

that define many of the pervasive social themes.

Society was . . . indulgent of commercial speculation,

social ostentation, and political prevarication but

was indifferent to the special needs of immigrants

and Indians and intolerant of black Americans,

labor unions, and political dissidents.16

Although such interpretations tend to gloss over the great

complexities of the period, they are certainly not without

116
foundation. The Gilded Age was already showing substantial
tarnish by 1876. The Grant Administration was rife with
corruption, mendacity and ineptitude._ Despite his commendable
record on the battlefield and his widely conceded personal
integrity, the President proved an easy mark for individuals like
Jim Fisk and Jay Gould, who unsuccessfully tried to corner the
gold market in 1869 and later became, through questionable means,
powerful railroad magnates. In the midst of his re-election bid
in 1872, Grant was rocked by the Credit Mobilier scandal. Later,
during his second term, Grant's private secretary, Colonel
Babcock, conspired with a group of St. Louis distillers to
defraud the government of millions in taxes. Babcock escaped
punishment only because of the President's misplaced sense of
loyalty. Politically naive, innocent of any real understanding
of the new industrial and economic forces shaping society,
surrounded by unscrupulous sycophants and purblinded by his
earlier image as war hero, Grant (along with his administration)
became a virtual paradigm for characterizing the many ills of
post-Civil War society.

Besides the political turmoil swirling around the Grant
regime, the Gilded Age also witnessed the often unprincipled rise
in corporate power, the amassing of vast personal fortunes by a
small coterie of capitalists, brutal suppression of worker
attempts to unionize, the callous subjugation of the South during
Reconstruction, widespread agrarian misery, a pronounced official

indifference to the plight of minorities, laborers and farmers,

117'
and the beginnings of an increasingly jingoistic policy of
international imperialism. Such developments lent credence to
historical interpretations which depicted the era as a painful,
crass and easily forgotten hiatus in the forward march of
American social progress.

More contemporary analyses suggest, however, that the Gilded
Age was a far more significant period than earlier commentators
believed. Writing in 1969, Richard A. Bartlett acknowledges that
"only recently have historians begun a reappraisal of the Gilded
Age." .

They have discovered this first era of modern America

to be complicated, fascinating, and important as a

seedbed of the American civilization of the twentieth

century. They have found the age a mirror of the

present, with the primary theme being ghanga. The

great problems were the result of the failure of

all facets of the civilization to change and adjust

at the same pace.

While scholars may strongly disagree on the desirability,
direction and result of such change, they generally concur on its
power and scope. For Paul Boller, Jr. the Gilded Age marked the
transition from a rural-agrarian federation to an industrial,
urban nation-state. In the process, the "formalism" of natural
law philosophy-~the world view which had dominated American
Enlightenment thought--gradually gave way to the concept of
evolutionary naturalism.18 H. Wayne Morgan suggests that even
"amid bewildering changes" post-Civil War America valiantly
struggled to discover its national identity. The result was the

emergence of a modern, unified nation from what had been a

disparate "collection of regions, varying in age, economics,

118

population, and social attitudes."19 Edward C. Kirkland agrees
that dramatic changes during the Gilded Age produced profound
social and economic problems. Yet, despite its many short-
comings, the prevailing "individualistic industrial ethic of
self-reliance" helped foster a "talent for business enterprise"
which became the source of "that great abundance which, in later
days, democracy would administer differently."20

Less favorably disposed to the sweeping changes wrought during
the period, George Frederickson regarded the second half of the
nineteenth century as the final triumph of "conservative
nationalism." The resulting centralization and consolidation of
governmental power turned the Jeffersonian vision of America into
an "obvious anachronism" and ultimately "thwarted the drive for
humanitarian democracy."21 'Similarly, Norman Pollack contends
that "more than an interlude”'the Gilded Age "helped to define
the twentieth-century corporate order."

Ideology and politics had become synchronized to produce

a total capitalistic society and culture. The result

was a narrowing of historical alternatives, serving

to confirm the ascendant power of business, set

boundaries to political and economic democratization,

and work against a more socially humane system in the

twentieth century.2

Despite their widely conflicting opinions regarding the
direction America took during the period, most scholars agree on
two points central to the present study: 1) the Gilded Age was
dominated by a prevailing business ethos that was undergoing a

profound metamorphosis even at the height of its popularity and

2) the era confronted Americans with a vast array of social and

119
technological changes which could be, at once, exhilarating,
confusing and deeply disturbing. While both developments
significantly affected all segments of American society, they
played especially important roles in the transformation of
agricultural life during the three decades following the Civil
War. Therefore, before turning to a discussion of agriculture in
the Gilded Age, I would like to examine each point in some
detail.

The northern businessman emerged from the Civil War as the
"regnant figure in American life."23 No longer compelled to
compete with the southern industrial and commercial interests for
economic power, the resourceful entrepreneur was essentially free
to expand his business, exploit new markets and, in the process,
make prodigious amounts of money. The accumulation of often
staggering profits was encouraged by a number of factors
including the expiration of the inheritance tax in 1870 and the
abandonment of the income tax in 1872. Corporate and excess
profits taxes did not exist--the bulk of governmental revenue
coming from duties on selected consumer goods, including liquor
and tobacco. In addition to extremely favorable tax laws,
businessmen benefited from such things as the national banking
system, high protective tariffs, generous land grants to the
railroads and the authorized importation of contract labor.
Throughout much of the Gilded Age, Democrats and Republicans
alike were eager to support policies and programs which would

help further business interests.24

. 120

Among other less noticeable developments, such pro-business
conditions helped produce individual wealth on an unprecedented
scale. John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie each amassed
personal fortunes approximating a billion dollars. In 1892, the
New Tork Tribune reported over 4,000 American millionaires
including such familiar names as Cornelius Vanderbilt in
railroads, Gustavus Swift in meat, Charles Pillsbury in grain,
Frederick Weyerhauser in lumber, and John Pierpont Morgan in
railroads and finance. By 1900, the Senate could claim twenty-
five millionaires among its members, a fact which caused cynics
to dub the legislative body as the ”Rich Man's Club" and the
"House of Dollars."25

Although the rapid accumulation of such wealth and power
eventually caused widespread concern, most public criticism was
not leveled at the millionaires as individual entrepreneurs.

When specific businessmen were reviled, it was usually because of
their leadership roles in large and powerful corporations and
monopolies.26 This curious distinction between public admiration
of personal financial success and public outrage over corporate
growth and prosperity helps to illuminate one of the most
interesting and important paradoxes of the period.

Most post—Civil War Americans sincerely believed in what Irvin
Wyllie has termed a "rags-to-riches" mythology.27 The myth
extolled the virtues of self help. It proclaimed that economic
success or failure was entirely within the hands of each

individual and had nothing to do with external circumstances.

121
Although the myth had little basis in reality, it held great sway
among the people. Tycoons like Vanderbilt and Carnegie found it
fashionable (and perhaps convenient) to portray themselves as
self-made men who had earned their money by the sweat of their
brow. Horatio Alger, Unitarian chaplain to the Newsboys’ Lodging
House in Manhattan, exploited the popularity of the self-help
cult in a series of children’s books. The virtues of
determination, honesty and hard work were central to such tales
as Baggag_pigk (1867), IQE$L§DQ_ELQEK (1869) and Tatterag Tam
(1871), all of which sold in the millions of copies.

The philosophy of self help was not unique to the Gilded Age,
however. Protestant theology had long emphasized the link
between economic well-being and spiritual salvation. For the
Puritans, wealth was a measure of God’s favor. From earliest
colonial times, qualities like industry, thrift and self-reliance
had received universal clerical approbation. Benjamin Franklin
was not only an early proponent of the myth, but his life became
the paradigm representation of the self-made man. The popularity
of his writings provides ample evidence of the widespread
acceptance of the myth during the first half of the nineteenth
century.

Following the Civil War, the notion of "rags-to-riches" was
greatly bolstered--at least on a theoretical p1ane--by the
emergence of Social Darwinism, a new philosophy which blended
large measures of Herbert Spencer’s extreme version of laissez—

faire economics and Charles Darwin’s theories of biological'

122
evolution. Social Darwinism held that social progress was
largely the result of the struggle for subsistence. Such a view
placed great emphasis on individual intelligence, skill and
determination. Spencer, who coined the phrase, "survival of the
fittest," seven years prior to the appearance of The Origin of
the Species (1859), opposed state aid to the poor because such
intervention would artificially prolong the existence of those
unfit to compete in economic life. He also disapproved of
protective tariffs, state banking, land grants and other
governmental incursions into the market place. For many
influential intellectuals and for those few businessmen familiar
with it, Social Darwinism seemed to confirm the self-help
creed.28 Anyone with native intelligence and "pluck" could
succeed in America--regardless of socio-economic background and
despite unnecessary governmental meddling.

Therefore, it wasn’t the fact that certain shrewd and
ambitious entrepreneurs rose to the pinnacles of industrial and
financial power that critics objected to. Rather, it was when
some of those same businessmen sought--through a determined and
sometimes unscrupulous courting of governmental favor--to
consolidate economic power, reduce competition and artificially
ensure profitability, that many Americans began to take umbrage.
Government measures establishing protective tariffs and
encouraging the formation of monopolies and trusts not only
violated the precepts of Social Darwinism and the "rags-to-

riches" mythology, but, perhaps more importantly, they also ran

123
counter to what Sidney Fine has called the "doctrine of negative
state."29

Central to this traditional doctrine was the belief that free
people, if left to their own devices, could so1ve most of their
problems without government aid.

According to accepted theory . . . the ideal economy--

the only one sanctioned by nature--was made up of

freely competing individuals operating in a market

unrestricted by man but fairly ruled by the inex-

orable forces of natural law. The ideal polity was

achieved by bargaining among free and equal individuals

under the benevolent eye of nature. It was assumed

that, in economic affairs, impartial rivalry between

individual entrepreneurs and free competition would

automatically serve the best interests of society by
preventing anyone from getting more than his fair

share of the wealth.30
Implied in the philosophy of negative state were familiar
Enlightenment beliefs in natural law, the inevitability of
progress, the efficacy of reason and the self-sufficiency of the
individual. Also implied were the more moderate laissez faire
teachings of classical political economy, beginning with the
physiocrats and then more fully developed by Adam Smith. This
notion of laissez faire was expressed in the liberal tradition of
Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy and, as we have Seen, was
also central to the agrarian creed.

When businessmen followed the "rules" of classical (or even
Spencerian) laissez faire, their achievements were generally
applauded, their practices widely admired and emulated. (Problems
began developing when some industrialists and financiers

recognized that unbridled laissez faire could also mean cutthroat

competition, uncertain profits and "boom-and-buSt" economic

124
cycles. What they preferred, instead, was a rationalized
business environment in which competition was reduced or
eliminated, annual profitability was ensured and the economy
would steadily and perpetually improve. In short, they wanted to
stabilize the marketplace, and they turned to the government for
help.31 Thus, at the same time they were publicly extolling the
virtues of free enterprise, these businessmen were privately
taking steps calculated to undermine it. In so doing, they may
have helped foster a new and more enlightened philosophy of
governmental responsibility, but, in the eyes of many of their
contemporaries (including farmers), they were violating the
accepted standards of economic fair play.

The paradox surrounding the rhetoric of laissez faire versus
the reality of government intervention contains an important and
ironic capstone. For even as other interest groups were
vehemently denouncing governmental action on behalf of business,
they were simultaneously demanding that state and federal
legislators and agencies take strong steps to ensure equal
economic opportunity. Neither laboring nor farming interests,
for example, were the least bit reluctant to call for government
assistance in a variety of arenas. For the farmers, who had
traditionally championed self-reliance and rugged frontier
individualism, the persistent pleas for state and federal help
marked a significant departure from past practices. As we shall
see, however, agrarians did not abandon self help and laissez

faire while they agitated for government action. Yet, like the

125
monopolists they frequently admonished, farmers also wanted to
reduce damaging competition, stabilize commodity prices and
guarantee profitability. Like the industrialists and
financiers, farmers wanted government aid without government
control. .Thus, they, too, were pointing the way toward "the
positive state . . . a new liberalism embodying something of the
spirit of Jeffersonianism but ready to use government as an
agency to promote the general welfare."32

The second development that is central to understanding the
agricultural transformation during the Gilded Age is the sweeping
and often turbulent social and technological change that
characterized the era. In 1865, the U.S. population stood at
35,701,000. Twelve years later, it had increased to over
47,000,000, and by 1901, it had reached 77,584,000, with
immigration accounting for about a third of the growth.33 Most
of the 10 million immigrants who crossed the Atlantic between
1860 and 1890 came from Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Holland,
and Switzerland. After 1890, increasing numbers came from
eastern and southern Europe, including Italy, Greece, Austria-
Hungary, Russia, Rumania and Turkey.

Most of the newcomers settled in the cities, where they were
joined by native Americans who had left rural areas in search of
urban fame and fortune. The result was a decrease in the
proportion of people living in small towns and on farms. In the
last forty years of the century, the farm population grew from

19,000,000 to 28,000,00, but the non-farm population grew from

126

12,000,000 to 48,000,000, an increase of 400 per cent. In 1880
twenty American cities boasted 100,000 or more inhabitants, while
by 1900 there were thirty-eight such urban areas.. The big cities
grew at staggering rates: New York from 1,912,000 in 1880 to
3,437,000 in 1900; St. Louis from 351,000 to 575,000; Pittsburgh
from 235,000 to 452,000; and San Francisco from 234,000 to
343,000. Chicago recorded the most spectacular growth. In 1850,
the Windy City had a population of 30,000: in fifty years it
leaped to 1,699,000. Middle-sized cities like Detroit,'
Cleveland, Milwaukee and Omaha doubled in size during the same
period.34

Although rural areas grew far less dramatically than urban
centers, the farm population still increased by approximately 50
percent between 1860-1900. Lured by promises of cheap and
bounteous agricultural lands on the prairies and the Great
Plains, large numbers of people trekked westward during the
Gilded Age. -Some of the settlers were immigrants, but the
majority were eastern and midwestern farmers who had decided to
leave their respective agricultural regions for what they
believed were the more fertile and resilient soils of the Trans-
Mississippi West.35 The resulting population increases in those
areas had much to do with the admission of nine new states to the
Union, beginning with Nebraska in 1867. Colorado was granted
statehood nine years later, followed by Montana, Washington,
North Dakota and South Dakota, all in 1889. Idaho and Wyoming

were admitted in the following year, and, after the resolution of

127
the polygamy controversy, Utah became a state in 1896.

These widely dispersed people were connected by a railroad
network that expanded at an even greater rate than it had between
1840 and 1860. The first transcontinental railroad opened in
1869. By 1900 America boasted 193,000 miles of iron-and-steel
rails, over twice the mileage of 1880 and over five times the
mileage at the end of the Civil War. The largest increase in
track mileage was west of the Mississippi where the rails spread
out from 12,000 miles in 1870, to 32,000 in 1880, and 87,000 by
the end of the century. Railroads encouraged westward migration
by offering free transportation and real estate values to
potential settlers.' They also stimulated industrial growth both
as a giant consumer and as a conveyer of goods and services to
new markets. -Despite several problems associated with their
development, the railroads were largely responsible for the
general health of the busine33 economy during the period and for
the rapid settlement of the West.36

The dramatic growth of the railroads was but one among a
myriad of major technological developments in post-Civil War
America. Between 1860 and 1890, approximately 440,000 patents
were issued for new inventions, including those for the steam
boiler, electric lamp, telephone, telegraph stock ticker,
typewriter, elevator and linotype compositor.37 Such discoveries
not only increased industrial growth, public knowledge and
business efficiency, but they also provided the technological and

commercial impetus to develop even more sophisticated and

128
beneficial inventions. When Grover Cleveland pressed the button
that opened the 1893 Columbian Exposition near Chicago, a
massive, 14,000-horsepower engine began generating the
electricity to power every exhibit in Machinery Hall. Just
seventeen years earlier, visitors to the Centennial Exhibition in
Philadelphia had gaped in awe while the Corliss engine--featured
as a symbol of American industrial progress--produced a
comparatively paltry 1,400 horsepower.38
The dramatic population shifts, urban growth, technological

advancements and industrial expansion created great tensions in
the culture. Many Americans viewed such developments with great
optimism. The United States seemed on the brink of becoming one
of the richest and most powerful nations in the world.
Immigration and western expansion were creating new markets
which, in turn, would provide greater business opportunities.
Developments in transportation and communication were uniting the
nation as never before. The vast array of technological
improvements appeared to provide ample evidence of America’s
unlimited potential. Writing in 1884, the Harvard philosopher
and popular historian John Fiske conveyed a sense of the
exuberant faith shared by large segments of American society:

The future is lighted for us with radiant colours of

hope. Strife and sorrow shall disappear. Peace and

love shall reign supreme. The dream of poets, the

lesson of priest and prophet, the inspiration of the

great musician, is confirmed in the light of modern

knowledge; and . . . we may look forward to a time

when in the truest sense the kingdoms of this world

shall become the Kingdom of Christ.39

For others, however, the turbulent changes brought difficult

129

and troubling problems which seemed to threaten the stability of
American society. They pointed to the economic hardships and
subsequent political unrest among many farmers and workers. They
saw in the different languages and customs of immigrants a
serious threat to native values and traditions. They noted that
urban growth was accompanied by the proliferation of crime,
poverty and moral decay. They believed that much of the era’s
business prosperity came at the expense of the less powerful
segments of society. They viewed the accumulation of new
machines and gadgets as the harbinger of cultural decadence and,
ultimately, even social chaos. These feelings of anxiety and
pessimism were perhaps best expressed by Henry Adams, who, while
visiting the Great Exposition of 1900 in Paris, founding himself
"lying in the Gallery of Machines . . . his historical neck
broken by the sudden irruption of forces totally new."40 For the
bewildered Adams, all the newly unleashed teChnological power
seemed to be out of control. Upon arriving in New York City in
1904, Adams dolefully observed that:

The outline of the city became frantic in its effort

to explain something that defied meaning. Power

seemed to have outgrown its servitude and to have

asserted its freedom. The cylinder had exploded,

and thrown great masses of stone and steam against

the sky. The city had the air and movement of hysteria,

and the citizens were crying, in every accent of anger

and alarm, that the new forces must at any cost be

brought under control.41
For the sensitive and exceedingly pessimistic Adams and many

other Americans, the order and harmony of an earlier America had

been forever been displaced by the fragmentation, confusion and

130‘
discord of industrial society.

Thus, the result of the dramatic change that racked the Gilded
Age was a society torn between buoyant optimism, on one hand, and
cynicism, anxiety and fear on the other. Nowhere was this
ambivalence more apparent than in the agricultural sector.'
Continuing patterns established well before the Civil War,
farmers entered the Gilded Age eagerly embracing innovative
marketing practices, purchasing new, more sophisticated
implements and machinery, and expanding or diversifying their
farm operations. As time went on, however, agrarian optimism
began to erode in the wake of sustained economic hardship,
growing urban financial power and relentless social and
technological change. To better understand this dramatic shift
in agrarian attitudes, let us now consider the agricultural

developments during the Gilded Age.

The Troubled Farmer: American Agriculture Between 1865

and 189342

Settlement west of an imaginary line running from St. Paul,
Minnesota to Fort Worth, Texas proceeded very slowly during the
18603. The preoccupation with the Civil War and Indian troubles
on the frontier slowed the tide of migration into the Great West.
But homesteading rapidly increased in western Minnesota during
the late 18603 after thousands of young men were mustered out of
Grant’s and Lee’s armies. By the early 18703, a settlement boom

was well underway on the prairie regions of the Iowa-Minnesota-

131
Dakota-Nebraska frontier. .

As in earlier periods of westward expansion, many of the new
arrivals came from states just east of the frontier line. Except
for the dearth of trees, the upper midwestern prairie lands, with
their rolling terrain, rich brown soil and fairly dependable
rainfall, were very similar to farmland in Ohio, Illinois,
Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. Emigrants could use about the
same agricultural practices to grow corn and small grains, but
they could do so on cheaper land Northwest. Conventional wisdom
held that the region west and southwest of St. Paul to eastern
Kansas was the most promising farming area in the United States
not then under the plow.

Restless native Americans and large numbers of European
immigrants came to the prairies in droves. Many traveled by
covered wagon pulled by yokes of oxen, while others came by rail.
Often when settlers arrived, the free land was gone. Then they
had to either turn back or to buy acreage from railroad agents,
the state government or independent speculators. Those who had
covered wagons could also take their chances further west past
the 98th meridian. Some stopped on the Great Plains, while
others pushed on the California and the Pacific Northwest.

While many pioneers came to the prairies entirely of their own
volition, others found encouragement in the promotional
activities of railroads and state and territorial agencies.
Railroad recruiting officers operated throughout the East as well

as in northern Europe. The railroads would frequently haul

132
would-be settlers into Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota or the Dakotas
free of charge and then sell them grant land for between $2 and
$10 an acre, depending on location.43 Not to be outdone, the new
states and territories also established settlement or immigration
agencies to promote sales of their own lands in hopes of raising
revenues and increasing populations. When the established habit
of pioneering was coupled with free land policies or the
attractive inducements proffered by railroad companies and by
state and local governments, the subhumid prairies of the upper
and central frontier succumbed to settlement in a few short years
after the Civil War.

As the prairies east of the 98th meridian began filling up,
pioneers pushed west onto the Great Plains proper--an arid land
with ten to twenty inches of annual precipitation, a short grass
cover and almost entirely devoid of trees. Although scientists
in the United States Geological Survey continued to warn settlers
that the region was unsuitable for conventional farming, the dry
governmental reports were no match for either the restless
pioneering will or for the ebullient promotional rhetoric from
the railroads and local communities. By 1880 settlers were
taking up homesteads and buying land in the westernmost regions
of Kansas. In the next decade, similar agricultural settlements
had spread throughout western Nebraska and on into eastern
Colorado.44

The first settlers on the Plains usually selected farming

sites along streams or in river bottoms where water was readily

133

available and wood could be found for building. But such sites
were quickly exhausted, and the farmers who came later had to
establish their homesteads on the open, treeless Plains. These
later settlers had to either dig deep wells or haul their water
great distances. Because lumber was scarce on the Plains,
settlers typically built their houses, and sometimes shelters for
their livestock, out of blocks of the grass sod. Sod houses were
not aesthetically pleasing and often lacked windows, but because
of the thickness of the walls, they were relatively warm in the
winter and cool in the summer, an important consideration given
the extreme climatic vicissitudes on the Plains.45

In the 18703, settlers in western Minnesota and the eastern
Dakotas usually planted wheat as their cash crop and patches of
potatoes and other vegetables for family use. Farmers in Kansas
and Nebraska usually planted corn as the major cash crop and a
garden for family use. But because most of these settlers came
from humid areas, either in the United States or in Europe, and
knew little conserving soil moisture, their cash crops often
shriveled and failed. The lack of experience in farming a more
arid climate was compounded by the occurrence of one weather-
related disaster after the other. Droughts, hot winds, dust
storms, prairie fires and grasshoppers were a constant menace to
crop production. The Plains environment proved a hard and cruel
teacher, and many first-generation settlers were forced to
abandon their farms and either move further west to the Pacific

slope or return to family and relatives in the East.

134

For every pioneer family that failed, another quickly came
along and took its place, so that grain produdtion on the Great
Plains was firmly established by 1890. In the process, however,
grain farmers encountered problems other than a hostile physical
environment. One was the severe economic conditions created by a
combination of factors including low commodity prices,
constricted credit and high interest rates. Another was the
cattlemen who competed with the farmers for the open plains
lands. The business of cattle ranching on the Great Plains was
exciting and even profitable after the railroads reached the area
in the 18703. Ranchers wanted to keep the range open for .
grazing, but grain farmers wanted to cultivate it. In some
cases, the land disputes between the "sod-busters" and the
ranchers were resolved legally; at other times, the differences
were settled by open, and often bloody range wars. Gradually,
the crop farmers prevailed by sheer force of numbers, and by the
18903, little open range land remained. Cattle barons fenced
their large ranches to keep cattle in, and the grain farmers
fenced their smaller holding to keep the cattle out.46

The process of farm mechanization which was well underway in
the 18403 and which reached widespread proportions in the 18503,
continued and accelerated between 1860 and 1893. The shortage of
manpower on farms during the Civil War years greatly stimulated
the use of labor-saving cultivators, reapers and mowing machines.
The intensified use of new farm machinery occurred primarily in

the Midwest, on the eastern fringe of the Great Plains, and in

135
California and the Pacific Northwest. Eastern farmers were
concentrating on dairying and specialty crops, enterprises which
had not yet been significantly mechanized. But on the vast
grain-producing prairies of the Midwest and on the Plains,
farmers were rapidly adopting new planting, cultivating and
harvesting technologies.

The new and improved machines that made the greatest impact on
cropping operations in this period included the riding, or sulky,
plow, the spring tooth harrow, the seed drill, row crop
cultivators, forage mowers, the twine binder, and grain-threshing
machines. The grain combine also made its appearance in the far
West. The early combines were propelled by huge teams of draft
animals, and keeping these teams fed and sheltered was expensive
and time-consuming. A3 a result, steam tractors began to appear
on large farms and ranches in the far West in the 18903. But
they proved unreliable and dangerous. There was always the risk
that sparks from an engine would set a field of ripe grain on
fire. Thus steam tractors enjoyed a relatively brief period of
prominence in American agricultural history before the gasoline
tractor displaced it.47

Other important advances in transportation and food processing
helped expand production and marketing opportunities for farmers.
Both water and rail transportation improved during the Gilded Age
as time in transit and shipping costs fell. The development of
the refrigerator car meant that growers and distributors could

ship fresh meat and produce over long distances. The birth of

136

the canning industry opened up a market for large quantities of
fruits and vegetables which led to the development of specialized
truck farming. Commercial canning of perishable commodities
preserved food so that it could be easily stored, handled and
transported.48

The continued settlement of the prairies and the Great Plains,
along with the advances in production, transportation and
processing technologies, acceleratedthe agricultural
specialization that had gained momentum in the 18403 and 18503.
Given the comparative economies of scale, farmers in the East and
Midwest simply could not compete with the western grain growers.
The Northeast continued to specialize in fruit, truck crops, and
dairy production-~particu1arly dairy production. The region
lying north of the Ohio River and stretching westward from
western Ohio, across Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and into eastern
Nebraska and Kansas, as well as northward into the southern tiers
of counties in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, became the
Corn Belt. Some of the surplus corn produced in this region was
shipped to the Eastern Seaboard and some was exported abroad, but
most was used to fatten the hogs and beef cattle needed to
satisfy America’s growing appetite for red meat. North of the
Corn Belt, in the Lake States, farmers began specializing in
manufactured dairy products. In the western part of this area,
in Wisconsin and Minnesota, small grain production remained
important in the nineteenth century. But wheat production kept

moving westward until it reached the Great Plains, and there it

137
stopped. The Great Plains became one great wheat-producing belt
from the Canadian border to northern Texas. Certain areas on the
Plains (e.g., the Flint Hills of Kansas and the Sand Hills of
Nebraska) that did not lend themselves to crop production became
enclaves of cattle ranching, but the remainder of the Great
Plains with an average annual rainfall of fifteen inches or more
became one great wheat field. On the western edge of the Plains,
where annual precipitation fell below fifteen inches, and in the
Rocky Mountain and the intermountain regions outside the
irrigated valleys, cattle and sheep ranching became firmly
established in the 18803 and 18903. The irrigated valleys of
the mountain, intermountain, and Pacific regions of the Great
West turned to the production of fruit and truck crops in the
late nineteenth century. Although some agricultural production
areas have shifted slightly in the twentieth century, the
specialized regions that existed by 1900 largely remain today.

By any previous standard of measurement, agricultural change
during the Gilded Age was staggering. Between 1867 and 1900
farmers put more land under cultivation than they had opened up
in the previous 260 years. Between 1860 and 1900, the number of
U.S. farms rose from 2,044,077 to 5,739,657, and improved farm
acreage increased from 163,110,720 to 414,793,191. About
1,141,276 of the new farms and about 130,730,000 acres of
improved land were added by the 19 western states and territories
settled after 1860.49 The more than doubling of the land in

farms, the increased specialization in production, and the '

138
widespread substitution of machines for human labor dramatically
affected total farm output. Between 1870 and 1900, total farm
output increased by 135 percent. Between 1870 and 1880, alone,
output increased by 53 percent.

The dramatic increases in farm production were the result of
more farms, more agricultural workers, more machines and more
acres under cultivation. Yields per acre of wheat, corn, barley,
cotton, hay and potatoes increased but slightly. In economic
terms, agricultural growth in the Gilded Age was extensive rather
than intensive. Between 1866 and 1900, wheat production
increased almost four times, corn production three and a half
times, barley six and a half times and cotton almost five times.
The number of cattle on farms approximately doubled between 1867
and 1900, and the number of hogs on farms increased by about 50
percent. Output was increasing across the spectrum of
commodities, but the greatest growth was in the traditional
crops.

As his operation became more productive, specialized and
commercialized, the farmer increasingly came to view himself as a
modern businessman. The object of farming was no longer simply
to make a living, but to make money. Many beef, pork, dairy and
vegetable producers began selling their commodities to marketing
agents, jobbers and other middlemen representing urban
wholesalers and merchandisers. Following the lead of progressive
Wisconsin and Minnesota dairymen, agrarians began forming their

own cooperative marketing associations to more profitably sell

139
their products. Farmers also began adopting more sophisticated
bookkeeping procedures, especially cost accounting. More
sophisticated management and marketing practices were also
encouraged in the agricultural press and taught in the newly
emerging land-grant colleges.

As he became more concerned with efficient management and
marketing, the farmer’s attitude toward labor changed. He
gradually came to regard himself not merely as an independent-
working man, but as an employer and commercial proprietor.
Traditionally, the hired hand on most northern American farms had
been treated like a member of the family. During the second half
of the nineteenth century, the hired man was gradually moved out
of the parlor and, then, out of the house. What had been an
informal, egalitarian relationship between the farmer and his
helpers became formal and stratified. This increasing*
identification with the employer class had a great deal to do
with the rural hostility toward the labor movements which were
occurring during the period.50

With the prevailing agricultural expansion, the increased
productivity in all major commodity groups and the growing
business acumen of the farmer-manager, one may well wonder why
agrarians became more and more disenchanted as the Gilded Age
progressed. A large part of the growing anger and resentment was
the result of the "nearly continuous depressions" farmers endured
between 1867 and 1898.51 As production figures soared, commodity

prices fell irregularly but persistently from the_end of the

140

Civil War until 1896. The price of wheat dropped sharply from
$2.06 per bushel in 1866 to 95 cents per bushel in 1874 and then
declined irregularly to 49 cents per bushel in 1894. Corn
followed a similar pattern, declining from 75 cents per bushel in
1869 to 31 cents per bushel in 1878, and then to 21 cents per
bushel in 1896. In Kansas, during the late 1800’s, corn dropped
a low as 10 cents a bushel and was burned for fuel instead of the
more expensive coal. The index of prices received by farmers for
all farm products (1910-14=100) declined from 119 in 1869 to 66
in 1878 and then to 53 in 1896.52

With sharply falling product prices, particularly in the 18703
and again in the 18903, the gross returns of the average farmer
also had to fall. If he was buying his land or equipment on time
at a fixed price, as many were, this meant that he had to meet
fixed payments out of a declining gross income. The fact that
nonfarm-produced goods were falling at about the same rate as
farm products was of no great consequence for most farmers
because they had always held their purchases of nonfarm-produced
consumer goods to a minimum. Further, although railroad freight
rates were also falling during this period, the decline in the
official rates did not keep pace with the decline in farm product
prices. And where the railroads held monopolies in the great
grain—growing regions west of Chicago, and, to a somewhat lesser
extent in the East, the farmer-users were subjected to all types
of rate and service discrimination and abuse. In the 18703 (to a

lesser extent in the 18803) and in the 18903, farmers found

141

themselves in a situation where their gross returns were down but
that their fixed financial commitments were not. When they tried
to borrow money to meet their obligations, they were told that
ready cash was scarce and interest rates were high. When short-
term loans were available in western communities, the interest
often ran as high as 3 percent a month--about double that for
eastern farmers. Plowmen began to believe they were being
bullied and cheated by railroads, bankers, and middlemen. It was
little wonder that they began talking darkly about monopolistic
conspiracies and the shadowy intricacies of high finance.53

Another important, but often ignored cause of agrarian
economic woes in this period was the basic, and recurring problem
of overproduction. Total farm output, it will be recalled,
increased 53 percent between 1870 and 1880, but the population of
the United States increased only 26 percent. In other words,
approximately one-half of the increased farm output in the 18703
had to find a "market" either abroad or in the form of increased
per capita food consumption at home. Farm exports did
substantially increase during this period, and domestic per
capita food consumption probably increased somewhat. But these
two avenues of increased use, even when coupled with the large
U.S. population growth, could not come close to paralleling the
tremendous production surge. Ironically, then, farmers
contributed to their own economic malaise even as they were
becoming better producers and more efficient managers.54

The farmers on the western prairies and the Great Plains were

142

beset not only with economic woes, but with the tremendous
physical hardships mentioned above. While the eastern or
midwestern farmer might have to sell his commodities at depressed
prices, at least he could generally count on having the crops to
market. Prairie fires, hail, drought, and, worst of all,
grasshoppers could wipe out an entire crop, leaving virtually
nothing to sell. Drought and the gra33hopper plagues were
particularly sinister because they affected large geographic
areas and decimated thousands of western farmers. Because their
financial resources were limited, most of these pioneer farmers
could ill afford to lose even a portion of their harvest. The
loss of one entire crop meant, at best, short rations for a year.
At the worst, it meant bankruptcy and, in many cases, starvation.

Destitution was widespread on the central Plains frontier in
the 18703. Economic conditions improved somewhat in the early
18803, and the dreaded grasshopper plague seemed to have worn
itself out. Farmers were learning to live and farm under semi-
arid conditions. But the recurrence of widespread drought in the
late 18803 and desperate economic conditions in the early 18903
caused even greater hardships on the Plains in those years.

Throughout America, but especially in the South and West,
farmers responded to the hard times of the 18703, 18803, and
18903 by well-organized and collective business and political
actions. In so doing, they at least partially abandoned
traditional agrarian beliefs in self-reliance, rugged

individualism and the negative state. This was the first

143

widespread agrarian uprising of such a nature in American
history. The membership of the Patrons of Husbandry, better
known as the Grange, reached an estimated 1.5 million in 1874 and
continued to grow until early in 1875. The Farmers Alliance
movement, which operated under several different names and which
sometimes had separate organizations in the North and in the
South, claimed over a million members in 1890. The Populist
political party emerged in large measure out of the Farmers’
Alliances and met with considerable success in 1892, particularly
in the West, when over a million votes were cast.for its
presidential candidate, James B. Weaver of Iowa. Its reached its
zenith in 1894 when it received a million and a half votes and
elected seven congressmen and six senators to the United States
Congress.55

The Grange attempted to help the farmer in two general ways:
(1) by enacting legislation in the states for the regulation of
railroads and (2) by establishing marketing, processing,
manufacturing, and purchasing cooperatives for its members. In
the short run, the Grange was unsuccessful in both these economic
ventures. Within a few years most of the granger laws--railroad
regulatory 1aws--were repealed or declared invalid by the courts,
and most of the cooperative ventures failed financially. But, in
1876, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of states to regulate
the railroads. And in their cooperative business ventures the
Grangers learned some valuable lessons which ultimately helped

later farmers’ groups.

144

The Farmers’ Alliances were active in everything from catching
horse and cattle thieves to advocating the free and unlimited
coinage of silver. On most issues they met with only limited
success, but they were successful in 1891 in conjunction with the
Knights of Labor and the Patrons of Industry and other reform
organizations in forming the new Populist party. In order to
achieve this union of farm and labor interests, the Alliance
temporarily overcame a growing rural distrust of labor unions.
The Populists advocated such progressive measures as a national
currency issued and managed by the federal government, the free
coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, government ownership
and control of the railroads and telegraph lines, and the
abolition of land monopolies. Although many farmers in the East
and Midwest looked somewhat askance at the Populist Movement,
they were in basic agreement with many of the party’s platform
planks--especially those relative to railroad regulation and the
abolition of monopolies. A major bone of contention, however,
was the silver plank. Most eastern farmers were not strapped
with the same credit and cash flow burdens as their western
counterparts. They felt more secure with the gold standard and
regarded bimetallism as a dangerous tampering with economic
laws.‘56

In 1892, the Populists succeeded in casting more than a
million votes and two years later they increased their totals by
half. Then, in hopes of exerting a major influence on the

Presidency, the Populists fused with the Democrats in support of

145
William Jennings Bryan in 1896. It was a gamble that failed
along with Bryan’s candidacy, and the Populist party thereafter
virtually disintegrated.

While most of the reforms advocated by Alliancemen and
Populists were not enacted until the Progressive Era, agrarian
political activism did lead to some significant legislative gains
during the Gilded Age. At the federal level, farm-group pressure
was instrumental in the passage of both the Interstate Commerce
Act in 1887 and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. Although
these measures proved largely ineffectual, they at least marked
the beginning of governmental attempts to regulate abusive
business practices. Also in 1887, Congress passed the Hatch Act
which provided for the creation of a national network of
agricultural experiment stations where scientists could conduct
research beneficial to farmers. Earlier agrarian political
pressure had prompted the establishment of the United States
Department of Agriculture in 1862. Although the U.S.D.A. was
primarily research oriented, it achieved a greater degree of
political standing in 1889 when President Cleveland made the.
Department’s chief executive a secretary of agriculture. The
same measure provided for an assistant secretary of agriculture
to be appointed by the President.

The more exciting political action was occurring at the state
and local levels. Much of this official intervention came as a
direct result of increased agrarian agitation through the Grange

and Farmer’s Alliance. While the federal g0vernment was mouthing

146

the rhetoric of laissez faire and the negative state, the
Grangers were securing at least temporary state legislation
setting rates and rules for railroads. In such strong Alliance
regions as Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and the Dakotas,
state and local governments regularly wrestled with the problem
of helping their destitute settlers. Sometimes these governments
sponsored voluntary relief organizations that raised funds within
the state and in the East. In Minnesota during the difficult
winter of 1871-72, Governor Austin appealed to the public for
contributions of cash and food to assist the suffering settlers.
A relief fund of nearly $20,000 was created and distributed to
impoverished families in amounts ranging from $5 to $25 to buy
food and seed for the coming year. On some occasions, the state
governments approved emergency relief legislation earmarking
funds for food and seed. In February 1872, the Kansas
legislature passed a relief law in the amount of $2,000 for the
purpose of helping farmers buy corn, oats and wheat seed. Such
humanitarian acts, as limited as they were, helped many pioneer
families survive. They also provided an enlightened contrast to
such deplorable measures as President Cleveland’s veto of a bill
to distribute free seed to draught-stricken Texas settlers in
1887.57 .

Increasingly, farmers attempted to use the power of government
to create an economic system that was more responsive to their
needs. It was true that during the first half of the nineteenth

century, agrarians had consistently urged federal support for

147
liberalized land distribution policies, agricultural colleges and
institutes and the establishment of an independent department of
agriculture. To achieve these ends, agricultural leaders calmly
encouraged farmers to write letters to their congressmen, and
local agricultural societies sent redundant, but polite
resolutions calling for state and federal action. During the
18703, 803 and 903, however, agrarians exerted organized, and
often strident political pressure on the federal government to
curb the power of great monopolies, to create a more flexible and
liberal monetary system, and to reform the tax system. They
largely failed in these efforts because they did not fully
understand the complexities of the economic system which they
sought to reform and because they could not match the power of
the entrenched economic interests which they sought to regulate.
But the hard lessons they learned would help future agrarians win
important political battles throughout the twentieth century--
victories that accumulated even as the numbers of American
farmers continued to decline.

But the "Golden Age" of agriculture was well beyond the
purview of those farmers struggling through Gilded Age. Despite
their attempts to combat hard times with technological
improvements, better management strategies, and concerted-'
political pressure, economic conditions continued to deteriorate,
especially in the West. In retrospect, it is easy to see that
farmers were operating as if a free enterprise system still

existed when forces were already at work to ensure its demise.

148

They were becoming more sophisticated small businessmen just as
the economic world was becoming dominated by large corporations.
Further, they were becoming more politically aggressive at a time
when the political system was being massaged and manipulated by
interest groups more organized and more powerful than they were.

The hard-working yeoman could scarcely understand these
developments, let alone anticipate them. All he knew was that he
was operating his business with greater efficiency and producing
more and better crops. Yet, he found himself battling debt,
monopolies, low prices and tight credit. Although he was aligned
against great combinations of industry and finance, the average
farmer had assimilated the ideal of opportunity and business
success to the extent that he found it as difficult to join
forces with the wage labor below as to sympathize with the great
accumulations of capital above. Increasingly, he found himself
isolated from forces and events he felt powerless to control. It
is little wonder that his traditional optimism gave way to
pessimism and cynicism. He was no longer convinced that
agriculture offered a superior way of life, and his faith in the
agrarian creed began to erode. .

He had thought himself the nation’s mainstay, source

of its values, but occupied a minority economic status.

The system that had lightened labor and increased

productivity extended his reach but not his grasp.58

As H. Wayne Morgan observes, it was not easy for the proud,
self-sufficient yeomen to accept sole responsibility for their

economic troubles.59 As their fiscal woes mounted and their

frustrations deepened, many farmers looked for others to blame.

149

Hostility toward mortgage companies, banks, railroads and food
processors coalesced into a widespread belief in economic
conspiracy. Many farmers were convinced they were victims of a
large, powerful and carefully coordinated "money trust." This
belief was fueled, in part, by the various injustices that
financiers and industrialists had perpetrated against farmers
and, in part, by the age-old agrarian distrust of anything
associated with the city. In a more salubrious economic
environment, this traditional anti-urbanism could be tempered by
the argument that growing cities provided more customers and
greater marketing opportunities. During hard times, however, the
city once again became a den of vice and corruption, the home of
shadowy and conspiratorial bankers, brokers, lawyers and middle
men--all of whom were out to get the farmers.60

While monopolies, trusts and railroad cartels may have been
legitimate objects of agrarian enmity, immigrants were not.
Toward the end of the 18803, U.S. immigration patterns began to
change,owith more and more people arriving from southern and
eastern Europe. Like most Americans, farmers had eagerly
welcomed the foreign-born from western Europe and the British
Isles throughout the 18603, 18703 and early 18803. By the early
18903, however, agrarians were vehemently denouncing America’s
open-door policies. It is difficult to determine how much of this
ethnic intolerance was the result of deteriorating economic
conditions and how much was due to the inability or unwillingness

to accept racial and cultural differences. Whatever the

150
reasons, farmers increasingly objected to the alleged ignorance,
immorality and anti-Americanism of the newcomers. The immigrants
were seen as an inferior caste, and farmers wanted them barred
from America’s shores.

The immigrant was not the only innocent target of agrarian
resentment. Like most Americans during the Gilded Age, farmers
became increasingly intolerant of Native Americans and Blacks.
Agrarian perceptions of the Indian reflected the common
stereotypes, ranging from the savage and treacherous warrior-
brave to the begrimed, child-like primitive. Blacks were
regarded as indolent, conniving, and perpetually good natured.
While these racial stereotypes had long existed in rural America,
they were rarely found in the northern agricultural press prior
to 1870. As the Gilded Age wore on and economic conditions
worsened, racist humor and commentary appeared with increasing
frequency in a great many farm papers.61

All the agrarian responses to industrial America-~both the
progressive and retrogressive--commonly appeared in the
agricultural papers during the Gilded Age. Less and less was
written about the fundamental relationship between agriculture
and democratic government or the rugged virtue of the American
yeoman. Poetic tributes to the farmer and farming largely
disappeared from the pages of the agricultural press.
Increasingly, editorials and letters focused on such matters as
cooperative associations, monopolies, politics and immigration.

In the process, the image of the farmer in the agricultural press

151
changed from the heroic yeoman of yesteryear to the businessman-

nativist which, in many ways, it remains today.

NOTES

1Paul W. Gates, The Farmer’s Age: Agriculture. 18i5-i869, Vol.

III of he n 'c His or e n'te es (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1960), pp. 402-3.

2John T. Schlebecker, Whareby We aniva; A History 9: Anarigan
Earning, 1697-;272 (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Univ. Press, 1975),

pp. 151-3 and Fred A. Shannon, The Farmer’s Last Frontier:

 

Agricultura. 1860-1897, Vol. V of T cono ' st of the
Unitad Statag (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945), pp. 126-8.
3Earl W. Hayter, The Troubled Farmer, i850-1299 (DeKalb, 111.-

Northern Ill. Univ. Press, 1968), p. 4.

4The information in the following section was primarily
compiled from: Percy Wells Bidwell and John I. Falconer, History

of A r cultu e ' th No thern 'ted States - 860
(Washington, D.C., 1925; rpt. New York: Peter Smith, 1941);
Willard W. Cochrane, The De elo ment 0 America r' tu

Historical Anaiysis (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minn. Press, 1979, pp.
13-77: Gates, Tna Farmer’arAqa: and Schlebecker, finaraby_fla
Thrive, pp. 57-137.

5Allan G. Bogue, From Prairie r9 Qgrn Be eit: Earning on tha

Iilinoia and Tgwa Prairies in the Ninateenth Century (Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1963), pp. 29- -46.

6Schlebecker, pp. 57-70.

7References to the moving frontier line correspond to a map
based on census data from 1800-1860 in Ross M. Robertson, Hiatgry

gr rna Anerican Economy, 2nd ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and
World, 1964), p. 108.

8Schlebecker, pp. 93-6.

9151d1. pp. 102-3.

10Cochrc‘me. W. p- 72:
Gates, pp. 169-72.

11Cochrane, pp. 76-7.

12Gates, pp. 398-420.

152

153

13121d1. pp. 418-9-

14H. Wayne Morgan, "Toward National Unity," in The Giided
Agg, ed. H. Wayne Morgan, 2nd ed. (Syracuse: Syracuse Univ.
Press, 1970), p. 1.

15Matthew Josephson, The Boiiticos; 1§§§- i826 (New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1938): he o h ea

e is s 861- 190 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Co., 1934.

15Sean Dennis Cashman, America in the giidad Age: Erom tha

Death at Lincoin t9 the Rise of Theoggre Roosaveit (New York: New
York Univ. Press, 1984), p. 4.

17Richard A. Bartlett, "General Introduction,” in The Gilded

Age: Anarica, 1865-1900, ed. Richard A. Bartlett (Reading, Mass.:
Addison-Wesley, 1969), pp. 1- 2..

18Paul Boller, Jr., merl a

A____s_n_Thnght_in_Transitisni_Ths
Inpagt gt Ev Whintig ary Naturalism. i§65 -1gQQ (Chicago: Rand
McNally, 1969), pp. xi-xiii.

19H. Wayne Morgan, "Toward National Unity," p. 3.

20Edward C. Kirkland, Industry game a at Aga; Bus inaga, La aho orI

and_£ublis_£slisx_1§§Q:1§21 Vol VI of The.£ssnsmis_ni§tgrx__f
the United §tata§ (New York: Holt, Rinehart 8 Winston, 1961), pp.

408-9.

21George M. Fredrickson, The In C ' W : No t e
In . the risis o 0 (New York: Harper &
Row, 1965), p. 188.

22Norman Pollack, in Syllabus for History 335: "The Gilded
Age: Foundations of Modern American Capitalism," Michigan State
Univ., Spring Term, 1983, p. 1.

23Sidney Fine, 'ssez Fair - a e
(Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1956), p. 96.
24Fon W. Boardman, Jr., America ang tha Gilgag hga; 1876-

;909 (New York: Henry 2. Walck, 1972), pp. 14-33: R. Hal
Williams, "’Dry Bones and Dead Language’: The Democratic Party"
in Ih§_§il_§Q_A§§. ed. Morgan, pp. 129-48; and Cashman, hnariga
in_;h§__ilds§_bs§. PP- 214 54-

25John Tipple, "Big Businessmen," in Tha_§ilgag_hga, ed.
Morgan, p. 16: Boardman, America and e' 7 - ,

pp. 39-60; and Cashman, pp. 47-53.

154

26Tipple, "Big Businessmen," pp. 15-17. Professor Tipple
notes that when Carnegie and Rockefeller stepped down from
corporate leadership to become private citizens,."the rancor
against them almost ceased. Instead of being censured for past
actions . . . they were praised as benefactors and good
citizens." (p. 16). .

27See Irvin G. Wyllie, he Se - a e a: Th th
gt_3ag§_tg_gigha§ (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press,
1954).

28According to Paul Boller, Jr., it was social scientists,
journalists and economists who read and understood Spencer and
Social Darwinism. Carnegie was one of the few (if not the only)
prominent industrialists well-versed in Spencerian thought. Most
businessmen preferred to portray themselves "in terms of hard
work and Christian stewardship, not in terms of Social Darwinist

concepts.” hnerican Thought in Transitign, pp. 52-6.

29Fine. Laissez_Eairs_and_the_§eneral_flelfars:§tats, pp- 3-
14. - -

3oTipple, p. 18.

31Fine, pp. 96-110.
321bid., p. 25.

33Population figures were taken from Boardman, p. 11 and
Cashman, p. 13.

34Boardman, p. 106.

35Shannon, pp. 35-41; Boardman, pp. 102-4: and Cashman, pp.
87-93. As Shannon notes, between 1870 and 1880, every state east
of the Mississippi (except for slight gains along the Atlantic
coast) showed a net population loss due to western migration.
This included the states of Iowa and Missouri which, in the
previous decade, had experienced significant population gains (p.
39).

36Fred A. Shannon, The gentennial Xaara, ed. Robert Huhn
Jones (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 264-7: Boardman,
pp. 62-3: Cashman, pp. 26-34: and Schlebecker, pp. 93-6.

37Cashman, pp. 13-4.

38Shannon, Tha Qantenniai Tears, pp. 278-9 and Cashman, pp.
10-2. .

155

39John Fiske, The Destiny of Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1884), pp. 118-9, quoted in Paul F. Boller, "The New Science and

American Thought," in Morgan, The Gilgeg Age, p. 253.

40Henry Adams, The Education,of Henry Agamg, Modern Library
ed. (1918: rpt. New York: Random House, 1931), p. 382.

41Adams, Tha Education at Henry Adamg, p. 499. Adams’ was

not a solitary voice crying out in what he saw as the wilderness
of industrial America. .While discussing the public reaction to
evolutionary naturalism, Paul Boller suggests that both
scientists and laymen believed that the new creed, which
substituted "flux for fixity" and "chance for constancy . . .
threatened to replace design with disorder and the absolute with

the absurd.fi (American Thought in Transitign, p. 21.)

42The Information in the following section was primarily

compiled from: Gilbert C. Fite, a nt 6 - 900
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, a1966): Robert G. Athearn,
n he Hi h Pla' Rock'es (New York:

McGraw Hill, 1960), pp. 179- 256; Shannon, The Farmer’s Last
Frontier and The Centennial Years, pp. 161-199: Cochrane, Tha
hev eignnant gr Anarican Agricuiture, pp. 78- 121: and Schlebecker,
W. pp- 138- 205-

43A typical railroad promotion advertisement appeared on the
inside front cover of the January 1877 issue of the hahragha
Earhar. A portion of the copy reads: "The Burlington and
Missouri River Railroad company in Nebraska has for sale a large
body of the Choicest Farming Lands in the West. Which it offers
on most favorable terms of payment, to those in search of homes
in this new and fertile state. These lands are situated in the
various Counties tributary to the Company’s Road . . . THE SOIL
IS A RICH LOAM of the best quality, slightly intermixed with
sand, and is unsurpassed in fertility. The area of cheap
agricultural lands is rapidly diminishing, and within a very few
years there will be practically none left. Nebraska represents
the western limit of the rich prairies of America, and only asks
that farmers in the overcrowded Eastern states will come and help
develop her great resources."

44Athearn, high Country Empira, pp. 179-203.

45Everett N. Dick, T e Sod-Hous 5 - (New
York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1937 carefully recounts actual
living conditions on the western prairies.

46Shannon, The Earmer’s Last Frontiar, pp. 197-207: Athearn,
pp. 127-151; 179‘204.

47Schlebecker, pp. 174-98.

156

481hid., pp. 164-73.
49Fite, a ers’ Frontie 1865- 9 , p. 223.

50Paul H. Johnstone, "Old Ideals Versus New Ideas in Farm
Life," in Earnsrs in a Changing World; Ths Tsa arhpph pf
Agrisnltnrsr_1219, ed. Gove Hambidge (Washington, D. C.: U. S.
Dept. of Agriculture, 1940), pp. 144-52: Schlebecker,
pp. 168-9.

51Schlebecker, p. 161.

52Parity is defined as "that price of a unit of farm product
for the period in question which will give that unit a purchasing
power equal to the purchasing power that it had in 1910-14."
(Cochrane, pp. 383-4.) Those years became the basis of the
parity price index (100) because they were years in which farm
prosperity was at an all-time high. The period has become known
as the "Golden Age of Agriculture." Any index which falls below
100 indicates weakened commodities prices and declining
prosperity.

53Shannon, The Centennial Years, pp. 161-180: Hayter, pp. 3-
11; Fite, pp. 215-222: and Athearn, pp. 204-211.

54Cochrane, pp. 93-96.

- 55Literature on the Grange, the Farmers Alliance movement and
Populism is extensive. Besides brief treatments in most of the
works cited in this chapter, see Solon J. Buck, Ths_§rangsr
hpysnsnt (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1913): John D. Hicks,
Ths Populist hsvoit (1931; rpt. Lincoln: Univ of Nebraska Press,

1961); Fred A. Shannon, American Earmers’ hovements (Princeton:
Van Nostrand, 1957): Norman Pollack, The Populist Responss to
Indnstriai America (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1962) and

Robert C. McMath, Jr., The Populist yangnarg (New York: Norton,
1977).

56Shannon, The Earner’s Last Ergntisr, pp. 315-28.

57President Cleveland’s veto of "An Act to Enable the
Commissioner of Agriculture to Make a Special Distribution of
Seeds in the Drought-Stricken Counties of Texas, and Making an
Appropriation Therefor" in Bartlett, pp. 140-2. At least one
notable exception to federal indifference toward agrarian misery
was the U.S. Army. Units stationed in Nebraska and Kansas began
the unauthorized feeding of hungry farmers in the early 18703.
Congress approved the practice in 1875, and army units
distributed nearly two million rations to over 100,000 people in
Minnesota, Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Colorado in the
spring of 1875. (Cochrane, p. 97.)

157

58H. Wayne Morgan, "Populism and Agriculture," in The gilded
Age, p. 156.

59Thigr, p. 155. As Professor Morgan points out, "agrarians
were not united in discontent." Many more prosperous eastern and
midwestern farmers had little sympathy with some of the Alliance
and Populist measures, especially those related to currency
regulation. But, if the agricultural press is any indication,
farmers across the country shared many viewpoints, including
hostility toward monOpolies and inconsistent freight rates and
support for cooperative marketing arrangements.

5°Thiat, pp. 150-8: Athearn, pp. 204-216 and Fite, pp. 55-74.

61The increased hostility toward immigrants, Native Americans
and Blacks during the Gilded Age was not confined to the
farmstead. In fact, agrarian responses reflected a culture-wide
trend toward nativism and racism. (Boardman, pp. 93-110 and
Cashman, pp. 102-109.)

CHAPTER 4--Parmers in the Vanguard: Economic and Political

Progressivism, 1873-1893

The stirring tributes to the American yeoman that had
sprinkled the pages of the early nineteenth-century agricultural
press began to diminish by the late 18403 and early 18503.
References to farming as America’s fundamental pursuit and to the
farmer as the nation’s moral beacon and the backbone of
democratic government became increasingly infrequent. By the
18703, the yeoman image had virtually disappeared from the
columns of the farm papers. The letters, poems and speeches that
had so frequently proclaimed the yeoman’s moral and economic
superiority rarely appeared. As the nineteenth century
progressed, farm editors and their readers became more concerned
with the commercial and technological dimensions of agriculture
and less preoccupied with the moral and philosophical aspects.
They also became more attuned to the importance of cooperation
and somewhat less committed to rugged individualism and self-
sufficiency. Throughout the post-Civil War period, this
cooperative ethos found expression in both the economic and
political arenas.

This agrarian emphasis on commerce and technological
improvement was not new, but the acceptance of economic and

political cooperation was unprecedented. Since the Ansrisan

158

159
Earmer made its debut in 1819, the agricultural press
consistently encouraged commercial and technological progress,
while talk of cooperative enterprises was limited to the social
and, occasionally, the local political arenas. As previously
discussed, however, the second half of the nineteenth century
witnessed a multitude of dramatic changes which profoundly
affected rural life. The rapid development of new technologies,
the growth of foreign and domestic markets, the increased
transportation capabilities and renewed westward expansion
exerted tremendous pressure on farmers to "become cogs in a vast
and infinitely complex economic machine."1 Despite the anxiety
and bewilderment they experienced in the midst of such tumultuous
changes, farmers wasted little time lamenting the passage of a
simpler, more secure way of life. Instead, in their time-
honored fashion, farmers looked industrial America straight in
the eye, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work.

If commercial agriculture could be considered a religion, then
its "Holy Trinity" might well be Efficiency, Productivity and
Profit. Many of the traditional practices associated with
subsistence farming were forsaken in the wake of
commercialization and specialization. Writing to the Erairie
Earnsr in 1868, a reader argues that:

The old rule that a farmer should produce all that

he required, and that the surplus represented his gains,

is part of the past. Agriculture, like all other

business, is better for its subdivisions, each one

growing that which is best suited to his soil, climate,

and market, and with its proceed purchase his other needs.

Several years later, a correspondent to Ths Nehrasha Earner

160
explains that "under pioneer conditions the object of agriculture
was simply one of maintenance." Although farming was strenuous,
the problems were relatively simple. "The only question at the
end of the year was whether enough had been produced to last the
family and their animals until another year." Under current
conditions, the writer continues, the "object of farming is not
primarily to make a living, but it is to make money."3 By 1890,
the editors of ThsyFarnyJournal can confidently proclaim that
farming is "now a manufacturing business."

There are two ends to the business, producing cost at

one end, and selling price at the other, and between

lie the profits. If we cannot get more price when

we sell we must be at less cost when we produce, or

the space between the two will be . . . too narrow

for profit to find any standing room.

It stood to reason that if agriculture was a business, then
the best way to be a successful farmer was to become a shrewd
businessman. Despite the traditional agrarian animosity toward
the city and the concomitant suspicion of urban economic
complexities, most farm management changes were inspired by the
practices of urban businessmen. In a letter to the
The Qountry Gentleman, B.G. Packard asserts that "the business of
farming is a strictly honorable one, and, if rightly conducted,
pns of the most healthy, pleasant and profitable employments that
a man can engage in [italics mine]." Packard recommends that if
one wishes to be a successful farmer, "he must be as intelligent
and must understand his business as thoroughly as he who is a

successful business merchant or professional man."5 The editor

of the Wsstsrn Agriculturist agrees that successful farmers are,

161

"active business men, who make every moment count."6 Equally
succinct is a correspondent to Farm and Fireside: "Farming is a
business, and the man would make a real success of it nowadays
must be a good business man. He must be an all-around business
manager."7

Being an adept manager could entail many different things,
depending on who was offering the advice. In some cases, the
recommendations were very general. B.R. Black, associate editor
of The Earn Journai, suggests that "old methods, and old stock,
and old implements, and old habits, and old prejudices, and old
everything else" that cannot meet the "high standards raised by
the upward march of farm practice . . . must be abandoned."8
Wilmer Atkinson, the widely respected editor and publisher of Ths
Earn_lpnrnai, contends that producing good crops is only half the
farmer’s job. "[T]he biggest half is making money out of the
crop." He concludes that it is "this (the merchant) side of the
farmer [which] needs development."9 In a letter to Tbs Nebraska
Farmsr, Ira Gower maintains that "order, method, system,
calculation, are just as essential in agricultural pursuits as in
trade. Prosperity and success can never be attained without them
in any undertaking."10 A March 1874 editorial in the Anerican
Agrisuitnrist asks farmers whether they are willing to "practice
the closest economy."

Are we truly economical in our farm management? Do we

spend our time and labor to the best advantage? Are

we getting full returns from our horses, cows, sheep,

and pigs? . . . We hope no reader of the Agrisnitnrist

will let the present month of comparative leisure go
by without doing everything that can be done to

162

facilitate the labors which will press upon us in a
few weeks.

At other times, the agricultural editors and their
correspondents provided specific advice on how agrarians could
become a more profitable businessmen. An anonymous correspondent
to Ths Nebraska Earmer lists several "principles of good
farming." The farmer "who would succeed well, and derive
pleasure as well as profit from his calling, must manifest an
active and abiding interest in his profession." In addition, the
farmer must increase his productivity by "maintaining the
fertility of his soils," and he must "seek with watchful eye to
improve his market facilities" because it is transportation costs
"that eat up the profits."12 Writing to Ths HEDIQEKQ Earmer,
R.W.F. avers that the farmer must become a "political economist--
understanding thoroughly the economic laws of value, exchange,
labor, capital, credit, foreign trade, tariff, and taxation."13
The best advice Andrew Fuller, editor of Mpore’s Bnrai new-
1prhsr, can offer is for the farmer to keep accurate business
records because "not one in ten keeps any record of expenses in
order to ascertain exactly what it costs to produce as bushel of
corn or a pound of meat." Also holding up the urban merchant as
the paradigm, Fuller concludes that farming will become more
profitable once farmers begin using "as accurate and thorough
systems of bookkeeping . . . as in the mercantile pursuits."14
For Ohio farmer John Gould, the best way to make money in farming
is to own a dairy. "The dairy is uniform in its labor

requirements: there is a daily demand for its products: and there

163
are as many avenues by which produce may be cheapened as in any
other business enterprise."15

Despite the diversity of opinion on how to become a successful
farmer-entrepreneur, there were some views of sound management
shared by most farmers. First, there was general agreement that
the commercial farmer must employ reliable and energetic help,
and that his hired hands should be well managed. Therefore,
labor management became a business problem for the farmer.
Secondly, it was generally conceded that to become more
productive, a farmer must make prudent use of advanced farm
technology, usually machinery. Finally, the more progressive
farmers were advancing the cause of cooperative marketing
associations in order to help offset the high costs of
transportation, middlemen and food processing.

As he became more interested in adopting sound labor
management practices on the farmstead, the husbandman began to
more closely identify with the urban employer. The traditional
feelings of equality between the farm owner and the hired man had
been based on an informal and personal relationship. The newer
management theory, on the other hand, emphasized a more
legalistic conception of contractual rights and obligations. In
the process, a definite class distinction developed between the
farmer-proprietor and his hired hands. This new class
consciousness is apparent in an 1893 editorial in Ths ushraska

a er.

164

If a man is a good overseer, and is also handy at

tinkering about the chores of the farm, he can

well afford to have plenty of good help on the

farm. That is what a farm is for. It is a sort of

machine shop, a consumer of labor, so to speak. the

more intelligent labor that can be brought to bear

within proper bounds toward the production of various

farm crops the better for all concerned.
The very fact that labor management became viewed as a business
problem on America’s farms tended to underscore the social and
economic distinctions between employers and employees. J.N.
Muncey, writing to Farmers Review in 1886, maintains that "one of
the most difficult things with which the farmer has to contend is
that of labor. I regret to say that the average quality of farm
labor is very inferior."17 The editors of The Earn Journal also
find that the "one great obstacle the farmer has to contend
against is the scarcity of good household help. . . . One hundred
thousand good girls are wanted in American farm houses to help do
the work!”18

Because reliable help was so hard to find, the hiring process
became especially important to the farmer. In the "Household"
section of the Anerican Agriculturist, Addie Archer devotes a
lengthy column to the issue of "hired men on a farm." After
commenting on the scarcity of "good help," Addie Archer suggests
that the way to find good workers ("temperate, honest, neat men")
is to pay fair wages and treat the workers with "proper respect."
Even after those "with the proper character" are hired, it is a
good idea for the employer’s daughters to "always maintain a

ladylike deportment that may save them future annoyance.

’Familiarity breeds contempt,’ is often sadly proved with hired

165

men."19 A correspondent to Ths_flsstsrn_gipynan also warns his
fellow farmers to exercise a great deal of caution when hiring
new employees.

We have known so many cases where young men and boys,

sons of prosperous and good farmers, have been ruined

through learning the vices of immoral hired men. . . . To

escape this danger it is not necessary, by any means,

to keep the hired men and boys apart, but rather to have

a care in regard to the morals of those we hire.2

Farmers were also advised to hire people who are kind to
animals, to provide neat rooms for the help, and to let the farm
hand know "that you have a high appreciation of good work and
that nothing is as provoking than to have the stock half fed, the
gate left half open and the horse untied."21 The editor of Ths
Lancaster Earner advises his readers to plan ahead in order to
keep hired men busy when "stormy days abound." One idea is to
"have a slate in the tool-house or barn, and note down during
pleasant weather what can be done in rainy weather."22 Finally,
there is the observation sent by a reader of Ths_£arn_lpnrnai and
happily published by the editors:

Every Saturday evening I give my ’hired man,’ who lives

in a snug little house of his own not too far from the

barn, half a dozen or so of the last week’s papers,

including the Earn gournai, and . . . he grows more

valuable and more satisfied year by year. 3

Besides being an effective manager of his hired labor, the
progressive farmer, like the merchant and manufacturer, must also
keep abreast of the most recent technological developments.

Farmers in the second half of the nineteenth century equated

increased productivity almost exclusively with new agricultural

machinery. In a letter to The Western Elpynan, L.L. Jones ("an

166

Illinois farmer") insists that the "multiplication of labor-
saving machines, the many new inventions and discoveries are
making farms more productive and lessening manual drudgery."24
The editor of The Nebraska Farmer contends that if the farmers on
the plains and prairies fail to make use of new planting and
harvesting machinery, their production will be "too small to give
them a subsistence."

But when he turns over the pliable soil with his gang

plow, at the rate of four acres per day, and with his

ingenious seeder sows his eight acres per day, and with

the aid of machinery, simplifies and reduces the work,

he draws encouragement . . . with every breath; he is

constantly urged to new conquests of the soil, and time

finds him steadily gaining ground.
In a more colorful expression of the same sentiment, an Indiana
farmer contends that the farmer who "for pecuniary or other
reasons," fails to incorporate new machinery into his operation
"will always scratch a poor man’s head, while his progressive
neighbor will be loaning him money to keep his farm out of the
hands of the sheriff."25

Besides the economic advantages provided by advanced
technology, there are also the "moral effects." According to
J.W. Warr, editor of The Western Ploynan, farm machines not only
increase production, but also take away the dread of manual labor
which has made rascals of many men who were naturally not
viciously inclined." Departing dramatically from the traditional
agrarian belief in the nobility of manual labor, Warr insists

that machines like the riding plow and the steam thrasher have

"emancipated" farmers from "slavery."

167

With the facilities provided for making Mother Earth

yield up her treasures without a great amount of the

usual accompaniment of the "sweat of the brow," farming

will become the easiest and most attractive of vocations.27
Increasingly, it was technology--not the traditional and inherent
virtues associated with farming--that would ennoble the farming
profession and ensure its continued respectability. Writing to
the Kansas Earner after visiting the Columbian Exposition in
1893, James Underwood proclaims: "Every farmer and every
farmer’s son will view the exhibits in the Agricultural Hall with
a thrill of pride and satisfaction in the advances of his
profession."28

The purchase and use of the new farm implements were not the
relatively uncomplicated procedures they once were. As the
editor of the Amsrisan Agriculturist indicates, "farm machinery
now represents a large portion of the farmer’s capital,
frequently more than livestock." Because of the great value of
the new machinery, the farmer must attend to proper maintenance.
Moreover, because machinery is "most profitable when it is used
by a man of intelligence," the editor urges agrarians to "study
mechanics, not only that they may know how to use and care for
their machines, but how to improve them and invent new ones."29

The agricultural papers devoted countless column inches to the
merits of new mechanical devices. Three brief examples will
suffice here. In 1872, a correspondent to Ths_Lansastsr_£arnsr
wrote a lengthy letter outlining the many advantages of the steam

plow. After listing the improvements made in a variety of other

agricultural implements, the writer explains that comparatively

168 .
few advances have been made in plowing. After witnessing a
demonstration of the Williamson Road Steamer and Steam-plow in
the autumn of 1872, the correspondent reports:
The Bloomsdale exhibition of the work and capacity of
this plow, seems to have been highly satisfactory to a

very large number of the most intelligent agriculturists
and machinists who witnessed its operations, and was in a

measure looked u on as the inaugpration Q: a nsw sra
in agricuitnr .3

Also addressing the topic of plowing, an Ansrisan Agricultnrist

reader extols the advantages of the swivel plow. After
experimenting with the plow on his own farm, the writer concludes
that "the efforts of the plow makers have been industriously
turned of late to the improvement of these plows with great
success."31 Equally typical is an editorial in Ths_hshrasha
Tarnsr which considers the merits of the Randolph header, a
device designed to remove the grain heads from wheat during
harvest. "We have seen this machine work, and it proved equal if
not superior to any header in use. Headed wheat is of the finest
quality . . . and the expense is not half as much as in any other
way3.32

It stood to reason that if a farmer’s success was dependent
upon his business acumen, then a dearth of managerial and
merchandising ability could spell economic difficulty. Agrarians
were certainly not oblivious to the fact that a great many of
their brother farmers were under severe financial duress during
the Gilded Age. Many of those commenting in the agricultural
papers justly attributed at least part of the blame to poor

business practices. Writing to Ths_ghip_£arnsr in 1877, an

169

anonymous correspondent straightforwardly states that the "reason
why so many men fail to make farming a success is simply because
they fail to make it a business." The farmer who does not
"inform himself of his business and work in an intelligent manner
. . . is not attending to his business and is destined to
fail."33 The editors of the American Agriculturist agree that
farm bankruptcies rarely occur when the farmer "minds his
business, and refrains from speculations."34 In 1890, J.B., a
Lancaster, Pennsylvania farmer, concedes that "times are hard--in
some localities very hard indeed." After mentioning some
instances of economic privation in the West and South, he
instructs the farmer to:

. . . practice economy and wise business judgment,

utilizing everything produced on his farm to the best

advantage, avoiding all wastes, and above all things

eschewing the long-credit store account and the money-

lender as he would a pestilence."35
The Tndiana Farner reports the case of "a young homesteader" who
purchased a Buckeye Reaper, but had to go into debt to finance
it. "He took the fatal step and gave his note for the machinery,
hoping and trying to believe against his better judgment that his
crops were sure to turn out well."36 Other thoughtful
commentators, while usually recognizing that poor management was
a major cause of failure, also realized that there were other
reasons for farm failures besides individual ineptitude. In calm
and well-reasoned arguments, these individuals suggested that a

major reason for farm failures was because agrarians were not

always able to compete in a fair and honest market. Regardless

170
of how efficiently and progressively a farmer might manage his
operation, there were elements beyond his control. Writing Ths
Westsrn Pipwman, N.J. Shepherd contends that the "farmer suffers
by dishonesty in trade as much as manufacturers." Shepherd
reiterates the critical distinction farmers made between fair
business practices and those employed by the "trusts and
monopolies" which "combine to lower the price of what they have
to sell even below the cost of producing it to eliminate all
competition from the field."37 But if the individual farmer was
prevented from competing in a free market because of combinations
and associations formed by transportation companies, storage
facilities, processors and financiers, then what was he to do?
Although he believed in laissez faire, he was discovering that
free competition simply did not exist. Instead of clinging to
what were rapidly becoming outmoded economic strategies, farmers
decided to use some of the same tactics that were being so
successfully employed by their corporate antagonists. In almost
diametric opposition to traditional values and beliefs, post-
Civil War agrarians decided to join together on both economic and
political fronts in a concentrated effort to improve their
conditions.

Organized economic cooperation among farmers was a phenomenon
of the Gilded Age.38 Traditionally, farmers had joined together
primarily for social interaction or for mutual protection on the
frontier. They had remained fiercely independent in regard to

economic and political matters. As economic hardships mounted

171
following the Civil War, many farmers were willing to sacrifice
some of their rugged individualism in order to speed fiscal
recovery. The major impetus to the formation of agricultural
cooperatives was increased profitability. Farmers believed that
they could lower their costs and increase their net earnings if
they formed and operated their own cooperative marketing
associations. They could control price, and they could eliminate
the overhead that went to middlemen and transportation companies.
Initially, the plan was relatively simple. The cooperative would
sell goods to its members at a fair retail price, and, at the end
of the year, the members would divide the profits based on the
amount of business each member had done during that year. In
farming communities, the cooperatives would also market
commodities produced by its members.

The first major co-operative effort was the establishment of
Granger stores after the Civil War. Although most of these
enterprises failed, a few proved very successful and provided
models for similar activities by the Farmers’ Alliance and
smaller co-operative organizations. During the late 18803 and
early 18903, some extremely successful cooperatives emerged,
including The Johnson County (Kansas) Co-operative Association,
The Delaware Fruit Exchange, the California Fruit Union and The
American Live Stock Commission. Despite the economic
vicissitudes experienced by some of these early co-operatives,

they were almost universally supported in the agricultural press.

In 1892, F.M. Hexamer, editor of the Ansrisan_Agrisnitnrist,

172
penned a lengthy analysis of the agricultural co-operative
movement. After discussing both the Granger efforts and those of
the Farmers’ Alliance, Hexamer maintains that the successful
cooperatives are those which "were started on a hardpan basis,
and managed with fidelity to business principles." Despite some
failures and setbacks, he concludes that "co-operation has passed
through its baptism of fire, and is destined to be a leading
influence in the agriculture of the future."39 Hexamer’s view
was typical of the prevailing attitude expressed in the farm
press. For the most part, the entire farm press, even in the
more conservative eastern regions, supported these embryonic
cooperative marketing associations, regardless of whether they
were established by the Grange, the Farmers’ Alliance or smaller
agrarian organizations.

In Ths ushrasha Earmer, George H. Simmons, takes issue with
those farmers who "say that it is all folly to talk to them about
establishing co-operative enterprises." Instead they should "put
their heads together and determine that at least a part of the
money that is drawn from them every year to enrich the merchants
shall be retained among themselves to work for them and their
families."40 The editors of the American Agricnltnrist agree
that after years of seeing their grain "pass from their hands at
low rates brought about by combinations of speculators and
dealers," farmers have "finally learned to combine . . . and set
their own price upon the world’s food." The editorial closes

with the reminder that "in union is strength."41 While advising

173

Alliance leaders to "go slowly" and "to be careful of their
material," in his letter to the New Englang Earner, O.P. Laird
concludes that "commercial organization is a necessity, and in
time will accomplish for farmers what can be done in no other
way."42 Similarly, R.L. Smythe, a correspondent to The Ohio
Farmer, contends that among many favorable influences on farmers,
the Grange teaches that "what is for the interest of one farmer
is for the interest of another: and that it is only by mutual
economic cooperation that they can protect and advance their own
interests."43

Whether the co-operative association was of large, national
proportions, or whether it was regional or commodity specific,
the agricultural editors and their readers were seldom reluctant
to voice at least cautious support. S.S. Randall, in a letter to
the Ansrican Farmer, argues that many of the advances in dairying
have come about as a result of "co-operation and association."

The monthly gatherings for sales of farm animals in

Madison county, Ohio, have saved immense sums from

the clutches of middlemen; association for importing

or buying animals of the best blood should be more

numerous. . . . There is no reason why comparative

isolation should lead to positive hermitage.
In 1886, the Kansas Farmer printed a letter from R.G. Head,
president of the International Range Association, a cattlemen’s
co-operative in Denver. Following the correspondence, the
editors indicate strong support for the association.

The Range Associate can provide its members with such

information as will enable them to avoid overcrowding

the markets, and distribute shipments to points where

needed for consumption. These results will save ranchers
enormous losses incurred in the past from pooling of the

174

largest buyers engaged in the canning and dressing meat

trade who fix prices to suit themselves without regard

to the laws of supply and demand.45
Even comparatively minor instances of cooperative association
seldom escaped note in the agricultural papers. Orange Judd,
editor and publisher of The Erairis Earner, applauds midwestern
wheat farmers for withholding their harvest from the market in
order to force prices up. "It was ’risky’ to take the course you
did, but a spirit of brotherhood and cooperation prevailed to the
ultimate benefit of all concerned."45

While most of the co-operative efforts relative to economics
were generally applauded in the pages of the farm press, there
was not the same unanimity insofar as political efforts were
concerned. It was true that almost everyone agreed that farmers
must exert political pressure on their elected officials. The
disagreement came on precisely how they should do this. Some
editors and readers espoused the traditional agrarian advice to
write to congressmen and senators, to vote and to try and avoid
the narrow perspective of party politics. Other, more
progressive farmers--many of whom belonged to the Grange or the
Alliance--advocated organized voting and lobbying efforts and
other measures which were far removed from old agrarian beliefs
in political autonomy. The result was a distinct agrarian
ambivalence regarding cooperative political action, especially
where party politics was concerned. .

A good example of this rural ambivalence was the manner in

which the farm press reacted to the first effort to form the

175
People’s Party in Cincinnati in 1891. Although the farm papers
had been favorably disposed to both the Grange and the Alliance,
they were not exactly sure what to make of the Populist Party.
Some of the western papers endorsed the new party, while those in
the East and Midwest expressed views ranging from cautious
optimism to bewilderment. Interestingly enough, there was almost
no overt hostility evident in any of the agricultural papers
surveyed for this study--even in the East. (This was a marked
contrast to the reception afforded Populism in the eastern
popular press.) The views expressed by Elbert S. Carman, editor
of Ths Eurai haw-Eprker, were typical of those found in much of
the eastern farm press. In an editorial written shortly after
the Cincinnati convention, Carman reviews the various "demands of
this new party" with a great deal of interest and a good measure
of uncertainty.
We do not propose to discuss the wisdom of these demands

now. . . . There will be ample opportunity for

discussion during the year that must elapse before these

candidates can be voted for. The convention has either

made a blunder of has taken a wise political step. History

alone will show which name its action deserves. . . . We

shall watch the growth of this new party with the great-

est interest and keep our readers thoroughly informed

as to its progress and development.
Papers in the Midwest were much more enthusiastic about the
movement. According to the Farnl Stock ang Hans (Chicago),
"formidable, aggressive new parties are necessary to scare old
ones into spasms of good behavior. When reform, with large, well

organized forces behind it, marches upon an old party as an

enemy, storms its citadels and makes wholesale captures of its

176
soldiers and supplies, then there may be some hope of getting
favorable concessions from the frightened old fellow."43 The
editors of Ths Indiana Farmer suggest that there are many
"thoughtful men who believe that farmers have real grievances and
nothing but a radical change in the politics of the country will
heal them."49 Although the editors of Ths_thp_Earnsr are
violently opposed to the Populist’s Sub-Treasury Plan, such
proposals as "free coinage, no alien ownership of land . . . a
just income tax, rigid and honest national control of all public
means of communication and transportation" and the direct
election of the President and Senators are "all principles that
will be indorsed by large number of the farmers of the
country."50 Such editorial responses tend to debunk the still
popular view that the People’s Party held little appeal to
farmers in the more established agricultural regions.

Other than a reluctance to become enmeshed in the web of party
politics, the editors and readers of the farm papers generally
encouraged political activism. It would be fair to say that most
agreed with the sentiment expressed in "A Song For the Grangers,"
which appeared in The Ohio Farnsr in 1874.

We’re a band of happy brothers,

Working for ourselves and others;

Taking counsel of our mothers,

In the work we have to do.

We will purify the nation,

From unjust legislation:

And will dignify our station
' By daring to be true.

177
For long we bore the iron strokes
Ere our gallant captain bravely spoke,
And freed us from the galling yoke
Of monopolies and middle men.
We will fight against oppression,
Defying retrogression: '
Whilst our motto is progression,
As it ever should have been.
We shall see the farmers rising,
And his works will he surprising:
There will be no temporizing
When monopolies go down.
So let us sing our jolly songs,
When Grangers meet in merry throngs
.To right the people’s wrongs5
In every inland town.
In an 1879 issue of The Prairie Earmer, "W.L." expresses a
similar enthusiasm for cooperative political action. The writer
proclaims that "at long last," the "agricultural community is
beginning to appreciate that it must act as a body to induce
legislation, both state and national." The writer goes on to
encourage farmers "to keep posted on current matters, by action
in convention, and especially insisting with members of the
legislature and congress, both orally and by letter, that their
just wants shall be attended to."52 Wilmer Atkinson of Ths_Earn
Journal agrees with the Illinois correspondent that farmers have
not fully appreciated and used use the political power they have
at their disposal. "Their numbers, their intelligence, their
conscience, their conservative temper, all entitle them to a

commanding political influence in both National and State

affairs."

178

The indications are that Samson is growing restive in

his bond, that he is turning himself about in preparation

for some move that will startle the lookers on, and waken

the people to a true knowledge of the situation. . . . Any

one with a weak ear may detect the sound of distant

thunder: and the signs are that the whole heavens will

soon be overcast--not as a portent of evil, but of good

for our common country.
A year later, the Journal established a special section,
"Pulling Together," which featured "notes and news of
Organization among farmers--The Grange--The Alliance--The
League." "Pulling Together" included letters from farmers
throughout the country, as well as short news items about co-
operative efforts. This section, and Ths Enrai New-Yorker’s,
"Farm Politics," also established in 1891, were the first two
expressly political sections established in the agricultural
papers. A

The traditional rural bias against politics and politicians
took a somewhat ironic turn during the last half of the
nineteenth century. Increasingly, farmers talked of banding
together to replace the professional politicians with those who
were more favorably disposed to agrarian interests. As "J.L."
suggests in a letter to the New Englang Earnsr, "the point is to
elect ’favorable’ men to the legislatures and Congress as
corporations do. If in a republican district elect a republican
who will look to the farmers’ interests; in a democratic district
elect a democrat who will do what is right."54 A correspondent
to Ths hsbrasha Earmer, referring to recent Alliance conventions

in South Dakota and in Pennsylvania, writes that the Alliancemen

"want men, not politicians, business management of the country’s

179
affairs, not politics, and an honest administration.“55 This
lack of integrity among political office holders also concerns
Kansas farmer, C.N. Waters, who informs readers of Ths_Earn
Jonrnai, that the people of his state "expect to save $800,000 in
taxes next year by turning out of office some of their lawyers
and putting honest men in their stead. A pretty good job, we
would say."55 If, however, honest men were not to be found
outside their ranks, then farmers were willing to take the next
step and elect their own to office.

Like the spirit of political co-operation, the notion of
electing farmers to political office was rather unique to the
Gilded Age. Although farmers had long considered themselves the
mainstays of democratic government, they had generally avoided
the political arena, preferring instead to exert pressure on
elected officials via the ballot box or in writing. As the
perception of corruption among politicians increased during the
Grant years, many agrarians felt that the only solution was to
encourage more farmers to aspire to elected office. Writing to
the hains_Earnsr, in 1889, G.T. Powell informs readers that
"there is not a farmer in the U.S. Senate. Isn’t it high time
that good ’farming men’ are elected to office, and if the old
parties do not put such men up, then the kind they do put up will
be knocked down."57 Similarly, E.S. Phelps, in a letter to Ths
hshrasha_Earnsr, considers "Farmers as Legislators." During a
conversation with a neighbor, Phelps suggests the possibility of

"looking up a qualified farmer for our next legislature." His

180
neighbor responds that "the Republicans are talking of nominating
a lawyer for that place, and I have said I will vote for no
lawyer for such a place." Whereupon, the correspondent agrees
with his neighbor and asserts that it is time that farmers began
"attending their own affairs, in the legislative hall as well as
on the farm."58 '

Any candidate, farmer or not, who was favorably disposed to
agrarian interests could count on a warm reception in the
agricultural papers. Several farm papers, for example, applauded
the election of William A. Peffer of Kansas to the U.S. Senate in
1890. Ths Earn Journal featured Peffer in its "Portrait
Gallery," the following spring, along with the editorial comment
that he "enjoys the distinction of being the only specially
chosen representative of farm interests in that body."59 In
1892, the Anerisan Agriculturist featured a similar profile of
Congressman William Hatch, "a farmer, lawyer and democrat."60
The new England Farmer featured the "strong and earnest face" of
Col. Leonidas L. Polk shortly after his election to the
presidency of the National Farmers’ Alliance.. The accompanying
editorial notes that "the earnestness and efficiency with which
Col. Polk has worked in the interest of farmers . . . establishes
his excellent qualifications for the leadership of one of their
leading organizations."61

Although the election of friendly politicians was a major
priority for agrarian activists, they certainly did not confine

their efforts to the ballot box. Despite a long tradition of

181
disparaging almost any form of governmental largess, farmers
became increasingly strident in their demands for public
assistance. Like most other dimensions of their cooperative
activism, this marked a major departure from the philosophy of
rugged individualism that farmers had long prided themselves on.
From among the numerous examples of agrarian demands for
governmental assistance during the Gilded Age, I have selected
two for consideration here: the oleomargarine controversy and
the grasshopper relief effort.

A paradigm example of the way American farmers banded together
to protect their own interests was the bitter and prolonged
struggle to prevent the marketing of oleomargarine.62 Artificial
butter, called oleomargarine, was developed in France in the late
18603 as a substitute for the expensive and easily spoiled fresh
market butter produced primarily by individual farmers. In 1873,
the United States Dairy Company purchased the patent and began
commercial manufacture of the substitute butter in New York City.
By 1887, there were thirty-seven American concerns producing the
oleomargarine, including such food processing giants Armour &
Company in Chicago.

The introduction of a substitute butter product into the
American market naturally aroused the ire of agricultural
interests, especially dairymen. As Earl Hayter indicates, the
battle to ban oleomargarine from the American market was one of
the longest and bitterest controversies in the history of the

food’s industry.63 For over a decade, farmers and their

182

agricultural editors waged a relentless struggle to ban the
product from the American market, using every conceivable
argument to convince legislators to take action in their behalf.
The editor of The Cultivator and Qountry Gentlsnan writes that
oleomargarine is "a combination of filth, dead animals, and waste
fat all thrown together . . . and one can detect a smell and
stench beyond description as well as the accompanying pile of
bone and meat scraps piled high around the building."54 Ths
Prairie Earner notes with approval that the Elgin [Ill.] Board of
Trade “provided for the appointment of a committee to visit the
State Capital, and urge upon the Legislature the necessity of
passing the bill now before it, for the protection of the
legitimate dairy business against the manufacturers of bogus .
competing products."65 Writing to The hehrasha Farner at a time
when the U.S. House of Representatives was considering a bill to
regulate oleomargarine, W.G. Whitmore urges "every dairyman in
Nebraska write to his representative in congress and to members
from other states whom her may know, urging them to vote for this
bill."65

O.M. Druse, editor of the same Eshrasha_Earnsr urges his
readers to take even more militant action. Druse calls for a
"universal boycott" of "every marketman who deals in imitative
butter." {In addition, he wants Congress to "levy a tax of not
less than ten cents per pound on all that is manufactured."67

The legitimacy of the agrarian arguments concerning the

substitute butter were debatable, but the results of their

183

efforts were clear. Under pressure from farm groups and
agricultural publications, several states passed legislation
restricting the production and sale of oleomargarine. In 1886,
when a federal regulatory law went into effect, at least a half a
dozen states, including such dairying strongholds as New York and
Pennsylvania, had enacted laws prohibiting the manufacture and
sale of oleomargarine within their borders. Although the battle
over "bogus butter" would continue in the courts and legislative
halls well into the twentieth century, the combined efforts of
farmers throughout the country had resulted in notable success.

In the case of the grasshopper pestilence, there was no doubt
about the legitimacy of agrarian demands for government
assistance, but, this time, the results were disappointing. The
locust infestations plagued the Great Plains throughout the early
18703. The grasshoppers could wipe out an entire crop in a
matter of minutes. After two, three and even four consecutive
years of this pestilence, many Plains farmers were on the verge
of bankruptcy and, in some cases, starvation. Swallowing a great
deal of their traditional pride, the farmers in the areas of
infestation asked for governmental assistance to help rid them of
the grasshopper menace. In a letter to the Kansas Earner, R.M.D.
refers with favor to a Minnesota program in which "a county
government subsidized the capture of grasshoppers" in the amount
of one dollar per bushel. He suggests that "in its wisdom," the
Nebraska Legislature, "will devise some systematic plan for a

grand, concerted action against the foe."68 Looking well beyond

184

the state capitol, the editor of The Nebrasha Earner argues that
"if anything can be done at all in averting this evil, it must be
done by national means." He suggests that in addition to
providing food and monetary assistance to the stricken settlers,
Congress should "create a commission that shall have for its
object a thorough investigation of the principal insect pests of
our agriculture."69 A Dakota farmer, writing to Ths_Erairis
Earnsr, is more adamant about governmental aid in the wake of the
grasshopper plagues.

Congress owes it to the farmers, the most noble of its

citizens and the true pioneers of democracy, especially

to those of the West . . . that some effort be made to

relieve them . . . of this insect burden which is doing

as much as any other to crushthem.7
Agricultural papers in the East were also sympathetic to the
plight of the western farmers. .They were also more than willing
to use some of the traditional language of the agrarian myth to
help buttress their demands for governmental assistance. The
editor of Ths tho Farmer asks readers not only to send
contributions of "food, clothing or money," but that they also
"urge [their] elected representatives in Congress to provide
speedy assistance" to these "bold, hardy and adventurous pioneers
of Western civilization upon whom all else depends."71

Both of these episodes reflect the growing willingness of the
farmer to engage in the politics of self-interest. In so doing,
farmers were overcoming a traditional reluctance to become

immersed in the political process of which they had always been

suspicious. They were also combating the traditional tendency to

185

try and solve their own problems without outside help. On both
the political and economic fronts, farmers were developing and
using new strategies to cope with the pressures of industrial
America. Although, some of their efforts lacked a great deal of
sophistication, farmers were at least taking some small strides
forward. On economic and political fronts, agrarians began to
"walk" during the Gilded Age, thereby paving the way for even

more dramatic twentieth-century achievements in both arenas.

NOTES

1Paul H. Johnstone, "Old Ideals Versus New Ideas in Farm
Life," in Earmers in a Changing World: The Yearbook of
AgricultureI 1959, ed. Gove Hambidge (Washington, D. C.: U. S.
Dept. of Agriculture, 1940), p. 140.

2"How We Have All Advanced," Erairis_Earnsr, 13 Jan. 1868, p.
17.

3H. H. Davenport, "The Educated Farmer," Neb as a a er,
7 Feb. 1883, p. 47.

4"We, Too, Are Manufacturers," The Earn Journal, Nov. 1890, p.
198. During the 18703 and 18803, many of the farm papers
expanded their editorial staffs. For example, The Earn Qournalr
established in 1877, had five associate editors by 1890.
Therefore, it is not always possible to determine the author of a
particular editorial. Such is the case here.

58. G. Packard, "Farming as a Business," The Country

Gentleman, reprinted in the Western Agrisulturalist, June 1878,
p. 1.

6T. Butterworth, "Boil It Down,” Western Agriculturalist,
April 1879, p. 1.

7£arn ana Eireside, 1 Oct. 1892, p. 1.
8B. R. Black, "Old Ways and New Ways," Ths Farn Tournal, Oct.

1888, p. 172.

9Wilmer Atkinson, "The Farmer as Merchant," Ths_Earn_Jpnrnal,
Nov. 1887, p. 130 as quoted in Johnstone, "Old Ideals Versus New
Ideas in Farm Life," p. 145.

10Ira Gower, "Farmer’s Debt," Ths_hshrasha_Earnsr, Aug. 1879,
p. 189.

11Angrigan Agrisulturalist, March 1874, p. 82.

12"Principles of Good Farming," Ths_nshrasha_Earnsr, March
1877, p. 4.

13R. W. F., "Importance of Agriculture," Ths_hshrasha_Earnsr,
Jan. 1877, p. 9.

186

187

14Andrew S. Fuller, "Profit in Farming," hoore’s Rural New-
Yorker, 10 June 1876, p. 380.

15John Gould, "Capital Versus Brains in the Dairy," Ansrisan
Agriculturalist, Sept. 1892, p. 530.

15H. E. Heath, The nebraska Farner, 30 March 1893, p. 222. The
hshrasha_Earnsr changed from a monthly to a bi-weekly in 1885.

17J. N. Muncey, "Farm Labor," Earners Ravisy, reprinted in The
Nehrasha Earner, 1 April 1886, p. 104.

18W. Sept. 1890. p. 164.

19Addie Archer, "The Hired Men on a Farm," e ca

Agrisulturalist, June 1892, p. 374.

20J. A. Van Allen, "Engaging Help," The Wsstern Elowman, Jan.
1886, p. 219. .

21J. N. Muncey, "Farm Labor," p. 104.

228. S. Rathvon, "Stormy Days on the Farm," The Lansaster
Earner, Sept. 1878, p. 142.

238. 3., "The Farm," The Farm gournai, Oct. 1891, p. 185.

24L. L. Jones, "New Inventions," Ths_flsstsrn_Elpynan, May
1886, p. 320.

35J. T. Clarkson, The Nebraska Earner, Jan. 1877, p. 7.

26Indiana Farmer, "Machinery on the Farm," e d an armer,
13 April 1884, p. 191.

27J. W. Warr, "The Moral Effect of Improved Farm Machinery,"
The Wsstarn Eloynan, Feb. 1889, p. 101.

28James'Underwood, "Agricultural Machinery at the World’s
Fair," Eansas_Earnsr, 14 Sept. 1893, p. 571.

29Amerisan Agriculturalist, Dec. 1874, p. 442.

30R., "Fawks’ Steam Plow," The Lansastsr Earnsr, June 1873, p.
106.

31L. L-. "Swivel Plows." Amsrisan_Agrisulturali§t. June 1874.
p. 212.

32J. C. McBride, "The Randolph Header," a a er,
May 1879, p. 108.

188

33”Making Farming a Business," The Ohio Earmer, March 1877: P-
12.

34"Bankrupt Farmers," American Agriculturaliéfi. JUIY 1874: P-
273.

35J. B., ”Hard Times," The Cultivator and'ths_§gnntry
Gentlenan, 24 April 1890, p. 325.

36"Going into Debt," The Indiana Earmer, 13 Jan. 1880,
pe 17o I '

37N. J. Sheperd, "Honest Competition," W te owma ,
Oct. 1886, p. 427. .

38John T. Schlebecker, Wherehy Wa Thrivs (Ames: Iowa State
Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 162-3.

39F. M. Hexamer, "The Progress of Co-operation,” Ansrisan
Agrisnlturalist, June 1892, p. 64.

40George H. Simmons, "Cooperation," Ths_Kshrasha_Earnsr, June
1879, p. 134.

41"Unity Among Farmers," American_bgrisulturali§f. Nov. 1874.
p. 370.

42O. P. Laird, "The Alliance,"_Ksy_Englang_Earnsr, 14 Aug.
1890, p. 238.

43R. L. Smythe, "Influence of the Granges," Ths_thp_Earnsr,
14 Feb. 1874, p. 103.

44S. S. Randall, "Co-operation Among Farmers," Ansrisan
Earnsr, June 1873, p. 210.

45R. G. Head, "Transportation and Marketing Beeves,” Kansas
Earnsr, 1 March 1886, pp. 1-2.

46Orange Judd, "It Was Risky.....Prices," ' e F e ,
30 May 1885, p. 344.

47Elbert S. Carman, "The People’s Party," Ih§_BBI§l_H£!:
Yorker, 30 May 1891, p. 420. '

43"Cincinnati Gathering," Earn_§tpsh_ana_flpns, June 1891,
p. 170.
49”People’s Party," The Indiana Farmer. 30 May 1391:

p. 314.

189

50"Sub-Treasury May Kill It," The Oh'0 Fa e , 9 June 1891: P-
311.

51Little Dot, "A Song for the Grangers," Ths thp Earner, 17
Jan. 1874, p. 39.

52W. L., ”Farmers and Legislation," Ths_Erairis_Earnsr, 12 May
1879, p. 103.

53Wilmer Atkinson, "Distant Thunder," Ths Earn qurnal, Jan.
1890, p. 10.

54J. L., "Elect Farmers’ Men," new England Earmsr, 14 Oct.
1890, p. 324.

55An Allianceman, "Good Men," The NebrasKa Earnsr, 18 Dec.
1890, p. 916.

56C. N. Waters, "Pulling Together," Farn gpurnal, March 1891,
p. 46.

57G. T. Powell, "A Farmer in the Senate," Kains_Earnsr, 11

Oct. 1889, p. 397.

58E. S. Phelps, "Farmers as Legislators," Ths Kshrasha Earmer,
July 1880, p. 169.

59"Our Portrait Gallery," The Earm gournal. May 1391.
p. 98.

60"The Fathers of the Anti-Option Bill," Ansrisan
Agriculturalist, April 1892, p. 289.

61"Col. L. L. Polk," New England Farmer. 30 Oct. 1890.
p. 348.

62For a thorough discussion of the "Bogus Butter Controversy,"
see Earl Hayter, The Troubled Farmer, (DeKalb: Northern Illinois
Univ. Press), pp. 60-81.

63Ibid., p. 64.

54"Bogus Butter," The Cultivator and ths Qonntry gentleman, 22
Jan. 1885, p. 77.

65Orange Judd, "Defending Illinois Dairy Interests," The

Prairis_£armer. 14 March 1885. p- 161-
66W. G. Whitmore, "Attention Dairymen of Nebraska," The
NebrasKa Earner, 1 May 1886, p. 138.

67O. M. Druse, The Nebraska Farme , 1 Jan. 1886, p. 1.

190

68R. M- D., "Hopper Bounties," Kansas Earnsr, 12 Jan. 1877, p.
6.

69C. V. Riley, "The Grasshopper," The Nebraska Earmer, Jan.
1877, p. 19. ‘

70M. McNeil, "Congressional Aid," The Erairie Earmer, 2 Feb.
1877, p. 8. ‘

71M. J. Lawrence, "The Nebraska Sufferers," The Ohio Earmer,
14 NOV. 1874' pe 3120

CHAPTER s--Anti-Urbanism, Xenophobia and the Emerging Paradox:
Social Retrogression, 1873-1893

Despite the farmer’s efforts to use the most advanced
agricultural technology, to become a more efficient business
manager, to develop cooperative marketing arrangements and to
exert organized political pressure on state and local government,
his economic condition did not appreciably improve during the
18703 and 18803, and it worsened during the early 18903. As we
have seen, his efforts were not entirely in vain. His farm had
become more productive, many of his cooperative associations
had, in varying degrees, proven successful, and his political
exertions had prompted landmark regulatory legislation and
vaulted some of his agrarian compatriots into political office.
Such notable accomplishments often provided small consolation,
however, in the face of perpetually depressed commodity prices, a
deflated currency, high interest rates and chronically reduced
cash flows. For the farmer, life had become a frustrating and
unacceptable non sequitur: as he became better at his business,
his economic condition deteriorated. Even the cautious agrarian
optimism over such hard-fought legislative victories as the
Granger Laws, the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-
Trust Act was quickly dissipated by the reluctant enforcement of
those measures and by the uniformly ineffectual prosecution of

the few offenders ever brought to trial. Gradually, the

191

192
disillusionment born of dashed hopes flared into open and often
bitter resentment.

It is not difficult to understand why farmers became
increasingly bewildered and angry during the Gilded Age. Not
only had their economic system broken down, but so, too, had the
political and legal institutions which they had counted on to
redress their economic grievances. They began to doubt the
efficacy of their traditional beliefs in hard work, economic fair
play, representative government and legal justice. It seemed that
powerful and sinister forces were working to undermine the old,
established rural verities--forces many farmers could not fully
understand or hope to effectively control. Under such
circumstances, ratiocination and cool objectivity tend to erode.
Farmers, like most people, were naturally reluctant to accept
personal responsibility for economic failure: they would rather
ascribe external culpability. In their efforts to first explain
and then to assign responsibility for their troubles, it was
entirely predictable that farmers would focus their collective
gaze on an old nemesis: the city.

The city was viewed as the base for the powerful and ruthless
monopolies, trusts and corporations. It was home for the
bankers, speculators, lawyers, middlemen, politicians and other
frequent targets of agrarian wrath. It was commonly believed
that the wealthy and extravagant lifestyles enjoyed by these
cunning urbanites was the direct result of a ruthless and

cooperatively contrived agreement to exploit farmers and wage

193
laborers. These assorted evils appeared to be compounded in the
early 18903 when the cities began swelling with the growing
number of southern European immigrants who were flowing onto
American shores. For many farmers, these newcomers brought the
poverty, ignorance, crime and alien ideologies that would
ultimately undermine American values and institutions.

This is not to imply that the resentment and hostility
directed at America’s cities was completely unjustified. As we
have seen, many of the charges against urban-based businesses
were well founded, and much of the subsequent agrarian economic
and political activism was legitimately inspired. But, in many
cases, the pages of the agricultural papers also betrayed anger
and hatred that were indiscriminantly directed. Ubiquitous
villains were obscurely identified and arbitrarily associated:
grievances were vaguely defined. As discussion turned to such
matters as corporate conspiracy, immigration restriction and
subjugation of the Indian, the rhetoric often became shrill and,
at times, even paranoic.

Among the wide array of evil-doers consistently castigated in
the agricultural press, monopolies were easily the most
pronounced. Frequently, the letters and editorials contained
general, all-inclusive references to monopolistic abuses.
Writing to the Farmerfls Friend in 1879, G.H.S. contends that ”the
middle belt" of America has become "the predator field for the
vicious transporting monopolies, whilst the money monopolies are

sapping and subordinating every Christian industry of our land."1

194

In a letter to the Country Gentlsman, R.L.L. compares monopolies
and trusts to a "tidal wave . . . that has been slowly lifting
its gigantic form into sight, so sinister in motive and rapid in
growth" that it threatens to "crush and trample all interests but
its own in the dust."2 M.J. Lawrence, editor of Ths tho Earner,
asserts that "these monopolies" have:

. . . gained their ascendancy and power by stealth and

treachery, and by a base betrayal of the confidence of

a too confiding nation; and by systematic frauds, and

gigantic swindlihgs, that may well put the Tammany ring

and all other thieves and swindlers to the blush.
Writing to The Ohio Farmer in 1874, A.W.H. decries the "hordes of
monopolies that infest our land." Among the hordes, the
correspondent includes "speculators, lawyers, and petty and
persistent office holders to be found in every city in the
land."4 These and other "monopolistic leeches," according to a
reader of the Maine Earner, buy their "bread and meat, and in
many cases their whiskey" with the money they have "robbed and
wrung from the pockets of unsuspecting farmers."5

More often, the agricultural editors and their subscribers
identified somewhat more specific corporate targets, although the
obstreperous rhetoric remained the same. Beginning in the late
18603, the railroads were easily the most frequent objects of
agrarian wrath. These attacks were ironic because, for many
years, the agricultural press had heartily encouraged railroad
expansion. In 1849, the New England Earnsr proclaims that "the

favorable influence of railroads on agriculture is becoming more

and more known and appreciated in all parts of the country."

195

Among many other advantages, the railroad can provide the means
by which "farmers in the interior can have their animals carried
to a market in a short time, at a moderate expense, and without
injury."6 Almost a decade later, the editor of The Ingiana
Earnsr maintains that the "populous East cannot emigrate West
without paying tribute to our Railroads. The great West cannot
go East without doing the same."7 In 1858, a correspondent to
The Ohio Farnsr, suggests that "it is too common to look upon the
[the railroads] as huge monopolies." More enlightened public
opinion recognizes that:

The Railroad men are more deeply interested than any

other class of men in the clearing of our ground,

the opening of our farms, the improvement of

Agriculture . . . and the education of all our

people. . . . Let us not, then, as farmers, mechanics

and tradersé regard the Railroad interest as antagonistic

to our own.
As late as 1877, even the western farm journals were extolling
the virtues of the railroad companies. A Kansas Earnsr reader
reports that the "railroad companies are offering as choice
farming property as ever was created, within a few miles of their
lines."9 Similarly, J.T. Clarkson, editor of Ths hshraska
Earnsr, exclaims that the Nebraska Territory is "supremely
fortunate" to have so many of her acres in the hands of the
raierads because "no real estate can be purchased upon terms
more easily available." Even when settlers have been unable to
make timely mortgage payments, the railroads have demonstrated

"the utmost leniency and liberality."10

Before long, however, the railroads were bearing the brunt of

196
the blame for prolonged hard times on America’s farms. By 1890,
the same Kehraska Farmer that had so enthusiastically endorsed
railroad land sales in the late 18703 was advising its readers
that "the ignorant farmer who votes bonds to aid in railway
building does not understand his own interests. Railways are
good servants but hard and cruel masters."11 In his angry letter
to The Prairie Earner, V.P. Richmond avers that recent railroad
rate increases were primarily the result of "monopolistic greed .
. . reckless management and ruthless piracy.” The railroads had
undertaken "chimerical projects that resulted in disastrous
failure," and now these "enemies of the people" were attempting

to recover their losses by "conspiring to rob honest, rate-paying

people."12 An editorial in the Western Elpynan suggests that the
true culprits are the railroad owners." These human sharks

should be bridled, their big incomes taxed out of existence."

The writer wonders "who will punish these frauds and swindlers .
. . who trample on the rights of people while holding up their
brazen faces in cool defiance of the law."13 Interestingly,
expressions of agrarian hostility to the railroad monopolies were

not confined to the western farm papers. In an 1891 letter to

Ths Rural hew-Xorker, L.H.R. writes:

The greatest curse of New England today is the railroads
that are robbing her people and driving them from their
homes to seek new places in the West. The Western
people seem to think that they are the only people

who are oppressed by the railroad kings: but they are
mistaken, as their brothers in New England are being
robbed even worse. . . . Within the next ten years we
will see the railroad kings all dethroned, and our land
will be ruled by the people for the people.14

197

Writing to the Philadelphia and Albany-based Country Gentleman,
C. M. Clay complains bitterly of the "railroad robbers" who, with
their "criminal combinations in our cities," have created a
situation where "every honest man’s house (his boasted ’Castle’)
in the Republic is in a state of siege, and he can go neither in
nor out without a permit from the gluttonous banditti."15 Even
the more conservative agricultural papers in the Northeast
occasionally joined the fray. The venerable Ksy_Englang_Earnsr
contains a fiery, anti-railroad editorial translated from the
A l me'n itun . According to Carl Laudenschlarger,
"railroad corporations have grown up to a great and wanton
political power . . . and have, through stealth and cunning,
attained a most powerful and ruthless influence over all branches
of public administration, legislation and courts of justice."16

While the.railroads were probably the most frequent recipients
of agrarian invective, they were just one among a broader host of
alleged evil-doers. For J.W. Warr, editor of Ths Westsrn
Plowman, the "greatest and greediest of all monopolies" was the
American Telephone and Telegraph Company. This "blood-sucking
corporation" is "guilty of serious crimes against the people,"
including "extortion and public robbery." Warr further asserts
that if a person dies in a home unequipped with a telephone, and
the death occurs because help is late in arriving, "the company
which deprived that house of the use of one of its instruments is
chargeable with that person’s death."17 An equally irate Jacob

Funck, writing to The Nebraska Farner in 1890, contends that the

198

culprits "robbing and enslaving farmers everywhere" are
"capitalists and money lenders," those "Christian gentlemen" who
"cheat people out of 20 to 30 and even 50 per cent on every
dollar."18 Orange Judd, the highly influential editor of Ths
Prairie Farner, believes that farmers must be especially wary of
corporate advertising because of the "deliberate and extensive
swindling" found in "multitudes of bogus and fraudulent
advertisements put forth by great business concerns.” These
advertisements cost their "victims hundreds of thousands of
dollars . . . and more probably into the millions.19 A
subscriber to the same publication insists that the "shyster,
Shylock lawyers" perpetrate "nine-tenths of all the swindling
upon farmers" by means of "quibbling words or phrases, often
ingenious enough to deceive any but a sharp lawyer accustomed to
examine the import and bearing of every word written down."20 A
correspondent to the Michigan Farner suggests that "the real foes
of farmers," are the "grain gamblers," those whose business is
little more than "a gigantic and commercial evil." The writer
goes on to report that the grain brokers "by great stealth and
cunning" were able to defeat the Hatch Anti-Option Bill despite
"a strong majority in both the houses . . . and the manifest and
just will of nine tenths of the entire people."21

Although the finger pointing was usually directed at
monolithic corporate entities or at occupational groups, an
editor or correspondent would occasionally mention specific

individuals. The editor of The Nebraska Earnsr, for example,

199

maintains that the true enemies of the farmers are millionaires
like "the Armours, Goulds and that class of men" who have made
their money "from the starvation wages paid their employees."22
Still basking in the euphoria surrounding the passage of the
Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Jonathan Periam, editor of The Prairie
Farme , happily reports that the "millionaire sharks like
Rockefeller and Gould seem finally to be in a bad way." Periam
hopes that the "courts will now crush out these blood suckers and
conspirators against the people,” and all their "rampant and
villainous bribery of professional promoters and politicians."23

For some commentators, the major threat to agrarian interests
lurked on the other side of the Atlantic. The farm papers were
filled with denunciations of alien land ownership and of
collusion between powerful European and American financiers and
monopolists. Condemning what he believes is the dangerous
proliferation of European land speculators in the United States,
a correspondent to The Farm Journal predicts that America will
soon be ruled by "the landlord and tenantry system of the old
world." These new landlords, "European noblemen, principally
English, and their brethren of the syndicates, who are buying up
and controlling our lands and industries," are "worse than
invading armies."24 On July 4, 1891, Enral_Ksy;Tersr editor
Herbert Collingwood reports that Baron Hirsch, "the multi-
millionaire philanthropist of Europe, who has already donated
several millions of dollars for the amelioration of his Hebrew

coreligionists," is planning to establish 250,000-acre,

200

"Israelitish colony of agriculturists" in North Carolina. In a
sardonically anti-Semitic tone, Collingwood wonders whether
"these Children of Israel," who after the "last 2,000 years of
attention to trade and financiering . . . among bricks and mortar
and behind counters,“ will be "out of place laboring in our green
fields and between plow handles."25 Approximately five years
earlier, the haw England Farmer had warned its readers about
foreign landlords. After excoriating the ”alien land '
speculators" who were residing in America, the writer takes up
"another class of these same land owners about whom the public
knows little or nothing, but who cause a world of misery and
degradation.”

These are the alien absentee landlords who own large

estates in this country, and . . . to get money to hoard

or squander abroad, grind the faces of their American

tenants, and introduce into this free country the worst

features of the cruel landlordism that has for centuries

cursed shackled Ireland. . . . We want neither alien

land-grabbers, alien landlords, nor, above all, Irish

landlordism in this country. Away with every vestige

of them.26

Others were convinced that American and European capitalists
were constantly conspiring to keep farmers in economic bondage.
One such individual was D.H. Pingrey who, in a disjointed letter
to Ths Erairie Earmer, blames the economic panics of 1873 and
1874 on "vast enterprises, involving the capital of both European
and American managers." These "powerful big money interests,"
had formed a "marvelous, hydra-headed octopus whose vile

tentacles reach even into the legislative halls and courts of

law.”27 In a similar argument, the editor of Ths_ghip_Earnsr

201

contends that the U.S. Treasury (because of the "base surrender
of spineless politicians," those "servile tools of money power,")
is entirely "in the clutches of British bankers and their Wall
Street agents and allies."28 FOr Elbert S. Carman of The Rural
New-Yorker, the major reason the "most powerful republic on
earth," has been unable to control "the most powerful trust on
earth--the Standard Oil," is that the latter has, "for predatory
purposes," established "a combination with the Rothchilds."29

While the agricultural press remained consistently hostile to
foreign land barons and financiers throughout the Gilded Age, the
attitudes toward immigration changed dramatically. During the
most of the 18703 and into the early 18803, the farm papers
generally welcomed the newcomers, especially those from Western
Europe and the British Isles. These people were considered
industrious and skillful farmers who could greatly contribute to
the settlement of the prairies and the Great Plains. Some of the
western states and territories sent agents and promoters to the
eastern cities and even to Europe in an effort to convince large
numbers of immigrants to settle in their respective areas.
Advertisements by railroad companies and speculators contributed
to the boomerism reflected in the rural papers. Beginning in the
mid 18803, however, the mood in the agricultural press began to
change. ‘Editors and readers began questioning the desirability
of "unrestricted" immigration as more people from southern and
eastern Europe began to arrive. As economic conditions became

increasingly worse in the early 18903, the agrarian doubts about

202

the "open dOor" turned to xenophobia. The "fear of the stranger"
which gripped the entire culture was as prevalent on the farm as
it was in America’s cities and towns.30

In April, 1873, the American Earner ran a front page editorial
entitled "Immigration." The writer (probably publisher Samuel
Sands) notes the "immense upheaving among the agricultural
classes of England," and conveys with obvious approval recent
information from Britain that approximately 100,000 "agricultural
laborers are destined for Minnesota, in the U.S." The article
also incorporates an enthusiastic report in the quntry Qantleman
that plans were underway to establish "an immense English colony
in Kansas."

All the preliminary arrangements are being made,

and buildings are now being erected for the

reception of immigrants--laws are to be framed

for the moral and intellectual training of the people;

a railway station has been established on the Pacific

Railway, called Victoria, and in the spring the most

active operations will commence in regard to settling

the colony.
C.M. Cochrane, writing to the Maine Farner in the same year, also
notes that "English agricultural laborers are becoming restive.
Many of them refuse to except [sic] the wages offered by the
farmers and emigration to Brazil is threatened. Why not to the
United States?"32 The competition for foreign settlers was not
limited to the international arena. In the May, 1879 issue of
Ths NebrasKa Farmer, J.C. McBride writes that many newly-arrived
immigrants "are unnecessarily excited over a story that every one

that goes to Kansas gets that ’forty acres and a mule,’ together

with other necessaries in starting a farm." Those who choose to

203

settle in his state "get all that, and more too, . . . if they
will work for it. Nebraska does well by everybody that works."33

Some western states, including Kansas, Nebraska and Texas,
established immigration associations to encourage foreign
settlement. In their frequent advertisements in the midwestern
and eastern agricultural papers, these associations welcomed "the
intelligent and worthy from all lands and countries."34 Further,
they promised to "aid the immigration of honest people . . .
whose presence will enhance the value of our lands--and will add
to our society and contribute to the prosperity of our State."35
Such promotional advertising apparently caught the attention of
The Erairis Earner editors who proceeded to chide their own
Illinois officials for failing to more aggressively encourage
immigration. They recommend that the state should send a trained
recruitment delegation to the Paris Exposition in 1878. Those
selected to go must not simply "put on style and hob knob with
the magnates." Rather, they must "be alive to business, and by
statistics, charts and maps . . . present plainly to the rank and
file of the people proposing to emigrate, the resources of the
country."36 At times, the pro-immigration rhetoric was
reminiscent of the earlier tributes paid to the yeoman. In a
letter to Ths Prairie Farmer, "Elgin," exclaims that it has been
the "hardy European immigrant" who has:

. . . kept the march of civilization steadily flowing

West: who has worked hand in hand with our own

people in subduing vast fertile tracts: made states

to teem with the busy hum of industry: built cities,

and made hitherto waste places, to teem with their
burthen of agricultural wealth.3

204

Writing from a more philosophical perspective, the editors of

’s Ru w-Yorker wonder about the long-range consequences

of foreign settlement in America.

What will be the final result of the mixture of the
races and particularly of those so widely separated
as are the Caucasian and the Mongolian, if they ever
mix--time alone can determine. Enough for us to
welcome all whose condition will be improved by their
coming among us. We know nothing of what the great
future has in store for our country, but should remember
that men’s years are only God’s moments and as He has
made of one blood all nations of the earth, they
should strive to live together in . . . peace and
unity.38

Just ten years later, the Rural New-TorKsr’s earlier
magnanimity and Christian tolerance toward immigrants had been
supplanted by nagging doubt. In one of his many editorials on
the subject, J.S. Woodward provides figures indicating that
while the number of "skilled" immigrants coming to the United
States between 1880 and 1885 increased by 91 per cent over the
previous five-year period, the number of "unskilled laborers"
increased by 313 per cent.

The greatest increase in this undesirable class came

from Italy, Prussia, and Hungary, the immigration from A

which is nearly all unskilled, cheap, and poverty-stricken.

During the last five years the aggregate increase from

these three countries was 94 per cent more than the rest

of Europe. Is immigration any longer a blessing is be-

coming one of the questions of the day.39
Later in the same year, B.C.C. asks a similar question in his
letter to Ths tho Farmer. "We have welcomed the world to our
doors. Is it not about time to modify that welcome? Uncle Sam

is no longer ’rich enough to give us all a farm.’ The old

gentleman should not injure himself by his gifts outside the

205

family."40 Not all the commentary in the early 18803 was so
politely put. In a tone that became more commonplace in the
18903, Wilmer Atkinson, the editor of The Farn qurnal, complains
that while the United States has regulations to quarantine
foreign cattle, it "hasn’t sense enough to protect [its citizens]
from brutality, disease and vice the effete monarchies are daily
casting upon our shores in the shape of human beings."41

By 1890, the nativist sentiment in the agricultural press had
hardened. Questions regarding the advisability of continued
open-door policies were replaced by widespread demands for
restrictive legislation. In the September 1890 issue of Ths_Earn
Journal, the redoubtable Atkinson was calling for a national
"barrier against the immigrant that cannot produce a clean bill
of health and morals."42 Five months later, a correspondent
wrote in wholehearted agreement with the gpnrnalis editorial
stance:

What this country needs is to shut down the bars against

indiscriminate immigration. We need to exclude convicts,

tramps, anarchists, cranks, and lazy, sickly, and vicious

people of every sort. We have taken all the foreign trash

of this kind into our national stomach than we can digest,

and more, too.4
Reporting rumors circulating in the spring of 1891 that several
thousand "objectionable European immigrants" were planning to
enter the United States through Canada, the editors of The Rnral
New-Xorhar demand "some means for damming this foul stream of
foreign pauper and criminal immigration across our northern

border."44

Such xenophobic flames were further fanned in the fall of 1892

265

when Asiatic cholera broke out on an immigrant ship in New York
harbor. The agricultural press strongly supported the subsequent
bill, restricting all immigration for one year, which was
reported out of New Hampshire Senator William E. Chandler’s
committee. Writing to The Ohio Earmer early in 1893, Eli Kirk
condemns those politicians opposed to the Chandler bill.
Referring specifically to Senators Mills (Texas).and Vest
(Missouri), Kirk contends that "such party leaders . . . are
willing to imperil the lives of the citizens of this whole
country, including themselves and their families, and to destroy
the World’s Fair, and to bring on untold evils too numerous to
detail."45 The editor of Farn and Eireside agreed, averring that
the Chandler bill will "draw the-lines taut enough to keep out
all undesirable foreign elements."46 To provide scholarly
confirmation of its restrictionist editorial stance, the same
paper published a xenophobic letter from an "eminent German
historian."

Immigrants are coming here in solid blocks of thousands,

who have little more in common with the American

people than the human shape; they come with the set

purpose of forming and remaining separate colonies

amid the community; they do no assimilate with the

American stock; they do not enter into social or

moral union with it: they are neither able or willing

to do so.47
The editors closely concurred with the historian’s view, adding
that "every such colony is a center of foreignism hostile to
American institutions" and a "source of evil to the colonists

themselves, and to their American neighbors."48

Such ardent nativism wasn’t limited to the eastern

207

agricultural press. Many of the same midwestern and western
papers which had so enthusiastically encouraged immigration to
the prairies and plains in the 18703 had done an editorial about-
face by the early 18903. Ths_Erairis_Earnsr;s Periam was
particularly vehement in his denunciation of unrestricted
immigration.

In relation to the subject of immigration into the United

States the editor . . . has, for two years, been outspoken

upon the fact that criminals, paupers, beggars, diseased

and crippled persons, have been deliberately shipped here

through the connivance of governments of Great Britain

and some European states. . . . our lax discipline of

public officials has allowed this yearly swarm of vicious

and other undesirable persons to spread themselves over

our cities, have filled our penitentiaries, reformatories

and asylums to overflowing, overrun our cities and even

villages with a population not only undesirable but

absolutely vicious and dangerous.4
Periam’s remarks reveal a curious combination of the previously
discussed belief in international conspiracy and an almost
psychotic fear of immigrants. (Unlike earlier commentators, he
makes no distinction between desireable and undesirable peoples:
rather, his xenophobia is indiscriminate and universal. The same
is true of "A Farmer," who, in a letter to Ths lngiana Earner,
links pro-immigration policies to capitalist desires for cheaper

labor.

Brother farmers, let us awake to the great danger that
foreign immigration is inflicting upon the country. If
monarchical forms of government create paupers and
criminals, let them take care of them. . . . Let us not
assist capitalists to turn out native born Americans and
substitute cheaper foreign labor in their places by
remaining silent to this great evil.

Somewhat more typical of the views expressed in the western

agricultural press are those of H.E. Heath, editor of Ths

208

NsbrasKa Earner, who believes there is still room in America for
the "law-abiding" and "liberty-loving" immigrant. Unfortunately,
Heath continues, "those types of people have become exceedingly
rare, and the inflowing tide is now laden with the flotsam and
jetsam of pauperism, crime and anarchy. Immigration now brings
with it contagious elements destructive to American
civilization."51

Like many other Americans, farmers associated immigration and
anarchy primarily because of the Haymarket Square incident in
1884.52 Following the sentencing Of the eight men convicted of
the bombing (seven of whom were foreign-born) on August 20, 1886,
The Rural haw-Torker denounces "those alien wretches who gloried
in their antagonism to law, reason, decency and the peace and
welfare of the civilized world."53 A reader of Ths_hains_Earnsr
writes that "the worthless lives of these alien anarchists are
but a poor compensation" for their "nefarious designs and wanton
and willful destruction of valuable lives."

Their execution on the gallows will be a stern

warning to an exotic class of criminals from foreign

shores for whom there is no room in any corner of

this broad land. Would that their punishment be

inflicted quickly and properly.54
When Governor John Altgeld pardoned Fielden, Neebe and Schwab,
the three surviving anarchists, in 1893, the increasingly
xenophobic agricultural press reacted predictably. The editor
of Earn_ang_Eirssigs suggests that the Governor has "dishonored

the fair name of Illinois."55 His journalistic counterparts at

the Kansas_Earnsr concur with the Kew Yprh Enn that "Altgeld

209

evidently believes that a foreign-born American is better than a
native-born American."56 A correspondent to Ths Prairie Farner
wonders how the Illinois governor knows more than his state’s
Supreme Court and calls for the "deportation of all persons known
ever to have been connected with anarchistic or other secret
societies against the government."57

Agrarian xenophobia could, at times, be somewhat more subtle.
An interesting example is how native farmers viewed the manner in
which their foreign-born neighbors engaged the entire family in
farm work. A New England farmer suggests that the major reason
foreigners "are increasing proportionately on our farms" is
because "they are more willing than American farmers to make farm
help of their wives and children--I almost said drudges."58 In
The tho Farnsr, M.E. Williams agrees that "woman and child labor
prevail among the foreign farmers of America." Although the
practice might "bring individual prosperity," to the offending
farmer, his economic well-being comes at the expense of "making
beasts of burden of his wife and child."59 A.H. Washburn
hopefully predicts that as foreign farmers become more
sophisticated mangers, their increased use of advanced
agricultural technologies will:

. . . drive the women and children from the grain

field . . . and emancipate the boys and girls who

should be in school and the wives and mothers who

should be superintending household affairs, controlling

and educating their children, improvigg their own minds,

or taking needed rest and recreation.

Interestingly enough, the one notable exception to the

strident agrarian xenophobia during the Gilded Age was the

210

pervasive pro-Chinese sentiment articulated in the agricultural
press. Many farm editors and their readers were denouncing the
1892 extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act at the same time they
were clamoring for tighter restrictions on European immigration.
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the
Exclusion Act a year later, the Ohio Earmer’s Lawrence was
outraged:

'Let America hide her head in shame, and never lift up

her voice in defense of human freedom and all the

sacred, God-given rights of humanity, until she repents

of her wicked persecution of a weak, inoffensive,

defenseless people in our midst. . . . The Greary law

is unjust, absurd, unchristian.61
A few years earlier, The Rural New-Torker reports that California
fruit and vegetable growers find their Chinese laborers
"steadier, more faithful and more trustworthy," than other
laborers in the region.62 After considering the popular argument
that Chinese workers took jobs from needy native Americans,
Pennsylvania farmer L.C. Stalnaker concludes that "no complaints
of Chinese ’cheap labor’ can be made by those who wish expulsion
of the Celestials from the State."63 3.8. Rathvon, editor of Ths
Lancastsr Farner agrees that "arguments that have been advanced
that this Chinese cheap labor would reduce ten or twenty millions
of our people to serfdom is entirely absurd."64 It is not clear
why many farmers were favorably disposed to the Chinese. Part of
the reason might be that the comparatively few Chinese in America
lived primarily on the West Coast and exercised very little

influence on northern U.S. agriculture. Perhaps a better

explanation is the fact that California fruit and vegetable

211
growers preferred the hard-working, courteous, and often less
expensive Chinese laborer to any of the available alternatives.
Eastern and midwestern farmers who were consistently troubled by
a shortage of good hired hands could appreciate the need for
reliable, industrious and phlegmatic help.

While agrarian feelings about European immigrants turned
increasingly hostile during the late 18803 and early 18903, their
attitudes toward Native Americans moved in a somewhat opposite
direction. During the 18703, when settlers and the military were
still engaged in armed conflict against various western tribes,
the agricultural press reflected widespread outrage, bitterness
and hatred. As the more militant tribes ceased hostilities and
were moved onto reservations, the rural anger softened into
disdain, pity or what might be termed a condescending
anthropological curiosity.65

In angry response to reports of hostilities between white
settlers and the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, and Arapaho Indians,
the thp_Earnsr;s M.J. Lawrence asserts that "these Indian
massacres . . . of the most blood-chilling nature . . . will make
every citizen almost wish for the entire exterminatiOn of the red
skins."66 Writing to the Michigan Farner in 1874, M.M. Frisselle
denounces the "bloody warfare against the whites," by "savages
who indiscriminantly attack trading ranches, settlements and
emigrant trains."67 In a letter to Ths Lancaster Earnsr, R.N.
Hood draws on Social Darwinism to support ardent racists, like

General William Sherman, who were advocating the annihilation of

212

the Native American. "The law of the survival of the fittest .
. shows conclusively that the Indian must give way, and his
entire extermination is only a matter of time."68 Less erudite
is the opinion of a Nebraska farmer who, while discussing ways to
eliminate stray felines from around the barnyard, suggests that
"dead cats, like dead Indians, are very good ones, and as
fertilizers are not to be despised."69

When news of Custer’s defeat at the Little Big Horn reached
the East in early July 1876, anti-Indian phobias reached new
heights of fury. Writing less than three weeks after the battle,
Andrew S. Fuller, editor of Moore’s u a w o , expresses
"surprise, horror and indignation" over the "Montana Massacre."

Yes, we admit that our mental vision is not

sufficiently acute to see of what good to them-

selves or to anybody else are the American Indians.

They fill a place in the history of the world--

but apparently that place is now wanted and they

must give way. We are believers in Manifest Destiny

to the extent that reconciles us to the idea of

‘their entire and speedy extermination.7o
The editor of the New England Farmsr believes that "as a race
that, in so long a time as it has been known, has made no
progress, has not shown one particle of inventive talent and that
proves incapable of civilization is certainly but little use in
this world."71 Years later, when much of the anti-Indian
hysteria expressed in the agricultural papers had dissipated,
bitter memories of Little Big Horn remained. In 1890, a news
item in Tha Ksbraska Farmer about Sitting Bull’s death was

followed by a terse editorial comment: "It is a good thing for

the citizens along the border that the vicious and snaky old

213

Indian, Sitting Bull, has passed in his checks. He was always
trouble, and his removal to the happy hunting grounds will save
the government a great deal of trouble and expense."72

For many agrarians, complete extermination was too brutal a
solution to the "Indian Problem." In a letter to Ths_intiyatpr
and Qountry Qantleman, W.C. suggests that "what the cOuntry wants
is not to get the Indian race out of the way, but to get rid of
the cruelty and vice which make the race unsafe neighbors."73
The way to do this, the writer continues, is to introduce the
Indian to "the manners and customs of civilized life" and to the
"stimulus of industrious neighbors, who know how to live by
agriculture, and can teach others the lesson."74 Writing to the
Kansas Earnsr in 1875, R. McCabe proffers a similar strategy to
"improve the Red Man."

Coddling is a poor help to civilization and manhood.

Clothing a savage with blankets and the trappings

of civilization does not change the inside of him.

If you make him earn the blanket that he wears, and

clothe his own family, and lay up stores of provisions

for the future, you have taught him new virtues, and

put him on a new basis for living.
A correspondent to Ths Nebraska Farnsr agrees that "if we expect
to ’make the wilderness blossom as the rose’, it will have to be
done by holding the Indians in check and not by being so
lenient."76

Some agrarians were willing to concede that the Indian might

make a passable farmer, but, of course, he would never prove the

white man’s equal. This condescending magnanimity is apparent is

an 1893 letter in Earm and Firesids:

214

Regarding the Indian as a farmer from the standpoint

of vantage occupied by his thrifty white neighbor,

he does not always shine with an undimmed luster . . . but

taking him as a man who while still a savage and with

all the instincts of a wild, free life, untrammeled

by an agricultural acquaintance, he is really not so

bad a farmer after all.77
Others, like Eural New-Yorker editor Carman, were not so sure
that the Indian could ever be taught to farm effectively,
especially on reservations.

It is against the best interests of the

Indians that they should be allowed such vast

areas of land, of which they can make no use.

They are not advanced enough in civilization, and are

too poor and shiftless, to engage in agriculture or

stock raising successfully. The buffaloes, on

which they mainly depended for support, have been

nearly exterminated, and at present they would starve

on the results of hunting over these large areas.
Writing to the Anerican Agricultnrist from Denton County, Texas,
in 1892, W.L. Moore is hOpeful that the rapid settlement of the
Oklahoma Territory will enable white settlers to "finally annex
and govern the various reservations in the Indian Territory."
This would be an auspicious development, according to Moore,
because the "Indian lands are fertile and unused." Whereas the
Indian does not appreciate the fecundity of the reservation
lands, the "civilized white man uses them to best advantage."79

After once belligerent tribes had been subdued, they then
became something of a curiosity to the readers of the
agricultural press. Different tribes were profiled, usually in

the rapidly expanding entertainment sections of the farm papers.

In the mid 18703, for example, both and Ths_intiyatpr_ang
Qpnntry_§sntlsnan and The Ohio Earner printed stories about the

215

Modoc Indians. A Modoc band under the leadership of Captain Jack
had surrendered on June 1, 1874, after holding a far superior
force at bay near Tull Lake in nOrthern California. Captain Jack
was subsequently hanged for the murder of General E.R.S. Canby,
and the Modocs were removed to a reservation in Oklahoma.80 The
article in The Cultivator ang Qpnntry gantlsnan appeared
approximately one year before the surrender and focuses on "the
savage nature and the nomadic habits" of the Modocs. "Once a
numerous, powerful, and warlike people, like the tribe of
Ishmael, their hands were ever raised against all others, and
their aggressive spirit kept them in continual warfare." Later,
after explaining that their dramatic decrease in numbers was
largely result of their "deadly conflicts with the early settlers
of northern California and southern Oregon," the correspondent
concludes that "the bloody atrocities of these Arabs of the West
are still too well remembered."81 Writing to Tha_thp_Earnsr a
short time after the Modocs had been moved to the Yuapaw
Reservation in Oklahoma, M.J. Lawrence employs a supercilious and
comically paternalistic tone. After observing that "the recent
war seems to have completely cowed" the Modocs, Lawrence turns
his attention to individual members of the tribe.

Scar-face Charley and Bogus Charley, the first and

second chiefs of this tribal remnant, are still in

authority, and their commands are respected, but

they no longer bear themselves with their former

haughtiness. The males pass their time in drinking,

smoking, shooting with the bow and arrow, playing ball,

etc., evidently resolved to bestow no thought upon the

morrow. Steamboat Frank has become literary in his

tastes, and is actually making some progress in
learning to read. . . . The eyes of Princess Mary

216

filled with tears when the name of Captain Jack was

mentioned, while the widow of the departed chief

still blackens her face and lives in seclusion.

Other tribes were portrayed in even less complimentary lights.
The peaceful Meewoc Indians of northern California were the
subject of an article entitled, "Interesting Savages," which
appeared in The Qultivator and Qountry Qantleman in 1889.
According to the writer, the Meewocs have "the most degraded and
superstitiOus beliefs . . . from the baby basket to the grave."
Although there are "some specimens of noble physical stature,"
the "utter weakness, puerility, and imbecility of their
conceptions, and the unspeakable obscenity of their legends, .
almost surpass human belief."83 The gentle Digger Indians of
the Pacific Northwest fared little better in an article by Maggie
Downing Brainard, which appeared in the Ansrisan_Agrisnltnrist in
1892. Brainard begins by suggesting that the Diggers "are
considered the lowest type of the red man. Depravity is stamped
on every feature." She follows with a detailed description of
the "repugnant and loathsome" Digger diet and concludes with a
squeamish description of how grasshoppers are "captured and
prepared for serving."84

By the early 18903, information about Native Americans had
moved from the news and editorial pages to the feature sections
of the farm press. Most articles focused on Indian customs,
superstitions and domestic habits. Native Americans were
variOusly depicted as unclean, child-like, and aboriginal.

Unlike the immigrants or the monopolists, they were not blamed

217
for agrarian problems. Once the Indian no longer represented a
threat to agricultural expansion, he became, like the Negro, a
somewhat amusing and harmless diversion from the everyday
monotony and the economic woes of farm life.

Prior to the 18703, Black Americans were rarely discussed in
the pages of the northern agricultural press. When the subject
was raised, it was generally in reference to the evils of
southern slavery. It may very well be that jokes and anecdotes
ridiculing the Negro occasionally appeared in the earlier farm
papers, but in all the issues surveyed for the present study,
only one such example emerged. In the June 1843 issue of Ths
Amerisan Agrisultnrist, the author of "Sketches in the West--No.
1," includes a vignette about meeting a "colored man" on his way
to the Louisville market to sell some vegetables and poultry.
Impressed by the quality of the man’s produce, the author asks:

"Sambo, you are a genius to grow such carrots, a
scientific agriculturist. Did you every read Davy or

Tull?"

"Tull," he replied with a grin, "who be he? Dog
that tree de coon?"

Then the author asks the Negro how he raised such large chickens.
Before the Negro can answer, the author’s impatient driver urges
his horses forward, whereupon the frustrated correspondent
concludes the tale:

Will any Kentuckian please to furnish us with the

peculiar manner that the colored people so delicately

fat their fowls, the knowledge of which, to our great

regret, we were cut off from obtaining of the re-

doubtable Sambo?85

It is difficult to explain why such bigotry was so rarely found

218

in the agricultural press before the Civil War. What is clear,
however, is that, along with xenophobia and nativism, it became
much more pervasive during the last three decades of the
nineteenth century.

Most agricultural papers established separate humor sections
or columns in the years after the war. This was part of a
general trend toward making the papers more appealing to the
entire family. Often these sections would contain several jokes,
usually presented in dialogue form. In Ths_thp_Earnsr, for
example, the humor page was entitled, "Anecdotes and Fun," and a
preponderance of the ethnic humor was directed at Black
Americans. The hiphigan Farmer featured "Chaff from the
Gleaner," which also frequently denigrated the Negro. What is
interesting is that no other ethnic groups, including the Irish,
were as consistently ridiculed in the northern agricultural
press. Typically, the jokes would emphasize the Negro’s
ignorance, cunning, indolence and other stereotypical qualities
long attributed to him by whites. In the June 27, 1874 issue of
The thp Earnsr, a white minister asks Tom, his only Black
parishioner, who "could not read or write a word," why he was so
busily taking notes during the sermon:

[Minister] "What were you doing in church?"

[Tom] "Taking notes, mass; all de gentlemen
take notes."

[Minister] "Bring your nOtes here and let me see them."

Tom brought his notes, which looked more like Chinese
than English.

219
[Minister] "Why, Tom, this is all nonsense."

[Tom] "I thought so, massa, all the time you was
preaching it."86

In the "Chaff from the Gleaner," section of the Nov. 28, 1876

Michigan Farmer:

An old negro man from Harris County was approached
yesterday on the street here by one of his race with the
question how he had voted at the recent Presidential
election. "Well, I tell you wha ’tis: I ain’t voted
yet, and I ain’t gwyne to vote till I see who is
’lected."87

At times, the Negro was used as a humorous and innocuous means of
conveying a moral message to readers. In the March 1886 issue of
the Wastern Plowman, "a good colored man" tells the following
story to his fellow church members (all white):

"Breddren, when I was a boy I took a hatchet and

went into de woods.--When I found a tree dat was

straight, big, and solid, I didn’t touch dat tree:

but when I found one leaning a little and hollow

inside, I soon had him down. So when de debbil goes

after Christians, he don’t touch dem dat stand up

straight and true, but dem dat lean a little and are

hollow inside."88
In almost every case, the humor in the jokes and anecdotes
focused on the Negro’s alleged ignorance and his colorful
dialect.‘ In a lengthy tale called, "ProvisiOns of Civil Rights,"
these racist stereotypes are combined with another, the Negro’s
insatiable appetite. The anecdote begins when Josiar, a
"sapient-looking darkey oscillating between 20 and 25 summers"
begins discussing the Civil Rights Bill with Uncle Billy, "an old
Negro."

"Well, Uncle Billy, Summer’s Swivel Rights bill has

has passed de Senate ob de United States widout a
murmer."

220
"Is dat so, Josiar? "
"Jess so, Uncle Billy. And say, Uncle Billy, we
cullid pussons is gwine to see whose pervisions is
in de pot." - -
After discussing several "provisions" of the legislation, Uncle
Billy, who has been somewhat less than attentive during the
dialogue interrupts Josiar:
"StOp right dar, Josiar. Ef dar’s pervisions in dat
bill, I want a sack ob flour dis berry minnit. Dam
de smokin’ in de ladies car, and de gehography, and
. Latin, and italic coffins! I want de pervisions,
Josiar. Dey’s all dar is in de bill wuff a dam cent!"89
Not only was the Black man depicted as an entertaining ignoramus,
he was also often portrayed as a conniving petty thief. "’Say,
Sambo, what the price of dem ar gloves you got on?’" / "’Don’t
know, sure,’ said Sambo, ’de merchant had just stepped out when I
got um. He! he!’"90 In an anecdote appearing in Ths_thp
Earnsr, this alleged proclivity for stealing was juxtaposed to
the Negro’s superstitious nature.
A darky was once attempting to steal a goose,
but a dog raised an objection, and Sambo retired.
The next night during a thunder shower, he attempted
it again, and just as he was on the point of getting
away with the fowl, the lightening struck close by,
and the noise nearly frightened to poor fellow to
death. Dropping the goose, he started away, muttering,
"Peers ter me der am a mighty lot of fuss made ’bout
a common goose."91
Occasionally, this racist humor would appear in the

advertising and children’s sections of the agricultural papers.

The February, 1892 issue of the Ansrisan_Agrisnltnrist, for

example, contains an advertisement for Powell’s Soluble

Phosphates," a garden fertilizer produced by W.S. Powell & Co.

221
The ad, which includes an offer of free seeds, features a
derisive cartoon caricature of a smiling, barefoot Black man
sitting with a large watermelon slice on his lap offering a
forkful to the reader.92 The "Boys and Girls" section of a
subsequent issue of the Amerisan Agrisultnrist contains "The
Pumpkin Pie Tree," a short story by Agnes Carr Sage. The story,
which is also accompanied by offensive illustrations, tells how
Ananias Crow, "a lank Negro boy," beguiles "Little Juan and
Juanita Pettitoes" out of a freshly baked pumpkin pie. Crow is
variously referred to in the saga as a "son of Africa," "worthy
namesake of the Bible falsifier," and a "certain, naughty black
Crow." The gullible brother and sister are "bright scholars,"
and ”happy little white folks."93 Regardless of their intent,
such derogatory depictions of Black Americans helped reinforce
the racist stereotypes that remain to this day.

On rare occasion, agricultural editors and their readers
seriously considered the relative merits of Black farmers. The
parallels between the stereotypes revealed in the humor and the
more sober perceptions of Black farmers are instructive. In a
letter to Ths gnltivator and Country Qantlsnan, T.B. Baldwin
notes that since the end of the Civil War, "a goodly number of
our ex-slaves . . . own their own land, stock and farm tools."
After admitting that most Negro farmers are "persevering and
frugal," he considers their agricultural acumen.

Our negro farmers nearly all follow the pioneer system

of farming, using little or no manure, and the simplest

plows and other tools. The negro is no man for machinery,
and could never farm with ’patent’ plows, harvesters or any

222

complex implements. . . . In short, the negro is naturally

non-progressive. He has enough of the faculty of imitation

to follow his old master’s simple methods of farming, but

he has no faculty for "catching on" to new ideas.94
A similar view is expressed in Ths_Earn_Jpnrnalr Although the
Negro has "made some good educational progress", in many
instances, "his ’book learning’ cannot be put to practical use."

The negro’s naturally indolent nature will ever be

a barrier to his progress. He is a childish, good-

natured, careless sort of a being, easily satisfied

with life.95
The editor of the lndiana Farmsr concludes a brief discussion of
the Negro in agriculture by asserting that "the proverbial ’rainy
day’ seldom disturbs the mental equilibrium of the average
darkey, and he makes but little provision for it. His motto
seems to be: ’Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we
die.”96 Herbert Collingwood, co-editor of Ths_Knral_Ksy;Tersr,
takes a somewhat more tolerant, though equally condescending view
in regard to "The Negro Question." For Collingwood, the key to
the Black man’s progress in America is education, but education
not in the sense of making the "negro simply ’smart’ and more
capable of rascality," but rather that "higher and broader
education that will place ’a white man’s soul in a black man’s
skin.’. . . If the negro is worth working he is worth
improving."97 Those few agrarians, like Collingwood, who
seriously pondered the fate of Black Americans, arrived at the
same conclusion they (and others) had in regard to Native

Americans: if these minority peoples are willing to listen to

white farmers, and if they are willing to work hard, then perhaps

223
they can learn to adopt progressive agricultural practices.

The period between 1897 and 1910 was one of sustained economic
recovery for American agriculture. In describing the confidence
that prevailed among most Americans at the dawn of the new
century, Walter Lord emphasizes that "even the usually
discontented farmers were happy."98 The gradual return to
prosperity revived agrarian hopes that the good life could be
achieved on the farm. As farmers’ optimism grew, their hostility
diminished. By the beginning of the twentieth century, there was
little mention of monopolistic abuses or international
conspiracies in the farm press. Nor was much said about
immigration restriction. And if they weren’t laughing at ethnic
stereotypes on the humor page, they were proffering popular
theories on how to "uplift" the Black and Native American. Yet,
while the bitterness, hatred and pervasive paranoia that
characterized agrarian thought during the Gilded Age had indeed
subsided, it did not disappear. These retrogressive dimensions
of agrarian thought would reemerge throughout the twentieth

century whenever "times got tough down on the farm."

 

NOTES

1G.H.S., "The Duty of the Hour," Earner’s Eriend, July 1879,
p. 156.

2R.L.L., "Power of Monopoly," gountry antlsman, Feb. 1873,
p. 37.
3M.J. Lawrence, "The Farmers’ Movement," Ths Ohio Earnsr, 31

Jan. 1874, p. 71.

4A.W.H., "New Cincinnati Grange," h o a er,
14 Feb. 1874, p. 103.

5C.S. McIntosh, "Monopolistic Leeches," a' rme ,
24 April 1886, p. 217.

6"Railroads," haw England Farnérp 24 Nov. 1349: P- 394-

7"Indiana Railroads," The Indiana Earmer, Dec. 1353:
p. 284.

8J.H. Hale, "Railroad Men of Ohio," Ths Ohio Earmer,
14 June 1858, p. 297.

9"Choice Land Available," Kansas_Earnsr, 24 Feb. 1877,
p. 61.
1°J.T. Clarkson, Ths Nebraska Earmer, Jan. 1877, p. 6.

11H.E. Heath, "Topics of the Times," Tha Nebraska Farmer,
3 July 1890, p. 499.

12V.P. Richmond, "The Railroad Problem," The Prairie Earmer,
31 March 1877, p. 100.

13J.W. Warr, "Railroad Barons," The Westsrn Plowman,
Feb. 1876, p. 211.

14L.H.R., "Railroads Robbing Eastern Farmers," The Rural New-
Yorker, 18 July 1891, p. 530.

224

225

15C.M. Clay, "The Railroad Robbers," Conntry Gentlenan,
April 1891, p. 284. -

16Carl Laudenschlarger, "Victory of the Grange," sz England
Farmer, 23 Oct. 1875, p. 312. .

17J.W. Warr, "Patent Laws," The Western Eloynan, May 1886,
p. 320. After the Dowd case was resolved in Nov. 1879, Western
Union assigned all its telephone patents to The Bell Company and
removed itself from the telephone business. The following year,
all the remaining phone companies were reorganized as The
American Bell Telephone Company which, in 1885, became The
American Telephone and Telegraph Company. See Sean Dennis

Cashman, Ansrisa in the Gilded Age (New York: New York Univ.
Press, 1984), pp. 22-6.

18Jacob Funck, "Why the Mortgage Takes the Farm," The
Nebraska Farner, 3 July 1890, p. 500.

19Orange Judd, "Extensive Swindling," P ' ie er,
5 Sept. 1885, p. 344.
20L. Harrison, "Humbug Exposures," Ths Erairis Farmsr,

30 May 1885, p. 344.

21R.S.S., "What are Legislators For?," ' ' a F e ,
17 Feb. 1874, p. 54.

22O.M. Druse, The Nebrask Fa er, 1 Dec. 1886, p. 353.

23Jonathan Periam, "When Rogues Fall Out," Ths_Erairis
Farme , 21 July 1890, p. 8. The fact that the captains of
industry and finance were seldom mentioned by name appears to
support the view that agrarians were far more concerned about the
concentration of corporate and monopolistic power than they were
about the proliferation of millionaires. The Goulds and
Rockefellers were reprehensible individuals not because they had
made a great deal of money, but because they had employed
strategies which violated the precepts of laissez faire (p. 118,
n. 26).

24"Pulling Together," The Farm Jou nal, Sept. 1890, p. 158.

25Herbert W. Collingwood, The Rural New-Eorhsr, 4 July 1891,
p. 500. .

26"Away With Alien Landlordism." New.§nsland.£armsr.
6 Feb. 1886, p. 92.

226

27D. H. Pingrey, "What Is the Remedy?, " Ths_Erairis_Earnsr,
10 April 1875, p.113. Interestingly enough, Pingrey suggests

that the best way to combat the international money interests is
for agrarians to invest in railroad expansion. In this way, the
farmers will make more money and thereby become less dependent on
the "bankers and money lenders." Such tortured logic was more
common among the readers of the agricultural press than it was
among the editors.

23M.E. Williams, "The Populists," The Ohio Earner,
13 July 1893, p. 30.

298.3. Carman, The Rural hew-Yorksr, 4 July 1891, p. 500.

30John Higham, strangers in ths Lang; Eattsrns pf Ansrican
Na 'v' 86 - 92 (New York: Athenaeum, 1963), pp. 35-105.

Higham suggests that between 1885 and 1897, "fear of the stranger
accumulated on all sides, mounting into hatred, bursting into
violence, and intruding into politics. Nativist movements
occupied a significant place among the rising currents of
national feeling that swept the decade (p. 68)." Also see
Cashman, pp. 102-9.

31Samuel Sands, "Immigration," American Fa e , April 1873,
ppe 125—6e

32C.M. Cochrane, "English Laborers," hains_Earnsr,
21 May 1873, p. 207.

33J.c. McBride, The Nebraska Farmer, May 1879, p. 101.

34Advertisement for the "Texas Land and Immigration
Association," The Prairie Farmer, 6 Jan. 1877.

35Advertisement for the Kansas Land Association," The Rural
New-YorKsr, 15 July 1876, p. 45.

36"Emigration," The Prairis Earner, 12 May 1877, p. 148.
37Elgin, "European Immigrants," Ths Erairis Earnsr,

3 Feb. 1877, p. 37.

38Andrew Fuller, "Where is the Great West?." MQQI§L§_BB£QL
Esyzxprhsr, 24 June 1876.

39J.S. Woodward, "13 Immigration a Blessing?," u a ew-
Xprhsr, 29 May 1886, p. 356.
4oB.C.C., "More Immigrants," Ths_ghip_Earnsr, 2 Oct. 1886, p.

302.

41Wilmer Atkinson, The Farm Jonrnal, Aug. 1883, p. 126.

227

42Ibid., Sept. 1890, p. 164.

 

43Frank W. McDowell, "Get Those Bars Up!," Ths_Earn_gpnrnal,
Feb. 1891, p. 308.

44E.S. Carman, "Advices from New England," Ths Rural New-
Yorker, 18 April 1891, p. 308.

45Eli Kirk, "The Immigrant Question," Tha_thp_Earnsr,
2 Feb. 1893, p. 92.

45Earm_and_zirs§ids. 1 Jan. 1893. p. 1.
4712131. 1 July 1893, p. 1.
48ijd

49Jonathan Periam, "Restricting Immigration," e a 'e
Earnsr, 14 Jan. 1893, p. 8.

50A Farmer, "Prohibit Foreign Immigration," Ths_1ngiana
Farner, 2 Jan. 1892, p. 8.

51H.E. Heath, "Topics of the Times," Ths_hshrasha_Earnsr,
1 Dec. 1892, p. 1.

52Higham calls the Haymarket Affair "the most important
single incident in late nineteenth century nativism." fitrangsrs
in_ths_1and. p- 54

533.3. Carman, The Rural hey-Tprhsr, 28 Aug. 1886, p. 564.

54A Patriot, "Anarchists," hains_Earnsr, 4 Sept. 1886,
p. 370.

55"Current Comment," Farm ang Eiresige, 15 July 1893, p. 1.

56"Pardon of Anarchists," Kansas Earnsr, 29 July 1893, p. 5.

57E.W. Doran, "Pardons for Three Anarchists," The Erairis
Earnsr, 1 July 1893, p. 8.
58A Vermont Farmer, "The Law of Wages," Ksy_Englang_Earnsr,

15 June 1893, p. 430.

59M.E. Williams, "Woman and Child Labor," Ths Ohio Earner,
13 July 1893, p. 30.

60A.H. Washburn, "Machine Labor vs. Child Labor," Ths Ohio
Earnsr, 17 May 1893, p. 357.

228
91M.J. Lawrence, "Excluding the Chinese," e ' a er,
1 June 1893, p. 430.

62E.S. Carman, "Chinese Labor on the Farm," Ths Enral Nsw-
YorKsr, 20 March 1886, p. 188.

63L.C. Stalnaker, "The Chinese Laborer," u e -
Xersr, 3 April 1886, p. 203.

648.8. Rathvon, "Chinaman or White Man, Which?," Ths
Lancaster Earnsr, July 1873, p. 121.

65Personal interview with George Cornell, Director of the
Native American Institute, Michigan State Univ., 8 Sept. 1987.

66M.J. Lawrence, "Indian Outrages," Ths_thp_Earnsr,
1 Aug. 1874, p. 72.

67M.M. Frisselle, "Savage Attacks," Ths_hishigan_£armsr,
17 Feb. 1874, p. 54.

68R.N. Hood, "The Indian Question," Ths_Lansastsr_Earnsr,
June 1875, p. 93.

69"Put a Period to Them," The Nebraska Earner, 17 July 1890,
p. 533.

70Andrew S. Fuller, "The Montana Massacre," hpprs;s_Enral_
New-Torker, 15 July 1876, p. 44.

71"About the Savage," New England Earmer, 2 AUQ- 1375.
p. 217.

72H.E. Heath, The NebrasKa Earner, 25 Dec. 1890, p. 916.

73W.C., "The Indian Territory," Ths Cultiyatpr and gauntry
Gentlenan, 18 Sept. 1873, p. 603.

74lbid., p. 604.

75R. McCabe, "Improving the Indian," Ka sas F rmer,
12 Nov. 1875, p. 312.

76M.J.C., The Nebraska Farmer, 18 Dec. 1890, p. 898.

77Cancega, "The Indian as a Farmer." Earm_and_£irs§ide.
15 July 1893, p. 3.

78E.S. Carman, "Proposed Curtailment of Indian Reservations,"

Rural hew-Tprher, 7 Aug. 1886, p. 517.

229

79W.L. Moore, "Oklahoma and Indian Territory," er'can
Agrisulturist, Aug. 1892, p. 495.

80Angie Debo, A History of the Indians of the United Statss
(Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1970), pp. 212-3.

81"Scraps of Modoc History," The Cultivator and Country
Gentleman, 10 July 1873, p. 447.

82M.J. Lawrence, "Modocs at Their New Home," The Ohio Farmer,
20 June 1874, p. 213.

83J.R. Thomas, "Interesting Savages," Ths intivatpr and
Country gentleman, 8 May 1889, p. 302.

84Maggie Downing Brainard, "The Digger Indian and Their
Food," American Agriculturist, Oct. 1892, p. 605.

85"Sketches in the West," American Agrisulturist, June 1843,
pp. 68-9.

86"Anecdotes and Fun," The Ohio Farme , 27 June 1874, p. 414.

87"Chaff from the Gleaner," MiQDiQQB_EQEE§£I
28 Nov. 1876, p. 383.

Beflsstsrn_2122msn. March 1886. p- 266-

89"Provisions of Civil Rights," Ths Erairis Earner,
27 Aug. 1880, p. 226.

90lndiana Earmer, 6 Feb. 1892, p. 8.

91"Anecdotes and Fun," The Ohio Farnsr, 4 July 1874, p. 14.
92"We Give Garden Seeds Away," Anerican Agriculturist, Feb.

1892, p. 168.

93Agnes Carr Sage, "The Pumpkin-Pie Tree," American
Agrisulturist, Feb. 1892, pp. 659-60.

94T.B. Baldwin, "The Negro in Agriculture," The Cultivator
and Cpuntry Gentleman, 28 Aug. 1890, p. 677.

95"Negro Farmers," The Farm Journal, May 1891, p. 130.
96"Farming and the Negro," Indiana Earmer, 4 Feb. 1889, p. 7.

97Herbert Collingwood, "The Negro Question," The Rural New-
Yorker, 26 Dec. 1891, p. 900.

230

98Walter Lord, The Good Years: From41900 to ths First World
War (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), pp. 2-3.

CONCLUSION
Yeomanry Transformed: The Image of the American Farmer
in the Northern Agricultural Press at the Close of the Nineteenth

Century

If the redoubtable Thomas Green Fessenden could have returned
to the editorial offices of the New England Earner in 1893 and
spent a few hours browsing the pages of recent issues of the
agricultural paper he founded, he would have been pleased by much
of what he read. He would note with approval the admonitions
against "liquid hell fire," grog shops and saloons. He would
heartily agree with the Springfield farmer who writes about the
"obvious connection between the vile tobacco weed and heart
failure." He would also concur with the correspondent who warns
rural youngsters to avoid the allurements of the large cities,
suggesting instead that they "stay home on the farm." The number
of new mechanical devices would perhaps surprise but certainly
not shock the old Federalist. And all the sound, hard-headed
advice shared by the Farmer’s readers and editors would remind
him of the halcyon days when he first established the venerable
farm paper.

But, like other inquisitive and sensitive souls in late
nineteenth-century Boston, Fessenden would also find much in the

pages of the paper that was confusing--and even frightening. He

231

232
would be disturbed by the talk of agrarian destitution in the
We3t and of the formation of a new political party to help
ameliorate the situation. He would find most distasteful the
harsh and bigoted denunciations of immigrants and the
condescending, racist humor directed at the Negro. He would
wonder about the references to the Grange and the Alliance and
trusts and monopolies and foreign syndicates and conspiracies.
And he would search in vain for a poem which, like his own verse
over a half century before, extols the special virtues of the
American yeoman.

What Fessenden might soon have surmised is that many of the
noble characteristics traditionally attributed to the farmer were
no longer evident in the farm papers. Rarely was there any
mention of the yeoman’s Divine sanction or his unique and
salubrious relationship with Nature or his inherent moral virtue.
No longer did the pages of the farm press resound with the
proclamations that farmers were the healthiest and the most self-
reliant of all Americans and that agriculture was the
"fundamental employment of man." Seldom was the farmer
portrayed as the patriotic hero of American independence, the
linchpin of democratic government and the symbol of American
progress and prosperity. If such sentiments were expressed at
all, they were usually used to bolster more pragmatic arguments
for economic co-operation or legislative action.

The image of the farmer that emerged from the agricultural

press during the second half of the nineteenth century was far

233
more ambiguous and complex than that of the classical yeoman. On
the one hand, he is the practical, progressive businessman who
manages his farm operation in much the same fashion as the
successful merchant conducts his urban enterprise. He carefully
selects his employees on the basis of their character and work
ethic and then takes time to prepare them for the tasks they will
perform. He frequently familiarizes himself with the latest
technological developments appearing on the market so that he can
make prudent purchasing decisions regarding the probable return
on his investment. He schools himself in the mechanic arts to
better maintain and use the new implements he decides to buy. He
learns the principles of bookkeeping and cost accounting so he
can determine precisely how much it costs him to produce a bushel
of wheat or a pound of beef. At the same time, he keeps a sharp
eye on the commodity markets so that he knows when to sell his
crops or his livestock for the best prices.

Not only is he a prudent business manager, but also he is a
progressive marketing strategist. While still staunchly
independent, he is now willing to work co-operatively with his
fellow farmers in the economic interest of all. He can put
narrow self-interest aside and agree with other agrarians on
production goals, ceiling prices and selling strategies. And he
is even willing to risk his hard-earned savings in the process.

He can also extend this same co-operative spirit into the
political arena. He agrees to join with other farmers to elect

politicians who are favorably disposed to agrarian interests.

234
He will, if properly aroused, mount sustained and telling
political pressure to secure favorable legislation. He can
support moSt of the political efforts of such groups and the
Farmers Alliance and the People’s Party--even though he doesn’t
always agree with what he believes are some of their more radical
measures. Occasionally, he even pens politically-inspired
diatribes to his farm editors.

Yet, there are other, less favorable aspects of this new image
of the American farmer. Sometimes his distaste for monopolies,
trusts and certain classes of urban professionals is expressed in
the language of paranoia and hatred. He is capable of harboring
a genuine loathing for those who may diverge from his standards
of ethnic acceptability. He is susceptible to mass hysteria and
can occasionally lock arms with his most ardent enemies in
response to perceived threats from the outside. He can also
betray a meanness of spirit in his attitudes toward powerless
minority groups, urging, for example, the "uplifting of Negroes"
at the same time he is using humor to denigrate the Black and the
Native American.

What actually emerged from the pages of the farm press at the
end of the Gilded Age was not so much an image as a realistic
portrait of the American farmer. No longer was the agrarian
character shrouded by a mythic veil. The Conflicting patterns of
agrarian thought and deed that emerged from the farm press help
explain many subsequent developments in agricultural history.

The progressive-retrogressive duality makes it somewhat easier to

235
understand, for example, how farmers could endorse the
development of the Farm Bureau in the 19203 then later view that
development as a conspiracy among bankers and politician. It
also helps to explain how many farm organizations could open
their arms to Socialists and Communists in the 19303, and then
arbitrarily expel them a few months later. It may also provide
some reasons to explain why some farmers vent their economic
frustrations at county meetings, while others mount
"tractorcades" to Washington, while still others form right-wing,
para-military survivalist organizations or turn weapons on their
bankers, lawyers, and even themselves. For the most part,
however, the same thing that Oscar Handlin wrote about the
Populists can also be said for most American farmers. They were,
and are, "neither saints nor sinners, but men responding to the
changes that were remaking America in their time." In so doing,
the American farmer has demonstrated some of the very worst
aspects of the American character--as well as some of the very

best.

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236

237
The densssss Earner. (Rochester, N.Y.)
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