A thought about the history of farming on the prairies

Richard Hofstadter in his book The Age of Reform points out that American agriculture (at least in what was then the northwest) made the transformation from that of the yeoman farmer in cleared forests to commercial farming in the prairies in the period from 1820 to 1860. That transformation may have been as important in American history as the industrial revolution in manufacturing.

The improved transportation infrastructure (canals, turnpikes and even railroads) added to the river and lake transport system made it possible to market agricultural products to the growing urban areas. The introduction of horse drawn agricultural machinery made it possible to increase productivity of the farmer and his land, but involved the farmer in the purchase of those implements and in financial markets to obtain the loans needed for those purchases. While there must have been a labor shortage that limited the labor markets in the frontier, there grew to be services such as reaper crews that could be hired to harvest a grain crop. Larger, more mechanized farms increased the farmer productivity; each farmer could feed not only himself and his family, but also produce a surplus freeing others to produce other goods and services.

Farm land was sold by the government to settlers, helping to finance the development of governance institutions. There then grew markets for land around settlements, and the market for farmland grew; farmers learned to profit by settling new land, selling it and moving on to settle newer land.

There are still today societies in which the large majority of people live in rural areas. It is recognized that a key motor for development in such societies is the increase in productivity of agriculture. That increase not only is needed to free population to work in manufacturing and services, it generates savings that can be used for investment, and the farmers use their income to form markets for goods and services. This virtuous circle must have occurred in the Northwest Territories. The virtuous circles also included the opening of new lands for agriculture and the immigration of new farm families.

Hofsadter discusses the myth of the self sufficient yeoman farmer and the family farm, which was promoted in the Revolutionary period by the most affluent including plantation owners -- those who could read the Latin authors who were steeped in that myth, a myth that applied to a degree to the frontier farmers who did in fact produce almost everything they consumed making the frontier farm a self sufficient and independent unit. The myth was accepted by the farmers of Ohio and Indiana even as they became integrated into market systems that made them both more productive but also more dependent on the rest of the society.

Of course the process of commercialization of agriculture must have continued after the Civil War and the associated myths must have expanded with the frontier. Hofstadter links those myths with the birth of the populist movement around the turn of the 20th century. There were a lot of people then suffering from what in retrospect we can see as the trauma of the socio-economic transitions of the time and outraged by the conspicuous consumption of the robber barons who were raking the lions' share of the wealth being generated. The promise offered by the myth was clearly not being realized and people got mad and organized.

I would guess that we are going through another socio-economic transition based on both a major technological revolution and massively changing market structures, while the richest one percent (one-tenth of one percent) rake off the fruits of the changes. A lot of people are suffering, especially in the Great Recession and a lot of people are mad.

Are there modern myths comparable to those that fueled the discontent by their obvious falsehood at the turn of the 20th century? Perhaps the idea that American factory workers and clerical workers were the core of the middle class, that the children of the people in these groups could expect better lives than their parents, and that the middle class was the power center of the American democracy are such myths.