Sample Essay On Agrarian Distress During The Latter Part Of The 19th Century

The aim of this paper was to find and study the main reasons for the Agrarian Distress in the United States in the latter part of the 19th century as well as to show how farmers tried to solve the problems arising out of it.
The surprising thing is that the US, in spite of the process of industrialization and the fact that they were already the fastest growing economy at the time, faced the same problems in agriculture as Europe and Russia, where progress was not that significant. The main reason for this lies in the rapid development of the railway connection as well as the modernization and reduction of fares of oceanic transportation. These factors led to the increased quantities of food products moving among the countries, thereby diminishing their prices. At the same time, farmers owed considerable amounts of money to banks due to their inability to pay extensive tariffs on goods they produced. They had to plant more cultures just to make ends meet, which eventually led to enormous over-production. Moreover, the imperfection of legislation of that time and lack of aid from the government only worsened their hardship.
Farmers, whose well-being was severely disrupted by the economic issues, made several steps towards changing the situation for the better. Initially, they organized a range of organizations designated to promote their interests in the legislative field. However, their activity was not successful since the Supreme Court blocked the majority of their laws. Nevertheless, farmers did not despair and succeeded in electing several governors as well as a considerable number of representatives to the Congress and Senate. This encouraged them to create their own party, namely the Populist Party which proved to be very radical but short-lived. Although, Populists did not manage to satisfy all their demands, their contribution should not be underestimated as many of their ideas were put into practice by the next presidential administrations.