Problems Faced By American Farmers In The Late 1800s

After the Civil War ended the economy was indubitably unstable, American farmers encountered a sequence of problems from transportation to a complex worldwide market, for instance, some of these complaints were: unfair railroad fees and tariffs policies. These dilemmas led farmers to a horrible economic situation in which some homesteaders even lost their homes and farms. Consequently these farmers displayed a series of complaints in which they specified all the problems they were facing due to those complications. These complaints were mainly focused in the economic perspective and its decline in general, such as low agricultural prices, the gold standard and differential freight rates. Farmers also protested savagely over the favoritism
railroad companies demonstrated with industrialists and powerful individuals. Most farmers tried to fix the situation; their solution was for the government to take control over the phenomenon occurring. They confronted abounding obstacles over the curse of many years but they never discontinued battling for what they considered was right.
Initially, American farmers realized the economy was degrading; prices were falling incredibly due to myriad facts, for example, overproduction.
During that time the development of technology was fast growing but unfortunately this event did not help farmers at all, instead, it damaged them big time since they now could create agricultural products far too much. Farmers kept on producing numerous amounts but did not win as much, if anything, less. In addition there was a gigantic issue that affected not only farmers but “common people” and that was the gold standard. Farmers were against the gold standard because it meant the prices were going to have a reduction, even more than before. The gold standard supplemented a higher value of the national money therefore making it harder for them to pay loans and debts. Bimetallism became a major issue politically and economically. Industrialist and bankers opposed because inflation for them was not good either. One representative was William Jennings Bryan, author of one of the most influential speeches of all time, “The Cross of Gold”. This disquisition was mainly about how the usage of “common people” in order to save the business and the country’s economy was amiss and the importance of
bimetallism.
Moreover, farmers experienced oodles of problems, differential freight fates was an extremely important complain presented by farmers. In the North there was a lot of competition between railroad companies because it was so developed, this caused for some of them to lose money and t was often very difficult to gain it back in those regions. Those corporations expanded through areas less competitive such as the South and the Midwest. To make it up for all the money lost higher charges were imposed by them. Farmers had no other option than to pay the excessive prices because it was the only fast way of transporting goods. Tariffs policies also played a big role in farmer’s lives. Farmers were victim of this; they were basically forced to buy all the products they needed on a market guarded by tariff at immense prices while selling their production in an aggressive market at less than moderate prices because of overproduction and foreign competition.

Furthermore, foreign competition was a prime problem. American farmers already had troubles within the United States but when the foreign competition appeared it made worse. This huge universal market brought developing farms all around the world like Canada and Argentina, because of these appearances additional markets prices suffered even more. Tax and bank policies intervened in the economy. The government wanted the economy and industrialization to grow rapidly in the country therefrom it gave a tax intermission to the big industries. Agriculture became less beneficial, because of this, banks negated most of the time the loan of money to farmers, if so, at a very high rate.