Agriculture and Agrarianism

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            Editor's note: This is not meant to be a comprehensive treatment of late nineteenth-century agriculture.  The editor has included only those items that appear to be most relevant to the Farmers' Alliances and  Populist Party.  

Aiken, Charles S. The Cotton Plantation South since the Civil War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. Pr., 1998. 452 pp.  

Alston, Lee J. and Ferrie, Joseph P. Southern Paternalism and the American Welfare State: Economics, Politics, and Institutions in the South, 1865-1965. New York: Cambridge U. Pr., 1998. 170 pp.  

Axelrod, Robert.  "The Structure of Public Opinion on Policy Issues." Public Opinion Quarterly 1967 31(1): 51-60. Uses cluster analysis to assess the structure of public opinion on policy issues. Populism is the most distinct policy dimension today (1967).  Whether 20th-Century Populism is a continuation of the Populist Party heritage of the 1890s needs to be researched. American History and Life, 9:322

Balch, Clifford P. "Agrarian Movements in the South to 1891." Master's thesis, Duke U, 1930.  

Baltensperger, Bradley H. "Agricultural Change Among Nebraska Immigrants, 1880-1900." Ethnicity on the Great Plains (Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Pr., for the Center for Great Plains Studies, 1980): 170-189. Compares the agricultural behavior of German, German Russian, and Swedish immigrant farmers with that of the American-born from 1880 to 1900 in three Nebraska counties.  Immigrants rapidly adopted American cropping and livestock practices.  Swedish farmers readily conformed to the American mode, while Germans and German Russians retained distinctive cropping systems. By 1900 most of the distinctive aspects of immigrant agriculture had faded. 

Beals, Carleton. The Great Revolt and Its Leaders: The History of Popular American Uprising in the 1890s. 367 p. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1968.  Farmers' revolt of the 1890s as the last gasp of the frontier. Revolts help preserve individual human freedom for coming generations. Treats Oliver Kelly, Henry George, Donnelly, and other farm leaders. Popular.  

Benedict, Murray Reed. Farm Policies of the United States, 1790-1950. 548 p. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1953.  

Bertrand, Alvin L., ed. Rural Sociology. 454 p., illus. New York: McGraw, 1958. See Bertrand's sociological analysis of farmers' political action, pp. 349-62.  

Bizzell, William B. The Green Rising: An Historical Survey of Agrarianism, with Special Reference to the Organized Efforts of the Farmers of the United States to Improve Their Economic and Social Status. 269 p. New York: Macmillan, 1926. Scanty; old but interesting. See pp. 164-69.  

Blosser, Robert H. "A History of Major Agricultural Movements in the US before 1920." M.A. thesis, Columbus: Ohio State U, 1937.  

Bogue, Allan C. From Prairie to Corn Belt: Farming on the Illinois and Iowa Prairies in the Nineteenth Century. 310 p. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1963.  

Bowman, John D. and Richard H. Kiehn. "Agricultural Terms of Trade in Four Midwestern States, 1870-1900." Journal of Economic History. 34(3):592-609. 1974.  Ind., Ill., Iowa, & Wisc.  Farm purchasing power improved, 1870-1900, but short-term declines in purchasing power are associated with the growth of the Grangers and Populist Party.  

Buttrell, Frederick H. and William L. Flinn. "Sociopolitical Consequences of Agrarianism." Rural Sociology. 41(1):473-83. 1976.  Agrarian movements, 1890s-1970s. 

Cash, Wilbur J. The Mind of the South. 429 p. New York: Knopf, 1941.  

Clark, Thomas D. and Albert D. Kirwan. The South Since Appomattox: A Century of Regional Change. 438 p. New York: Oxford U P, 1967.  Chapter III, "Agrarian Revolt," pp. 51-81.  

Clotfelter, James; Hamilton, William R.; and Harkins, Peter B. "In Search of Populism." New South 1971 26(1): 6-15. Compares attitudes of George C. Wallace supporters in the 1968 presidential campaign with 19th-century populism.  He concludes that modern populism is "a style of political conflict . . . characterized by average-man rhetoric and by a high level of cynicism about the system and those who hold powerful positions in it." America: History and Life, S:4496

Commager, Henry Steele. The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character Since the 1880's. 476 p. New Haven: Yale UP, 1950.   

Conrad, Frederick Allen. Agrarian Movements in the United States Since the Civil War: A Study in Class Conflict. Stanford U Bulletin, Series 5, no. 138. Ph.D. Dissertation, 1933.  Stanford University Abstracts of Dissertations, 1932-1933, pp. 135-38.  

Dahl, Robert A. A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1956.  See Chapter 2, "Populistic Democracy."  Populism in political scientist Dahl's work roughly translates into the American tradition of majoritarianism. 

Davis, Harold E. "Henry Grady, The Atlanta Constitution, and the Politics of Farming in the 1880s." Georgia Historical Quarterly 1987 71(4): 571-600.  Henry W. Grady, managing editor of the Atlanta Constitution, was the principal spokesman for the "New South" movement.  While proclaiming sympathy for the farmer, Grady's articles and speeches presented a rosy picture of the rural lifestyle and promoted diversification in agriculture.   

Daniel, Pete. Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures since 1880. Urbana: U. of Illinois Pr., 1985. 352 pp.  

DeCanio, Stephen. "Cotton 'Overproduction' in Late Nineteenth-Century Southern Agriculture." Journal of Economic History 1973 33(3): 608-633. Southern cotton farmers were as flexible and as price-responsive as American wheat farmers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Cotton growers were economically astute in rejecting the proposed panacea of diversification. The author found no evidence of traditionalism or of merchants' insistence on cotton leading to overspecialization.  The idea that cotton over production fueled Populism needs to be reexamined.  America: History and Life, 15A:2339  

Dennis, John Philip. "The American Agrarian Protest Movement, 1880-1892." Honors thesis (Government), Bowdoin College, 1977. 183 pp. 

Douglas, Louis H. Agrarianism in American History. 211 p. Studies in History and Politics. Lexington, Massachusetts: Heath, 1969.  A useful compendium. Populism see p. 86-111.  

Dykstra, Robert R. "Town-Country Conflict: A Hidden Dimension in American Social History." Agricultural History 1964 38(4): 195-204.  There was significant conflict between the people of Kansas cattle towns and farmers of the surrounding areas in the 1870s and 1880s. Townspeople opposed seeking federal relief, fearing it would deter further settlement. 

Eichengreen, Barry. "Mortgage Interest Rates in the Populist Era." American Economic Review 1984 74(5): 995-1015.  Tests Populist complaint of usurious and inappropriate farm loan costs, especially in the West.  Concludes there was little inequity in the lending policies considering the greater risks in the West. America: History and Life, 24A:7772

Ferleger, Louis. "Sharecropping Contracts in the Late Nineteenth-Century South." Agricultural History 1993 67(3): 31-46.  Sharecropping slowed growth in Southern agriculture, 1880-1920.  Landlord provided poor tools.  Sharecroppers used the least productive implements of all tenants.  Landlords resisted introduction of new tools and implements to preserve the sharecropping system.   

Fisher, Franklin M. and Temin, Peter. "Regional Specialization and the Supply of Wheat in the United States, 1867-1914." Review of Economics and Statistics 1970 52(2): 134-149. Examines the elasticity of the wheat supply in the United States between 1867 and 1914.  Concludes that low price elasticity existed in the more settled East, while the opposite was largely true for the West.  He tentatively applies the results to several problems in American agricultural history, including the Populist movement. America: History and Life, 10:398

Fite, Gilbert C. "The Changing Political Role of the Farmer." Current History 1956 31(180): 84-90.  Stresses farmer unity as a major requirement for political power.  The mid-1890's when the farmers formed the backbone of the Populist Party, the 1920's when a unified farm lobby pushed the McNary-Haugen Bill through Congress, are examples.  Farm influence since has declined because of disunity and decreased farm population. America: History and Life, 0:2851.

_____. Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980. Lexington: U. Pr. of Kentucky, 1984. 273 pp.  

_____. The Farmers' Frontier, 1869-1900. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1966. 272 pp. 

_____. "Republican Strategy and the Farm Vote in the Presidential Campaign of 1896." American Historical Review 1960 65(4): 787-806. Republicans argued that free silver not strike at the heart of the agricultural problem, namely surplus output and lack of demand.  A higher protective tariff for manufactures, they claimed, would increase domestic demand and create higher prices for both food products and raw materials produced on American farms.  The GOP was successful in capturing the farm vote in key states. America: History and Life, 0:2850

_____. "Southern Agriculture Since the Civil War: An Overview." Agricultural History 1979 53(1): 3-21. Surveys the changes and developments in southern farm methods since the Civil War.  Changes include diversification, balancing crops with livestock, new and better methods, economic reforms, and the modernization of home life. 

_____. "Western Farmers and the Decline of Laissez-Faire, 1870-1900." North Dakota Quarterly 1973 41(3): 40-53. Discusses the beginning of federal government aid to agriculture, especially through farm subsidies.  

Fleming, Walter Lynwood. The Sequel of Appomattox: A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States 1867-1877. 322 p. Chronicles of America, Reunion of the States. 32 p. New Haven: Yale U P, 1919.  See Ch. 12, 265‑281; bib., 305-308. "Excellent on the condition of Southern Agriculture following the Civil War."  Hicks, Populist Revolt.  

Flora, Jan L. and Stitz, John M. "Ethnicity, Persistence, and Capitalization of Agriculture in the Great Plains during the Settlement Period: Wheat Production and Risk Avoidance." Rural Sociology 1985 50(3): 341-360.  Evidence from Ellis County, Kansas, indicate that Russian-German farmers followed the yeoman farmer methods, combining commercial and subsistence agriculture. 

Formisano, Ronald P. and Shade, William P. "The Concept of Agrarian Radicalism." Mid-America 1970 52(1): 3-30.  Contradicts analyses of Frank L. Klement and Stanley L. Jones who point to a continuum of issues and leaders linking Jacksonian Democracy, the Copperheads, Greenbackers, and the Grange Movement.  Using Illinois as an example, Formisano and Slade show that demands for railroad regulation were largely nonpartisan, leading Democrats were "Bourbons" rather than "agrarian radicals," few Copperheads became Grangers or Greenbackers, and antiwar Democrats were lawyer-politicians from southern Illinois while Grangers and Greenbackers were strongest in Northern Illinois. America: History and Life, 10:2535

Fuller, Wayne E. "The South and the Rural Free Delivery of Mail." Journal of Southern History. 24(4):499-521. November 1959.  This was a demand of Southern Populists.  

Galambos, Louis. "Agrarian Image of the Large Corporation, 1879-1920: A Study of Social Accommodation." Journal of Economic History. 27(3):341-62. September 1968.  Good background piece for attitude of farmers toward big business.  

Gates, Paul W. Fifty Million Acres: Conflicts Over Kansas Land Policy: 1854‑1890. 311 p. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1954. Reprinted by Atherton Press, 1968.  

Gelfand, Lawrence E. and Neymeyer, Robert J., ed. Agricultural Distress in the Midwest, Past and Present. Iowa City, Iowa: Center for the Study of the Recent History of the US, 1987. 111 pp.  

Geiger, Louis G. "Muckrakers - Then and Now." Journalism Quarterly 1966 43(3): 469-476.  Muckrakers succeeded in putting through policies for which populism and agrarianism had already laid the groundwork.  But, agrarians, acting upon special interest, did not reciprocate in support of urban reform.  Muckraker optimism was a manifestation of an innocence now gone. Yet a measure of optimism, if not of innocence, appears essential to all really successful reform periods in America. America: History and Life, 4:2763

Gilbert, Charles E. "Operative Doctrines of Representation." American Political Science Review 1963 57(3): 604-618. Identifies and critiques six American intellectual traditions: idealism (Woodrow Wilson), utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill, and Frank Knight), rationalism (A. L. Lowell and Frank Goodnow), pragmatism (John Dewey), participatorism (Mary Parker Follett), and populism. America: History and Life, 1:127

Griswold, Alfred Whitney. Farming and Democracy. 227 p. New York: Harcourt, 1948.
Little on Populism per se, but excellent on agrarian values.  

Halcoussis, Dennis. "Economic Losses Due to Forecasting Error and the U.S. Populist Movement." Economic Inquiry 1996 34(2): 260-275.  A farmer's crop mix is affected by the expected relative prices of the crops. A price forecasting error results in economic loss.  Using data for Kansas counties from 1882 to 1907, the author estimates agricultural crop mix functions.  The he concludes that although new market opportunities must have made farmers better off, these opportunities increased the cost of price uncertainty. America: History and Life, 34:12173

Ham, George E. and Higham, Robin, ed. The Rise of the Wheat State: A History of Kansas Agriculture, 1861-1896. Manhattan, Kans.: Sunflower U. Pr., 1987. 195 pp.  

Handlin, Oscar. "Peasant Movements and Agrarian Problems." Cahiers Int. d'Hist. Econ. et Sociale. [Italy]. 8:105-114. 1978.  America never had a peasant class, thus no peasant uprisings.  American farmers took advantage of economic change. 

Hearden, Patrick J. "Agricultural Businessmen in the New South." Louisiana Studies 1975 14(2): 145-159.  Southern agricultural businessmen allied with urban entrepreneurs calling for southern economic independence based primarily on large scale textile manufacturing between 1870 and 1900.  Major farm groups such as the Grange and the Farmers Alliance supported this. America: History and Life, 14A:5240

Heffer, Jean. "Le Marche du Ble Americain, 1860-1900. Une Analyse Structurale." [A structural analysis of the US wheat market, 1860-1900]. Histoire, Economie et Société [France] 1986 5(2): 265-295.  Variations in price, crop yield, and income, correlate with the rise of Populist movement (1890-91 and 1893-94).  On the demand side, the few negative variations were offset by improvements in freight transportation and marketing. America: History and Life, 26:1328

Hicks, John D. "The Birth of Our Farm Protest." Co-op Grain Quarterly. 13:39-44. August 1955.  

_____. "The Legacy of Populism in the Western Middle West," Agricultural History XXII (October 1949): 225-46. 

_____. "The Western Middle West, 1900-1914." Agricultural History. 20(2): 65-77. April 1946.  Why this area (ND, SD, NB, KA, MN, IO, MO, WI, IL.) is the area of agrarian discontent.  

Hofstadter, Richard. "The Myth of the Happy Yeoman." American Heritage. 7(3):45‑53, illlus. April 1956. Examines the intellectual basis for the "happy yeoman."  

Howard, Robert West. Two Billion Acre Farm: An Informal History of American Agriculture. 209 p. New York: Doubleday, 1945. Treats Populists and Farmers' Alliance, pp. 124-43.  

Kelsey, Rayner W. "Farm Relief and its Antecedents." Historical Outlook. 22:387-95. 1931.   

Kendrick, Benjamin B. "Agrarian Movements: United States." Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 1:508-511. New York: Macmillan, 1930.  History of American agrarian movements from 1780-1930.  

Kepfield, Sam S. "'They Were in Far Too Great Want': Federal Drought Relief to the Great Plains, 1887-1895." South Dakota History 1998 28(4): 244-270. Explains why Great Plains farmers beset by droughts between 1887 and 1895 received no federal assistance. Despite enticing settlers to the area, government officials believed farmers should use new technology and data on crop futures to overcome climatic problems and sagging prices. America: History and Life, 36:11417.

Koch, William E. "Campaign and Protest Singing During the Populist Era." Journal of the West 1983 22(3): 47-57.  Singing added drama and emotional appeal to political gatherings staged by such groups as the Grangers, the Farmers' Alliance, and the Populist Party. Community glee clubs often supplied the music for such events. Includes samples of campaign and protest songs. 

Knee, Stuart E. "Roosevelt and Turner: Awakening in the West." Journal of the West 1978 17(2): 105-112.  Theodore Roosevelt's Winning of the West and Frederick Jackson Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" reached essentially the same conclusions.  The frontier experience was an evolutionary advance in a form of government developed by men whose characters and social patterns were shaped in the forests. Both men were hostile to industrialism.  Turner took the populist view that looked back to a golden age of agrarianism.  Roosevelt looked forward to a stage beyond agrarianism where the nation would be equal with the world's great powers. America: History and Life, 16A:6647

Laird, William E.; Rinehart, James R. "Deflation, Agriculture, and Southern Development." Agricultural History 1968 42(2): 115-124.  Sharecropping and crop-lien systems stifled agricultural progress and prevented the agricultural surplus that were vital for industrial-urban development.  This was a direct result of the deflation after 1865.  Without an adequate money and credit system, agriculture and industry was badly underfinanced.  

Lindstrom, David E. American Farmers and Rural Organizations. 457 pp. Champaign: Garrard, 1948.  

Lipartito, Kenneth J. "The New York Cotton Exchange and the Development of the Cotton Futures Market." Business History Review 1983 57(1): 50-72.  The principal cotton merchants of New York City established the New York Cotton Exchange in 1871.  During the 1890's criticism of futures trading swelled in the midst of the Populist protest of the era, but after the turn of the century criticism faded, and the operations of the exchange continued unchanged. America: History and Life, 21A:4912

Lurie, Jonathan. "Commodities Exchanges, Agrarian 'Political Power,' and the Anti-option Battle, 1890-1894." Agricultural History. 48(1): 115-25.  1974. 

Mandle, Jay R. "Sharecropping and the Plantation Economy in the United States South." Journal of Peasant Studies [Great Britain] 1983 10(2-3): 120-129. Sharecropping greatly inhibited agricultural development because the primary concern of landowners was the subordination of laborers. 

Mayhew, Anne. "A Reappraisal of the Causes of Farm Protest in the United States, 1870-1900." Journal of Economic History. 32(2):464-475. June 1972.  Farmers were drawn into mainstream of commercial-industrial economy through commercialization of his sector.  This caused farm conditions to deteriorate. 

McCalla, Alex F. "Protectionism in International Agricultural Trade, 1850-1968." Agricultural History 1969 43(3): 329-343.  Reduced trade restrictions on agricultural products dominated America between 1950-1875.  Because agricultural depression and overseas competition from the Americas and Australia, agricultural protection began again in Europe in the late 1870s. 

McConnell, Grant. The Decline of Agrarian Democracy. 226 p. Berkeley: U of California P, 1953.  

McCormack, Thomas C. "Cotton Acreage Laws and the Agrarian Movement." Southwestern Social Science Quarterly. 12:296-304. 1931-1932.  

McGuire, Robert A. "Economic Causes of Late-Nineteenth Century Agrarian Unrest: New Evidence." Journal of Economic History 1981 41(4): 835-852. Late nineteenth-century agrarian unrest was directly related to a state's degree of economic instability.  

_____. "An Empirical Investigation of Farmers' Behavior Under Uncertainty: Income, Price and Yield Variables for Late-Nineteenth-Century American Agriculture." 334p.  Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1978.  DAI 1978 39(2):1017-1018-A 

Melandri, Pierre. "La Rhetorique Populiste Aux Etats-Unis" [Populist Rhetoric in the United States]. Vingtième Siècle [France] 1997 (56): 184-200.  In the last two centuries, the use of populist rhetoric by the major political parties has been an indicator of the mood of the country.  Populism has never reflected a precise school of thought in the United States.  It has been nourished by resentment, frustrations, and nostalgia for a former order in which social status and cultural identities were supposedly stronger. America: History and Life, 35:13484

Moore, James Tice. "Agrarianism and Populism in Tennessee, 1886-1896: An Interpretative Overview." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 1983 42(1): 76-94.  The relatively prosperous condition of Tennessee's agriculture limited that state's agrarian revolt. Farmers enjoyed political preeminence during the 1890-92 gubernatorial administration of John Price Buchanan, but they did little to inhibit corporate influence or promote the radical program of the Southern Farmers' Alliance.  Instead, they promoted governmental economy, raised racial barriers, and reinforced the convict-lease system. 

_____. "Origins of the Solid South: Redeemer Democrats and the Popular Will, 1870-1900." Southern Studies 1983 22(3): 285-301.  Redeemers held power by representing the interests of rural areas and the majority of Southerners, not by ballot-box fraud and the support of a few capitalists.  They cut real estate taxes, established state commissions of agriculture, subsidized state fairs, sponsored experimental farms, employed chemists to inspect fertilizers and to conduct soil surveys, established regulations for railroads, and supported lower tariffs.  

Murotani, Satoru. "Chuseibu Han-'Dokusen'-Teki Nomin Undo to Dokusen Shihonshugi Taisei No Seiritsu--Nomin Seikataushi Kara No Ichishiza" (Midwestern Agrarian Movements Against 'Monopolies' and the Social Formation of Monopolistic Capitalism). Shakaikeizaishigaku (Socio-Economic History). [Japan]. 48(2):46-62. 1982. 

_____. "19-Seiki Amerika Nomin Undo Saiko" (Reconsideration of the Causes of the Farmers' Movement in the United States in the Late-Nineteenth century). Tochiseido Shigaku. [Japan]. 90:43-59. 1981.  The 1890s agricultural depression was not as so bad. America: History and Life, 21A:910

Nugent, Walter T. K. "Some Parameters of Populism." Agricultural History 1966 40(4): 255-270. Populism was primarily a political response to economic trouble.  A study of groups of Republicans and Populists in Kansas in 1889-92 indicates that the sociological differences were not great, but a much larger percentage of the Populists were farmers and their economic situations were more precarious. America: History and Life, 4:755

Oakda, Yasuo, "Amerika Chuseibu Ni Okeru Nojyotrito Fusai" (Farm Mortgages in the Middle West). Shakai Keizai-Shigaku. (Japan) 36(2):142-61. 1970.  Mortgages on farms were not a major legitimate grievance of midwestern farmers during late nineteenth century.   

_____. "Amerika Chuseibu No Nomin Undo" (The Farmer's Movement in the Midwest). Shakai Keizai-Shigaku. 46(5):65-79. 1981.  Focuses on the agrarian protest movement in the Midwest from the 1870s to 1890s. 

Orsi, Richard J. "The Octopus Reconsidered: The Southern Pacific and Agricultural Modernization in California, 1865-1915." California Historical Quarterly 1975 54(3): 197-220. Challenges the conventional view that the Southern Pacific Railroad retarded economic development in California.  It worked hard to bring in population, develop a broader agricultural base, make land available at reasonable prices, and subsidized magazines, pamphlets, and books promoting California.  Contrary to the image generated by novelist Frank Norris, the Southern Pacific was a major force in California's agricultural development. 

Ownby, Ted. "The Defeated Generation at Work: White Farmers in the Deep South, 1865-1890." Southern Studies. 23(4):325-47. 1984.  Whites lost freedom to determine crops.  Self-sufficiency of corn and hog growing changed to cash-crop cotton culture, which took twice as much work.  Increasing tenancy gave rise to Populism. America: History and Life, 23A:4154

Pisani, Donald J. From the Family Farm to Agribusiness: The Irrigation Crusade in California and the West, 1850-1931. Berkeley: U. of California Pr., 1984. 521 pp.  

Ransom, Roger L. and Odell, Kerry Ann; Peterson, Willis and Rothstein, Morton (commentary). "Land and Credit: Some Historical Parallels Between Mexico and the American South." Agricultural History 1986 60(1): 4-31.  Mexico and the American South were similar in farm size, tenure, and credit institutions.  In both places, local money lenders provided financial assistance and took liens on the crops.  Inadequate credit caused the failure of land reform. 

Reid, Joseph D., Jr. "The Evaluation and Implications of Southern Tenancy." Agricultural History 1979 53(1): 153-169. Tenancy, sharecropping and renting were rungs on the southern agricultural ladder.   Tenancy was not the cause southern poverty in the late nineteenth century. 

Rigney, Daniel. "Three Kinds of Anti-Intellectualism: Rethinking Hofstadter." Sociological Inquiry 1991 61(4): 434-451.  Analyzes Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life.  Identifies three distinct types of anti-intellectualism: religious anti-rationalism, populist anti-elitism, and unreflective instrumentalism.  Each type arises from within its own distinctive institutional matrix. Although Hofstadter failed to anticipate the growing cultural impact of mass media institutions, he demonstrates convincingly that anti-intellectualism is not a unitary phenomenon. America: History and Life, 30:4387

Robison, Daniel M. "From Tillman to Long: Some Striking Leaders of the Rural South." Journal of Southern History. 3(3):289-310. August 1937.  There is a unique southern "populist" theme in southern political demagoguery.  

Ross, Joseph B. "The Agrarian Revolution in the Middle West." North American Review. 190:376-391. September 1909.  

Saloutos, Theodore. "The Agricultural Problem and Nineteenth-Century Industrialism." Agricultural History. 22(3):156-74. July 1948.  Shift of national priorities from agriculture to industry disturbs the farmer and creates problems.  

_____ and John D. Hicks. Agricultural Discontent in the Middle West, 1900‑1939. 581 p. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1951.  Reprinted under title Twentieth Century Populism: Agricultural Discontent in the Middle West, 1900-1939. Bison pbk. ed. 1968.  Similar to Hicks's, "The Legacy of Populism in the Western Middle West," Agricultural History XXII (October 1949): 225-46. 

Schiller, Karl. "Uber die Agrarpolitik der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika." Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv [Germany]. 39(3):603-612. 1934. 

Schmidt, Louis B. "Some Significant Aspects of the Agrarian Revolution in the United States." Iowa Journal of History and Politics. 28:371-395. July 1920.  

Scruggs, C. G. and Moseley, Smith W. "The Role of Agricultural Journalism in Building the Rural South." Agricultural History 1979 53(1): 22-29.  History of several southern farm journals, including Leonidas l. Polk's Progressive Farmer.  Such papers included editorial opinion and promotion, news of world or national affairs, letters from farmers, and an exchange of agricultural information.  These periodicals denounced farm tenancy, high interest rates, railroad exploitation, poor schools, and poor health. Comment by William K. Scarborough, pp. 60-61.  

Severson, Robert F., Jr. "The Source of Mortgage Credit for Champaign County, 1865-1880." Agricultural History 1962 36(3): 150-155.  The individual Illinois farmer was seldom directly indebted to an Easterner.  The money lender was a benefactor of the farmer.  The author opposes the Populist picture of the farmer made miserable by the grinding burden of debt to greedy men in the financial centers of the East. America: History and Life, 0:4932

Shannon, Fred. The Farmer's Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897. 434 p. New York: Farrar, 1945.  A scholarly survey. 

Simms, James Y., Jr. "Impact of Russian Famine, 1891-1892, Upon the United States." Mid-America 1978 60(3): 171-184.  During 1891-92 Russia suffered one of the severest famines in its history, which aided the US grain growers in opening markets, and Farmers Alliance and Populist Party by showing the importance of American farmers in the international grain crisis. America: History and Life, 16A:6689

Soth, Lauren. "The End of Agrarianism: Fission of the Political Economy of Agriculture, 1850-1965." American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 52:663‑667. December 1970.  

Stock, James H. "Real Estate Mortgages, Foreclosures, and Midwestern Agrarian Unrest, 1865-1920." Journal of Economic History. 44: 89-105. March 1983. 

Trask, David S. "Nebraska Populism as a Response to Environmental and Political Problems." in Blouet, Brian W. and Luebke, Frederick C., ed. The Great Plains: Environment and Culture (Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Pr., 1979): 61-80. Nebraska Populism developed during a period of simultaneous crises in agriculture and politics. Farmers who attempted to raise corn and hogs in dry regions of Nebraska faced economic disaster when drought occurred. When they sought relief through political means, they found the Republican Party insensitive.  The Democratic Party was preoccupied with anti-prohibition. 

Travis, Paul D. "Changing Climate in Kansas: A Late 19th Century Myth." Kansas History 1978 l(1): 48-58. Lured to western Kansas by a fictionalized conception of agriculture in semiarid regions spread by journalists, speculators, railroads, authors, poets, and scientists, the settlers were slow to accept reality.  

Turner, Frederick Jackson. "The Problem of the West." Atlantic Monthly. 78:289-297. 1896.  

Weintraub, Irwin. Black Agriculturists in the United States, 1865-1973: An Annotated Bibliography. University Libraries Bibliographical Series, 7. University Park: Pennsylvania State U. Lib., 1976. 317 pp.  

Wessel, Thomas R. "Agricultural Depression and the West, 1870-1900." European Contributions to American Studies [Netherlands] 1989 16: 72-80.  American agriculture slipped into a long and severe depression after the Civil War because the military cut purchases, deflation, fewer bank loans based on future crops, increased dependence on high cost forms of transportation like railroads, and the opening of the West to agricultural exploitation. 

_____. ed. Agriculture in the Great Plains, 1876-1936. Washington: Agric. Hist. Soc., 1977. 263 pp.  

Whealen, John J. "American Liberalism: Its Meaning and Consistency." Mid-America 1957 39(2): 73-84.  The policies of Populism, the New Freedom, and the New Deal are directly associated with Jeffersonian liberalism. America: History and Life, 0:5991

Wilson, N. James. "The Farmers' Search for Order (1880-1910)." Ph.D. dissertation, Oklahoma, 1974. 240 pp. DAI 1974 35(4): 2204-2205-A.  

Woodward, C. Vann, "American Agrarianism: A Fighting Tradition." U.S. Bureau of Agr. Econ. Land Policy Review. 4(8):3‑7. August 1941.