PROPERTY AND THE SOCIAL STATUS OF THE FAMILY FARMER IN GILDED AGE AMERICA (FREEDMEN, WOMEN, SHARECROPPERS, FARM-LABOR, AGRICULTURE).
Item
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Title
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PROPERTY AND THE SOCIAL STATUS OF THE FAMILY FARMER IN GILDED AGE AMERICA (FREEDMEN, WOMEN, SHARECROPPERS, FARM-LABOR, AGRICULTURE).
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Identifier
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AAI8515653
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identifier
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8515653
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Creator
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ROME, ROMAN ALBERT.
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Contributor
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Hans Trefousse
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Date
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1984
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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History, United States
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Abstract
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Farming throughout history has usually been a family enterprise. In nineteenth century America, however, family farming was not viewed simply as the most common method of agricultural exploitation. It was seen as the ideal calling of the American man and citizen, for it was widely assumed that farmers in the United States were almost universally the proprietors of the land they tilled, and the possession of a farm was believed to bring independence to its owner.;As the Civil War drew to a close, it appeared that the grasp of propertied family farmers on the soil of the nation would be strengthened. Emancipation seemed to portend the breakup of Southern plantations and the establishment of freedmen as independent farmers. The provisions of the Homestead Act of May 20, 1862 stood ready to effect the transfer of a vast public domain to the ownership of family farmers. Neither promise was fulfilled.;The census of 1880--the first to collect data on farm tenure--revealed that one farmer in four was not a proprietor, and it appears likely that by 1900 only about half the farms in the United States were tilled by land-owning family farmers. The rest were worked by tenant farmers, sharecroppers, or landless agricultural laborers.;This investigation traces the impact of these developments on the social status of the family farmer in his local community and in the nation. In addition, it examines the role which property played in defining relationships between the family farmer and his wife, his sons, and the hired man he sometimes employed.;The findings of the study suggest that if, by the late nineteenth century, many Americans still held agriculture to be the most noble of pursuits, its practitioners had come to be viewed as ignoble creatures in many quarters. Although the proprietor of a family farm was seen as standing above the tenant farmer or sharecropper and the hired man in an agricultural hierarchy, the mere possession of a family farm brought its owner neither independence nor status in Gilded Age society.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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History
