How Did The Sharecroppers Affect The Economy In The 1930's

According to the Great Plain Drought Area Committee Report (Doc. D), in 1879, 10 million acres of crop were harvested. 20 years later, in 1899, 50 million acres of crops were harvested, 5 times more crops than in 1879. In 1929, that number more than doubled to a 105 million acres of crops that were harvested. How did happen? Farming technology advanced rapidly from 1879 to 1929. In “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan (Doc. C), Egan wrote, “A tractor did the work of ten horses. With his new combine, Folkers could cut and thresh the grain in one swoop, using just a fraction of the labor.” The new farming technology made farming faster and it required less labor. Farmers had this new technology and used it to plow more land. Millions of acres were being plowed and farmed on and with the dry soil and no grass to keep it on the ground the dust became airborne and started grouping together and creating terrible storms.

The Dust Bowl, battering the Midwest for nearly a decade with high winds, bad farming techniques, and drought, became a pivotal point in American history. The wind storm that seemed relentless beginning in the early 1930’s until its spell ended in 1939, affected the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and the broader agriculture industry. The catastrophic effects of the Dust Bowl took place most prominently around the Great Plains, otherwise known as the farming belt, including states such as Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, which were hit extraordinarily hard. Millions of farming acres destroyed by poor farming techniques was a major contributor to what is considered to be one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in American history. This period resulted in almost a decade of unstable farming and economic despair. Thousands of families sought government assistance in order to survive. Luckily, government aid to farmers and new agriculture programs that were introduced to help save the nation’s agriculture industry benefited families and helped the Great Plains recover from the Dust Bowl. Furthermore, the poor conditions in the farm belt were also compounded by the Great Depression as it was in full swing as the Dust Bowl began to worsen. In addition, World War I was also underway which caused a high demand for agricultural products, such as wheat, corn, and potatoes to be at its peak, which lured many people to the farm belt with the false expectation that farming

     Another important factor for the substandard conditions of sharecroppers was their significant lack of food. Having to survive off of low supplies of food is harmful to anyone, but to people who are lacking in so many other areas, it could be devastating. Sharecroppers everywhere were already being cheated of how much of the seasons harvest was actually theirs, in addition to the impractical rules of what they could and could not own while they lived on the landowners farm land. “Nutrition standards of sharecroppers were already low,” and these regulations increased them (Walker 37). Many sharecroppers across the south “were not even allowed to have gardens, cows, or chickens” (Walker 18). Most of the time, the only field crops that sharecroppers could have as their own food

The sharecroppers paid "rent" with a share of the crops that they raised, with roughly one-half of all they produced belonged to the white owner (Ransom and Sutch, 1977). The landowner also advanced money to the farmer to purchase seed and other necessary farming equipment. The problem was the sharecroppers rarely, if ever, made enough money from the sale of their crops to pay back their debt. This often led to what some called "debt peonage," and it effectively bound sharecroppers to the land, and the landowner (Bowles, 2011). This was a veiled form of slavery, much like convict leasing was.

Sharecropping and tenant farming began during the end of the Civil war all through the great depression. Sharecropping is an agreement between a tenant and a landlord in which a tenant farmer is allowed to work and live on a piece of land for free, but in exchange for living there for free, they give the landlord a share of the crop they grow. Sharecropping was mainly big in the southern states where slavery was once legal. The pay for being a tenant farmer was very low and the living itself was not very desirable.

Sharecropping gave farmers a place to live. The lack of the initial upfront payment is a disadvantage to the landowner, who had to wait for payment until the crops are harvested and sold. They both make

The rural depression was a primary component in the Great Depression, as bank advances turned sour, credit became scarce, and banks across the nation shut down. All through the 1930s, more than a million acres of land were influenced in the Dust Bowl, a large number of agriculturists lost their jobs and property, and mass relocation patterns started to arise as ranchers left rustic America looking for work in urban areas. This relocation, or migration, added to Great Depression unemployment hardships, stressed alleviation and advantages programs, and made in many vast American urban areas (The Great Depression Causes).

During the 1930’s,a whole decade was full of dust bowl’s which were causing people to lose everything and becoming poor.The plains were where the dust bowls started spreading to countries like Kansas,Oklahoma,Texas and New Mexico.The dust bowls would kill off all the crops and leave areas with drought.people would start moving out of the countries and others would stay.

“As a ‘double whammy’ of drought and depression deepened on the Great Plains, more and more farmers gave up or were forced off of their land” (Winter). According to Bart Robinson, an eyewitness, “Many people thought it was a plague” (Robinson). The migrant workers started moving away. “When pioneers headed west in the late 19th century, many couldn’t resist the lure of the tall grassy land in the semiarid Midwestern and Southern plains of the United States” (“Black Sunday”). Many people did travel to other states. Though “the exact scale of migrants is unknown but it’s estimated that up to 400,000 Southwesterns moved west during the 1930s and to 300,000 moved into California a decade earlier” (Sander). Dust Bowl refugees found roots in California (Winter). “Sometimes they found work, but mostly they found heartbreak and anger” (Robinson). They had once “owned profitable farms. Then they had nothin’ but hunger and dirt and two cents a barrel” (Robinson). Some migrant workers had trouble finding houses within their price range. “Many of the migrant workers lived in labor camps”

In the period 1865-1900, technology, government policy, and economic conditions all changed American agriculture a great deal. New farming machinery had a large role in the late 19th century, giving farmers the opportunity to produce a lot more crops than they used to. The railroads had an enormous influence on agriculture. They were able to charge the farmers large fees, expenses that farmers barely had enough to cover, in order to transport their goods throughout the expansive country. The booming industry also changed American agriculture, creating monopolies and gaining incredible wealth with which the farmers simply could not compete. Economically, the monetary policy along with the steadily

In the period 1865-1900, technology, government policy, and economic conditions all changed American agriculture a great deal. New farming machinery had a large role in the late 19th century, giving farmers the opportunity to produce many more crops than they had ever been able to previously. The railroads had an enormous influence on agriculture. They were able to charge the farmers large fees, expenses that farmers barely had enough to cover, in order to transport their goods throughout the expansive country. The booming industry also changed American agriculture, creating monopolies and gaining incredible wealth with which the farmers simply could not compete. Economically, the monetary policy along with the steadily dropping prices of

The timeline of the dustbowl characterizes the fall of agriculture during the late 1920s, primarily the area in and surrounding the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl was created by a disruption in the areas natural balance. “With the crops and native vegetation gone, there was nothing to hold the topsoil to the ground” (“Dust Bowl and” 30). Agricultural expansion and dry farming techniques caused mass plowing and allowed little of the land to go fallow. With so little of the deeply rooted grass remaining in the Great Plains, all it took was an extended dry season to make the land grow dry and brittle. When most of the land had been enveloped by the grass dust storms weren’t even a yearly occurrence, but with the exponentiation of exposed land, the winds had the potential to erode entire acres. This manmade natural disaster consumed such a large amount of the South's agriculture that it had repercussions on the national level. The Dust Bowl was a “97-million-acre section

This phenomenon occurred because the farmers over tilled the land, and removed the top layer of soil, which started the great dust storm and caused many farmers to move west to California. These are called migrant farmers. The migrant farmers also harvested crops as they traveled to create an income. They worked long hours for little wages which contributed to poor

The sharecropper contract was made for the workers who worked the crops on the owner's land. The Grimes family Sharecropper Contract in 1882, stated what the owner would provide to the sharecropper “For every 30 and 35 acres, I will provide a mule team, plow, and farming tools.” This was given to the sharecropper on debt that he must pay back with the profits from the crop. “The croppers can have half of the cotton, corn, and fodder (and peas and pumpkins and potatoes if any are planted) if the following conditions are followed.” The contract was in favor of the owner and seemed like a new form of slavery that the blacks must still follow the owner's rules in the contract. “No cotton must be planted by sharecroppers on their home patches of land. No sharecropper is to work off the plantation when there is any work to do for me. Every sharecropper must be responsible for all farming gear placed in his hands, and if not returned must be paid for unless it is worn out by use. Nothing can be sold from their (sharecroppers’) crops until my rent is all paid, and all amounts they owe me are paid in full.” Since the owner was unable to purchase the supplies he needed the farmer was forced to use his future crop as collateral to finance the debt, which then bound the farmer to the owner and restricted his options to buy

     High prices forced farmers to concentrate on one crop. The large-scale farmers bought expensive machines, increasing their crop yield. This caused the smaller farmers to be left behind. The small farmers could no longer compete and were forced give up their farms and look for jobs in the cities. The smaller farmers