Apush Dbq Research Paper

From the early beginnings of America to well into the nineteenth century, America has been dominantly an agricultural country. Farming and the country life have always been a great part of the American culture. Thomas Jefferson even expressed his gratitude for the farming class by saying Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He, has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.
The American culture was built upon farming and agriculture but since the end of the civil war and the abolition of slaves, things have changed dramatically to the American lifestyle. This time brought on the Industrial Revolution which sparked many factories and new ways of transportation
The American farmer faced many problems from the protective tariffs which caused great overproduction of foods such as corn, wheat, and cotton (docs 3,5), speculation in farm products, over-greedy middlemen, and exorbitant transportation rates. The farmers in the west were also losing money to banks in the east. The banks were giving the farmers a high interest rate which they could not easily pay. (doc 2) The transportation rates put the farmers in debt greatly. To find new markets to sell their goods, farmers needed to ship their food else where and find new customers. To do this, farmers needed to transport their food, usually by train. When they would do this the railroad companies would charge much more for the farmer than the big businessman because the businessmen would give donations to the railroad companies while the small farmers would not. To make up for the low rates the railroads were charging the businessmen, the farmers were made to pay more to make up for the price cut. The farmers had many problems which needed to be fixed. This brought the creation of the Populist Party which would try and win the election of 1896 and help the farmers in their time of