the story of american agriculture
TRANSCRIPT
Food, Land & People in a Changing America
The story of American Agriculture through 1877
Debra SpielmakerUtah Agriculture in the Classroom
Geography, the Climate and Land
1. Deep well drained topsoil, prime agricultural land.
2. Temperate climate, moderate temperature, and adequate rainfall.
What is agriculture?
Early America, the Food and Land
– Three Sisters: Corn, Squash, and Beans
– Pumpkins, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Peanuts, Sunflowers, Cotton, Pineapples & Blueberries
– Farming and Traditions, Green Corn Ceremony
– Crop and livestock production
Food production harvesting techniques of Native Americans
America, the Food and Land
Today, almost half of the world’s food crops come from the plants that were first grown in the Americas.
Early America the Fiber and Land
1. Plant leaf and stem fibers
2. Cotton– Indians knew how to
weave cotton– 1600s southern
colonies grew this crop on a small scale for self sufficiency
– 1700s Cotton is grown on a larger scale in southern colonies
America, the People the Land, and a New Economy
1. Indians lived a sustainable life.
2. New colonists in Jamestown were forced to work on the farms if they wanted to eat (the preferred looking for gold).
3. Tobacco production allowed the Virginia colony to succeed and establish a stable form of government.
Hearts and Minds
There seems to be 3 There seems to be 3 ways for a nation to ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the acquire wealth: the first is by war...this is first is by war...this is robbery: the second by robbery: the second by commerce, which is commerce, which is generally cheating: the generally cheating: the third by agriculture, third by agriculture, the only honest way...the only honest way...Benjamin Franklin
Transformed America, the Food, Land and People
1493 - Columbus introduces calves, goats, sheep, pigs, hens,
fruit, and old world vegetable
seeds. 1607 - English colonists plant grain, potatoes, pumpkins, and
melons.1609 - Indians teach Jamestown settlers how to grow corn.
Significant events creating the most progressive culture in the world!
Hearts and Minds
I know of no pursuit I know of no pursuit in life in which more in life in which more real and important real and important services can be services can be rendered to any rendered to any country than by country than by improving its improving its agriculture, its breed agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and of useful animals, and other branches of a other branches of a husbandman’s care.husbandman’s care.
George Washington
1619 - First Negroes arrive at Jamestown.
1780 - U.S. Ambassador Ben Franklin
sends soybean seeds back
from France.1786 - George Washington
breeds the first mules in the
U.S.1793 - Eli Whitney invents the
cotton gin. Thomas Jefferson
invented the moldboard plow.1794 - Whiskey Rebellion:
western farmers revolt
against a grain tax.
Transformed America, the Food, Land and People
1776 - Farmers make up 92% of the population, of 5 million.
Hearts and Minds
Cultivators of the Cultivators of the earth are the earth are the most valuable most valuable citizens. They citizens. They are the most are the most vigorous, the vigorous, the most most independent, the independent, the most wedded to most wedded to its liberty and its liberty and interests, by the interests, by the most lasting most lasting bonds.bonds.
Thomas Jefferson
1803 – Louisiana Purchase, a port for
American farmers.1805 - Cotton replaces
tobacco as the main crop in the
south.1810 - Beginning of the
“Industrial Revolution.1819 - U.S. canning industry
started.1825 - Erie Canal finished.
Transformed America, the Food, Land and People
1795-1815 Sheep and wool industry emphasized.1830 – 275 labor hours to produce 100 bushels of wheat (5 acres)
History and Technology
Cotton Gin
Southern Dependency
A burial description…“The grave was dug through solid marble, but the marble headstone came from Vermont. It was a pine wilderness but the pine coffin came from Cincinnati. An iron mountain overshadowed it by the coffin nails and screws and the shovel came from Pittsburgh…A hickory grove grew nearby, but the pick and shovel handles came form New York…That country, so rich in underdeveloped resources, furnished nothing for the funeral except the corpse and the hole in the ground.”
History and Technology
Spinning Mill
History and Technology
TransportationErie Canal 1817-1825
Hearts and Minds
Every nation Every nation should … be able should … be able to feed and clothe to feed and clothe and defend itself. and defend itself. If it rely upon a If it rely upon a foreign supply that foreign supply that may be cut off…it may be cut off…it cannot be cannot be independent. independent.
Henry Clay
1831 - Cyrus McCormick invented the grain
reaper, and the concept of paying
installments or buying on credit.
1836 - Grain combine patented.1837 - John Deere manufactures
steel plow.1843 - Sir John Laws founded the commercial fertilizer
industry by developing a
process for making
superphosphate.1850 - Rembert & Prescott
developed a mechanical cotton picking machine.
Transformed America, the Food, Land and People
1845 – 1855 Great Potato famine in Ireland.
1855 - Michigan and Pennsylvania established
the first state agricultural colleges.
1858 - Mason jars, used for home canning.
1862 - President Lincoln creates the first
Department of Agriculture and
the Morrill Land Grant College Act.
Homestead Act give 160 acres to
settlers who will farm the land for
five years.1867 - Barbed wire invented.
Transformed America, the Food, Land and People
Utah State UniversityUtah State UniversityEstablished 1888Established 1888
Land DistributionLand Acts Sale Prices Size of Tract
Ordinances of 1784-
1785
$1 per acre 640 – acre tracts
Act of 1796 $2 per acre 640 – acre tracts
Act of 1800 $2 per acre 320 – acre tracts
Act of 1820 $1.25 per acre 160 & 80 acre tracts
Preemption Act of 1841
$1.25 per acre(grants to railroads
&canals at $2.50 per acre)
160 & 80 acre tracts
Graduation Act of 1854
From 12.5 cents per acre to $ 1 per acre, depending on value
160 & 80 acre tracts
Homestead Act 1862
Free Homesteads 160 acre tracts
1869 - Transcontinental railroad completed.
1865 - Pasteurization invented.1870 - Refrigerator railroad car
patented.1875 - Milking machine invented.
Transformed America, the Food, Land and People
1860 - Farmers make up 58 % of the population.
1890 - 35-40 labor hours to produce 100 bushels of wheat on 2.5 acres
Automatic milker, 2000
Patterns of Conflict and Economic Turning-Points
• Fiber (wool) production and textile mills (dependence on England’s mills).
• Conflicts with Indians• Tobacco to Cotton, late
1700s• Farm profits and
depression
Food, Land and People = Agriculture
• Does agriculture have a different definition today than 250 years ago?
• What do you think Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson would say about agriculture today?
• How did these men shape our American culture and our future?
• Is agriculture as important today as in 1776? 1877?