INTRODUCTION

Thomas Jefferson envisioned the United States as an experiment in political democracy founded upon an economy of small farms. This essay examines the geographic expansion and economic development of agriculture during the nineteenth century across the northern region, where Jefferson hoped his vision would materialize most clearly. Central to realizing this goal was transferring land in the public domain into the hands of aspiring farm families. Our theme in this chapter is the heightening tension between the political vision of a nation inhabited by self-sufficient, landowning farmers and the economic reality of increasing agricultural commercialization, tenancy, wealth inequality, and industrialization.

The century opened with an agricultural-commercial economy in which farming played the central role. It closed, however, with agriculture as a relatively diminished sector encroached upon by a rapidly advancing industrial system and by corporate business. In between, farming evolved from a simple, traditional activity into a highly productive commercial enterprise that not only fed the domestic population but exported worldwide and supplied the raw materials that fueled American industrialization. The outcome, ironically, was an increasingly productive farm sector populated by increasingly discontented farmers. These individuals, who believed that the national economy was developing at their expense, ultimately sought governmental solutions when markets did not meet their personal expectations. Nevertheless, the structural transformation progressed, becoming a driving force behind the national population’s dramatically improving economic well-being over the nineteenth century.