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?