1930's Business and the Economy | The Farm Crisis

Demographic Shift.

In 1920 the census showed that for the first time in history more Americans lived in urban centers than on farms. The Great Depression, however, sparked an exodus of farmers to the city, irreversibly transforming the United States from an agricultural to an industrial society. On the farm the Depression was an unalloyed catastrophe made worse by drought. It drove millions to the city. Hundreds of thousands of midwesterners made the trek to California in search of agricultural work, ultimately ending up in the defense factories of World War II. The farm crisis was thus at the center of an enormous demographic shift in American life, one that permanently reshaped the character of the nation.

Falling Prices.

The farm crisis did not begin with the Great Crash of 1929. Throughout the 1920s agriculture in America was subject to severe economic stress. During World War I prosperity had been...