Opening the West
Mechanisation, and falling prices
- Improvements in mechanisation helped agricultural production increase substantially and contributed to declines in food prices.
- One cause, two effects — and the second, declines in food prices, is what makes farming harder even as it produces more.
- That paradox is the whole basis of 6.13's Populist politics, and it belongs in an answer here.
Select both effects of mechanisation the CED names.
The second is what makes farming harder.
Farmers organised in response
- Many farmers responded to the increasing consolidation in agricultural markets and their dependence on the evolving railroad system by creating local and regional cooperative organisations.
- Two grievances named: market consolidation and dependence on railroads — both are about who sets the terms.
- Cooperative organisations is the same associational method 4.11 recorded, used now for an economic purpose.
Select both things farmers organised in response to.
Both are about who sets the terms.
Government opened the markets
- Following the Civil War, government subsidies for transportation and communication systems helped open new markets in North America.
- Subsidies means the market did not open itself — public money built the routes that private business then used.
- So 6.12's laissez-faire argument sits awkwardly beside a development the state paid for, and noticing that is worth a sentence.
An economic cause, a farmer grievance, or a government contribution?
Sort each element of western settlement.
'Government subsidies' means the new markets...
Which sits awkwardly beside 6.12's laissez-faire argument.
More production and falling prices are the same sentence, and that is the farmer's problem. Mechanisation helped agricultural production increase substantially and contributed to declines in food prices — producing more while earning less is the grievance that becomes 6.13's Populist politics.
Select all three things the CED credits with building the West.
Not the settlers alone.
Three things that built the West
- The building of transcontinental railroads, the discovery of mineral resources, and government policies promoted economic growth and created new communities and centres of commercial activity.
- Infrastructure, resources and policy — and the CED credits all three, not the settlers alone.
- Created new communities and centres of commercial activity is the effect: the West was built, not merely occupied.
The West was ____, not merely occupied.
New communities and centres of commercial activity were created.
Causes and effects of settlement
- The objective is the causes and effects of the settlement of the West from 1877 to 1898, shared with 6.3.
- 6.2 supplies the economic half: mechanisation, markets, railroads, subsidies, cooperatives.
- 6.3 supplies the human half: migrants' motives, competition, and conflict with native and Mexican American communities.
A farmer who doubles his harvest and finds the price has halved has worked twice as hard for the same money — and he owes the railway either way. Nothing about his effort explains his position; the market structure does.
Improvements in mechanisation helped agricultural production increase substantially and contributed to declines in food prices, and many farmers responded to the increasing consolidation in agricultural markets and their dependence on the evolving railroad system by creating local and regional cooperative organisations. Government subsidies for transportation and communication systems helped open new markets, and the building of transcontinental railroads, the discovery of mineral resources, and government policies promoted economic growth and created new communities and centres of commercial activity.