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5 results

  • Population Dynamics in Rural Missouri, 1860–1880

  • Mary Eschelbach Gregson
  • Journal:
    Social Science History / Volume 21 / Issue 1 / Spring 1997
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    04 January 2016, pp. 85-110
    Print publication:
    Spring 1997

  • The extraordinarily productive corn and wheat belts were settled a generation before modern Middle America blossomed. The story of rural Middle America, especially in the decades following the Civil War, is the story of the men and women who settled the region and stayed. In politics the Middle American community looked to long-term residents for a definition of its best interests (Winkle 1988; Curti 1959). In agricultural matters the community looked to long-term residents for a definition of the model farm.

  • Rural Response to Increased Demand: Crop Choice in the Midwest, 1860–1880

  • Mary Eschelbach Gregson
  • Journal:
    The Journal of Economic History / Volume 53 / Issue 2 / June 1993
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    03 March 2009, pp. 332-345
    Print publication:
    June 1993
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  • Demand for farm products grew, and the cost of marketing them shrank, between 1860 and 1880. The resulting commercialization of Midwestern agriculture has been widely discussed, but the production strategies that farmers pursued have not been adequately described or modeled. I find that an endowment-contingent model of crop choice provides a consistent explanation for farm production strategies at the micro-level on Missouri farms. The results call for a re-examination of the conventional wisdom that commercialization fostered specialization at the regional level.