REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE
Despite the great gains in industry, agriculture remained the nation’s basic occupation . The revolution in agriculture — paralleling that in manufacturing after the Civil War — involved a shift from hand labor to machine farming, and from sub-
sistence to commercial agriculture . Between 1860 and 1910, the number of farms in the United States tripled, increasing from two million to six million, while the area farmed more than doubled from 160 million to 352 million hectares .
Between 1860 and 1890, the pro- duction of such basic commodities as wheat, corn, and cotton out- stripped all previous figures in the United States . In the same period, the nation’s population more than doubled, with the largest growth in the cities . But the American farmer grew enough grain and cotton, raised enough beef and pork, and clipped enough wool not only to supply American workers and their families but also to create ever-in- creasing surpluses .
Several factors accounted for this extraordinary achievement . One was the expansion into the West . Anoth- er was a technological revolution . The farmer of 1800, using a hand sickle, could hope to cut a fifth of a hectare of wheat a day . With the cradle, 30 years later, he might cut four-fifths . In 1840 Cyrus McCor- mick performed a miracle by cutting from two to two-and-a-half hectares a day with the reaper, a machine he had been developing for nearly 10 years . He headed west to the young prairie town of Chicago, where he set up a factory — and by 1860 sold a quarter of a million reapers .
Other farm machines were de- veloped in rapid succession: the automatic wire binder, the threshing
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CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION
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M O N U M E N T S A N D
MEMORIALS The monuments of American history span a continent in distance and centuries in time. They range from a massive serpent-shaped mound
created by a long-gone Native-American culture to memorials in contemporary Washington, D.C., and New York City.
A P I C T U R E P R O F I L E
The silhouette of one of the United States’ most revered Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, stands in the shrine dedicated to his memory.
“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
The snow-covered Old Granary cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts, is burial ground for, among other leading American patriots, victims of the Boston Massacre, three signers of the Declaration of Independence, and six governors of Massachusetts. Originally founded by religious dissidents from England known as Puritans, Massachusetts was a leader in the struggle for independence against England. It was the setting for the Boston Tea Party and the first battles of the American Revolution — in Lexington and Concord.
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The historic room in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, where delegates drafted the Constitution of the United States in the summer of 1787. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It prescribes the form and authority of the federal government, and ensures the fundamental freedoms and rights of the citizens of the country through the Bill of Rights.
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Statues guard the majestic façade of the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. The words engraved on the lintel over the Greek pillars embody one
of America’s founding principles: “Equal Justice Under Law.”
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The Statue of Liberty, one of the United States’ most beloved monuments, stands 151 feet high at the entrance to New York harbor. A gift of friendship from the people
of France to the United States, it was intended to be an impressive symbol of human liberty. It was certainly that for the millions of immigrants who came to the United
States in the 19th and early 20th centuries, seeking freedom and a better life.
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Aerial view of the Great Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio. Carbon tests of the effigy revealed that the creators of this 1,330-foot monument were members of the Native-American Fort Ancient Culture (A.D. 1000-1550).
The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an enduring symbol of American freedom. First rung on July 8, 1776, to celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, it cracked in 1836 during the funeral of John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Two monuments to the central role Spain played in the exploration of what is now the United States. Top, the Castillo de San Marcos, built 1672-1695 to guard St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States. Above, fountain and mission remains of the San Juan Capistrano Mission, California, one of nine missions founded by Spanish Franciscan missionaries led by Fray Junípero Serra in the 1770s. Serra led the Spanish colonization of what is today the state of California.
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The faces of four of the most admired American presidents were carved by Gutzon Borglum into the southeast face of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, beginning in 1927. From left to right, they are: George Washington, commander of the Revolutionary Army and first president of the young nation; Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence; Theodore Roosevelt, who led the country toward progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy; and Abraham Lincoln, who led the country through the Civil War and freed the slaves.
George Washington’s beloved home, Mount Vernon, by the Potomac River in Virginia, where he died on December 14, 1799, and is buried along with his wife Martha. Among other treasured items owned by the first president on display there, visitors can see one of the keys to the Bastille, a gift to Washington from the Marquis de Lafayette.
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Six-year-old Mary Zheng straightens a flower placed at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2000. The names of more than 58,000 servicemen who died in the war or remain missing are etched on the “wall” part of the memorial, pictured here. This portion of the monument was designed by Maya Lin, then a student at Yale University.
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An autumnal view of Arlington Cemetery, Virginia, America’s largest and best-known national burial grounds. More than 260,000 people are buried at Arlington Cemetery, including veterans from all the nation’s wars.
A mother and daughter viewing documents in the Exhibition Hall of the National Archives. The U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights are on display in this Washington, D.C., building.
Fireworks celebrating the arrival of the Millennium illuminate two major monuments in Washington, D.C., the Lincoln Memorial on the left and the
obelisk-shaped Washington Monument, center. The Lincoln Memorial’s north and south side chambers contain carved inscriptions of his Second Inaugural Address
and his Gettysburg Address. The tallest structure in the nation’s capital, the Washington Monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885.
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Top, the World War II Memorial, opened in 2004, is the most recent addition to the many national monuments in Washington, D.C. It honors the 16 million who served in the armed forces of the United States, the more than 400,000 who died, and all who supported the war effort from home. Above, the planned design for the World Trade Center Memorial in New York City is depicted in this photograph of a model unveiled in late 2004. “Reflecting Absence” will preserve not only the memory of those who died in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, but the visible remnants of the buildings destroyed that morning, too.
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machine, and the reaper-thresher or combine . Mechanical planters, cut- ters, huskers, and shellers appeared, as did cream separators, manure spreaders, potato planters, hay dri- ers, poultry incubators, and a hun- dred other inventions .
Scarcely less important than machinery in the agricultural rev- olution was science . In 1862 the Morrill Land Grant College Act al- lotted public land to each state for the establishment of agricultural and industrial colleges . These were to serve both as educational institu- tions and as centers for research in scientific farming . Congress subse- quently appropriated funds for the creation of agricultural experiment stations throughout the country and granted funds directly to the De- partment of Agriculture for research purposes . By the beginning of the new century, scientists throughout the United States were at work on a wide variety of agricultural projects .
One of these scientists, Mark Carleton, traveled for the Depart- ment of Agriculture to Russia . There he found and exported to his home- land the rust- and drought-resistant winter wheat that now accounts for more than half the U .S . wheat crop . Another scientist, Marion Dorset, conquered the dreaded hog cholera, while still another, George Mohler, helped prevent hoof-and- mouth disease . From North Africa, one researcher brought back Kaf- fir corn; from Turkestan, another imported the yellow-flowering al- falfa . Luther Burbank in California
produced scores of new fruits and vegetables; in Wisconsin, Stephen Babcock devised a test for determin- ing the butterfat content of milk; at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, the African-American scientist George Washington Carver found hundreds of new uses for the peanut, sweet po- tato, and soybean .
In varying degrees, the explosion in agricultural science and technol- ogy affected farmers all over the world, raising yields, squeezing out small producers, and driving migra- tion to industrial cities . Railroads and steamships, moreover, began to pull regional markets into one large world market with prices instantly communicated by trans-Atlantic ca- ble as well as ground wires . Good news for urban consumers, falling agricultural prices threatened the livelihood of many American farm- ers and touched off a wave of agrar- ian discontent .