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Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Features”
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. In the 1860s, when many men marched off to the Civil War, many farms were left to the care of women, children, and older farmers. New machinery made it possible for them to produce food to support their families and support the armies. Women kept up their usual washing, cooking, and …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. No surprise, the U.S. economy was primarily agriculturally based in the early 19th century. Westward expansion, including the Louisiana Purchase and the American victory in the War of 1812, plus the building of canals, the introduction of steamboats, opened new areas of opportunities for agriculture. Still, most farming was designed to …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Farmers and ranchers in early American agriculture quickly learned about the laws of supply and demand. The cotton gin made it possible to increase cotton production in the South, for example, and cotton became a major export crop. But eventually, the increased supply would put severe downward pressure on cotton prices. …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Agriculture in the South was much different than that in the Midwest and in New England. In the Southern states, the poorer lands were held by poorer farmers. The best lands were held by rich plantation owners. All farms grew their own food, but also concentrated on a few new crops …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Railroads played an important part in the expansion of American agriculture in the mid-1860s. The federal government issued 160-acre tracts for very cheap prices to about 400,000 families who settled new lands under the Homestead Act of 1862. And even larger numbers purchased lands at very low interest from new railroads, …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. We like to think that early American farmers and ranchers were good stewards of the soil, like farmers and ranchers are today, but history shows they were not. From the 1770s to the 1830s, pioneers moved into new lands that stretched from Kentucky to Alabama to Texas. Most were farmers who …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Iowa is located where the great eastern forests and the prairies of the western United States met. There’s not a straight line where trees stopped and grass took over, but it is in Iowa where trees finally gave way to the endless miles of the Great Prairie. Settlers on the prairie …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. By 1813, the western frontier had reached the Mississippi River. St. Louis was the largest town on the frontier and it even then called the gateway for travel on westward. There was wide agreement on the need to settle new territories quickly, but the debate polarized over the price the government …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Plantation agriculture began in the 1600s and 1700s. Developed in Virginia, first of all, and then spreading to Maryland where tobacco was grown. Then and eventually, South Carolina and beyond. Cotton became a major plantation crop after 1800 in a region that arced from North Carolina through Texas, where the climate …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Radio is an important part in the history of American agriculture. Broadcasting information to rural America started very soon after the invention of AM radio. WHA, Madison, Wisconsin, began broadcasting weather reports to rural America in January 1921. Just two months later, an Illinois grain dealer put WDZ on the air …
