Farm Tenancy in the U.S., 1890-1938: New Evidence from an Old Study for Assessing the 'Agricultural Ladder'

National Bureau Of Economic Research Inc, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Mobility up the farm ladder came to be seen as a problem in the United States in the early decades of the twentieth century as the fraction of farm operators who were owners fell. Concerns were voiced about the continued viability of American agriculture as the number of renters, sharecroppers, and laborers rose. Commentators feared for the quality of the soil and for the quality of the nation's farmers, as the "agricultural ladder" (the progression from laborer to cropper to renter to owner) seemingly became more difficult to ascend. Similar concerns motivate much of the interest in farm tenancy and land reform in developing countries today. Though these are issues of importance in their own right, the causes of farm tenancy and the ascent up the agricultural ladder are also of interest because, in the South, they were an important part of the context within which black migration to the North occurred. Though much emphasis has been placed on changing Southern farm technology and Northern employment opportunities in promoting this migration, not know much is known about the extent to which limited opportunities for advancement up the agricultural ladder in the early twentieth century South influenced this massive population redistribution. This study addresses these issues. It uses individual-level data from five counties in the 1920 Census of agriculture along with a uniquely detailed survey of farmers conducted in 1938 to explore the dynamics of the agricultural ladder. We will supplement the individual-level data with county-level data from the 1920 Census. The census data contain information on: the prior farming experience of tenants and owners, the ages at which farmers ascended the ladder from wage laborer to tenant to owner, the time spent on various rungs of the ladder prior to becoming owners, and the relationship of tenants to owners. The survey data contain information on each individual's complete career history (their tenure status at each date back as far as 1890), their location, and a variety of their personal and farm characteristics. We develop hypotheses to explain the extent of movement up and down the agricultural ladder and why it changes over time, and across space. The preliminary examination of the data from 1938 indicate that, contrary to the pessimism of commentators at the time, we do not find dimmer prospects for farmers in the 1930s than the previous two decades. For our sample, farmers fared worse (in terms of job mobility) in the 1920s than the 1930s. Consistent with expectations, the 1910's proved to be years of general ascent up the agricultural ladder.