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  • From Prairie Farmer to Entrepreneur: The Transformation of Midwestern Agriculture
  • J. L. Anderson (bio)
From Prairie Farmer to Entrepreneur: The Transformation of Midwestern Agriculture. By Dennis S. Nordin and Roy V. Scott. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. Pp. xvi+356. $65.

While Southern farming during the twentieth century has received close scrutiny from historians, this has not been true of farming in the twelve Midwestern states. Now, however, Roy V. Scott and Dennis S. Nordin describe the transformation of one important Midwestern region, the area dedicated to corn and livestock production extending across the eastern two-thirds of Ohio (excluding forested and cut-over lands of the Great Lakes states) to the hundredth meridian on the west—an area known as the Corn Belt. They argue that the key to reshaping agriculture in this region was the turn to technology in the face of low commodity prices and intense competition, which "drove the least progressive individuals off the land" (p. xv). Even though this competition entailed tremendous suffering, the authors conclude that most Americans, including those who left the farm, ultimately benefited.

From Prairie Farmer to Entrepreneur relates a familiar story of agriculture in the twentieth century and occasionally challenges longstanding perceptions. From 1900 to 1920, Corn Belt farmers experienced a "gold-plated age" of relatively high commodity and land prices, but only those who sold out at high prices and retired from farming benefited, while those remaining behind paid higher rents and taxes that offset gains in commodity prices. Land-grant colleges stepped up efforts to help farmers improve the quality and quantity of production. But after 1920, commodity prices fell, hurting those farmers who had expanded too aggressively during World War I. Scott and Nordin assert that the agricultural crisis of 1933 was not due to overproduction; instead, the real problem was under-consumption owing to the depressed economy. New Deal acreage-reduction programs were a panacea that failed to solve the under-consumption problem and ran counter to the American tradition of ever-increasing output. A sizable minority of Midwestern farmers did not like the acreage-reduction program.

The restoration of demand for farm products and improved prices during World War II was a boon to farmers, who generally exceeded wartime [End Page 205] production goals. But during the postwar years only a minority possessed the acumen to employ new technologies appropriate for their type of farming. Some farmers were too cautious or frugal, while others were "wasteful zealots who incurred excessive debts" (p. 150). Between 1945 and 1970, farmers confronted shrinking profit margins and public criticism of the ways in which they used new technology. By 2000, they faced intense foreign competition as well, even as their own operating costs increased.

Technological change is prominent in each of the seven chapters of this book. Readers will learn about rural responses to radio, the automobile, and electrification as well as to farm implements and chemicals and the ways in which technology contributed to specialization and expansion. "In the final analysis," Scott and Nordin argue, "technological advances caused farm failures and consolidations" (p. 151). For all their discussion of technology, however, they miss opportunities to engage historians of technology and even make missteps as they highlight the struggle to cut production costs, increase profits, and ease labor. In the discussion of hybrid corn, for example, they fail to mention the importance of inbreeding, suggesting that a hybrid is simply a cross of different varieties rather than a cross of different varieties of inbred parent stock. Although the varietal crossing of corn that they describe was an ancient art, the application of Mendelian genetics to corn and the creation of hybrids was a twentieth-century innovation.

These caveats aside, From Prairie Farmer to Entrepreneur is a valuable account of changes in farm policy, lifestyle, and production techniques. It draws on an impressive array of primary sources and secondary accounts to illuminate what this transformation meant to individuals as well as to the Midwestern Corn Belt. Readers will appreciate the numerous tables indicating trends in production, education, government support, and other topics. Historians of technology will find much of interest, but will finish the book desiring more.

J...

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