Rural American history is the history from colonial times to the present of rural American society, economy, and politics.For changing definitions, see Kenneth P. Wilkinson, The Community in Rural America (Greenwood, 1991). According to Robert P. Swierenga, "Rural history centers on the lifestyle and activities of farmers and their family patterns, farming practices, social structures, political ties, and community institutions."Robert P. Swierenga, "Theoretical Perspectives on the New Rural History: From Environmentalism to Modernization" Agricultural History 56#3 (1982), pp. 495–502 on p. 496. He adds: "The standard operational definition of rurality includes two criteria-residence in an area of low population density and chief livelihood earned in agriculture. But ruralness is more than location or an occupation; it is a way of life. Rural life, as distinct from urban living, traditionally involved physical if not social isolation, extended family networks, simplex social organizations, seasonal labor patterns and unceasing handwork, and an attitude of complacency in the face of nature's forces."
Long-term trends A main theme in rural history is the development of agriculture and its local support network. For example in his history of agriculture in Wisconsin, Jerry Apps includes a wide range of topics: Environmental preconditions; the Native American experience, the original Yankee settlers; lead mining; the rise and fall of wheat; the role of steamboats and railroads; relation of rural and urban trends; lumbering; early mechanization; German, Swiss and Scandinavian immigration; the growth of cities; farmers in local and state government and politics; rural schools; transition to crop agriculture; the cheese and dairy industry; farming as a business; the Wisconsin idea; the College of Agriculture outreach programs; automobiles and good roads; tractors replace horses; arrival of rural free delivery, electricity and telephone; livestock raising; cranberry growing; federal controls and subsidies; truck farming; irrigation; consolidation into mega farms; the farm crisis of the 1980s; environmental degradation and recovery; and the impact of high tech.Jerry Apps, Wisconsin Agriculture: A History (2015). pp. x to 2.Jerry Apps, Wisconsin Agriculture: A History (2015). pp. x to 15.
Rural and farm population totals The rural population is defined by size of place under 2,500 and includes non-farmers living in villages and the open countryside. At the first census in 1790, the rural population was 3.7 million and urban only 202,000. The nation was 95% rural, and the great majority of rural residents were subsistence farmers. By 1860 the rural population had exploded to 25 million but urban had grown faster to 6 million, or 20% urban. Many non-farmers lived in villages and small towns classified as "rural." The population in 1890 reached 63 million people, thanks to high birth rates and high immigration from Europe. The urban proportion was 35%, comprising 22 million living in 2,700 cities of 2,500 or more people. In 1890 65% of the national population, or 36 million people, lived in rural areas. Of these 2.7 million lived in 13,000 towns of less than 2,500 people, and 36 million—mostly farmers—lived in open country. In 1920 the urban population reached 54 million, or 51% while rural America had 52 million or 49%.Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (1976) pp. 10-11 series A43 to A72.online In 2020, the rural population of the United States was approximately 66 million people, accounting for 20% of the U.S. population.James C. Davis, et al. "Rural America at a Glance: 2023 Edition" Economic Information Bulletin No. 261 November 2023) online from U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2020 there were just over 2 million farms in the U.S., averaging 444 acres and occupying 897 million acres in total. About 90% are small farms, but 78% of the output is produced by the large farms with $350,000 or more revenue.Stray Dog Institute, "The Importance of US Farmers" (November 18, 2021) online
The economy has shifted, first from agriculture to industry in cities and more recently to a service economy with a large suburban base. Farming was the primary occupation of 72% of the national labor force in 1820, 60% in 1860, 37% in 1900, and 26% in 1920. The 50% level came in 1877.P. K. Whelpton, "Occupational Groups in the United States, 1820-1920" Journal of the American Statistical Association 21#155 (1926), pp.335–343 at p.342. onlineFor other estimates to 1860 see Thomas J. Weiss, "US labor force estimates and economic growth, 1800-1860." in American economic growth and standards of living before the Civil War (1992) pp. 19-78 at p.22. online
In 1900 29.1 million Americans were gainfully employed, of whom 10.4 million were on farms. In all rural America comprised about 2,500 counties, with an average of 2,300 farms each, or 5.7 million farms in all. To help with the daily grind the farms hired 4.4 million laborers.David Byers Danbom, "The Industrialization of Agriculture, 1900-1930." (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1974) pp.5–7.Paul L. Vogt, Introduction to Rural Sociology (1920) p.39.Fred A. Shannon, The Farmer's Last Frontier (1945) pp. 350–368.
Mechanization
Mechanization and new technologies transformed farming practices over time. By the late 19th century the U.S. had the largest and most productive system of commercial agriculture in the world. Rural towns competed for access to the railroad system. Towns that had a station sharply cut the cost of travel and shipping farm products out and consumer products in. Towns with a station attracted families that had the money to get established in farming.David B. Danbom, Born in the Country (2017) pp. 121–150.
Regarding the labor needed to produce one bushel of wheat, the U.S. Department of Agriculture states:
1894 being compared with 1830, the required human labor declined from three hours and three minutes to ten minutes. The heavy, clumsy plow of 1830 had given way to the disk plow that both plowed and pulverized the soil in the same operation; hand sowing had been displaced by the mechanical seeder drawn by horses; the cradling and thrashing with flails and hand winnowing had given way to reaping, thrashing, and sacking with the combined reaper and thrasher drawn by horses.George K. Holmes, "Supply and Wages of Farm Labor" Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture: 1910 (1911) p.191 online
The time decline of 95% for wheat was followed by an 85% decline in the time for corn:From 1855 to 1894 the time of human labor required to produce one bushel of corn on an average declined from four hours and thirty four minutes to forty-one minutes. This was because inventors had given to the farmers of 1894 the gang plow, the disk harrow, the corn planter drawn by horses, and the four-section harrow for pulverizing the top soil; because they had given to the farmer the self-binder drawn by horses to cut the stalks and bind them; a machine for removing the husks from the ears and in the same operation for cutting the husks, stalks, and blades for feeding, the power being supplied by a steam engine; because they had given to the farmer a marvelous corn sheller, operated by steam and shelling one bushel of corn per minute instead of the old way of corn shelling in which the labor of one man was required for one hundred minutes to do the same work.Holmes, "Supply and Wages of Farm Labor" pp. 190-191.
Identity and political culture
Rural versus urban remains a factor in American politics.James G. Gimpel, et al. "The urban–rural gulf in American political behavior." Political behavior 42 (2020): 1343-1368. online Hal S. Baron argues farmers often were at odds with the dominant worldview. Their localism was rooted in Jeffersonian democracy and its republican ideals. They feared concentrated economic and political power, and distrusted urban ostentation. These looked like potential threats to their own freedom and to the overall American well-being. Such views permeated the Grangers and Populists, as they challenged the dominance of railroads and merchants. Rural America was skeptical of the Country Life Movement when metropolitan do-gooders came in and tried to upgrade them. They warned against the outside experts, who wanted to consolidate schools and replace local control with rule by the elites in the county seat. The Social Gospel did not echo the true Gospel they knew so well. The mixed reception of popular culture and consumerism in rural America further illustrates this tension between rural traditions and modernizing forces. Ever since the battles between Jeffersonians and Federalists, the conflict between localism and cosmopolitanism has provided clues to understand the defensiveness of rural America.Hal S. Barron, "And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight: Public Road Administration and the Decline of Localism in the Rural North, 1870-1930" Journal of Social History 26#1 (1992), pp. 81-103, online
Baron argues that better communication between countryside and city has eased the conflict. Nevertheless rural identity, deeply rooted in the land, has profoundly shaped American identity. There is a strong sense of community in rural areas, with residents working to find solutions to problems rather than abandoning their communities. Intellectuals often present rural areas as repositories of traditional American values and ways of life.Morton White and Lucia White, "The American intellectual versus the American city." Daedalus 90.1 (1961): 166-179 onlineRobert Wuthnow, The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Rural America (Princeton UP, 2018) onlineFor a highly controversial interpretation by social scientists, see Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy (2024)--see White Rural Rage.
In recent national politics, rural voters have steadily become more Republican. According to Pew Research Center data, Republican Donald Trump won 59% of the rural voters in 2016, and 65% in 2020. He carried rural white voters with 62% in 2016 and 71% in 2020.See MSNBC News March 1, 2024 Exit polls in the 2024 election show that Trump carried 63% of the vote in rural areas, 50% in suburbs, and 37% in cities.See "Exit polls from the 2024 presidential election: Urbanicity" Washington Post (Nov 6, 2024) online
Economics of land and agriculture