Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)

During the early decades of the twentieth century, agricultural practice in America was transformed from a pre-industrial to an industrial activity. In this book Deborah Fitzgerald argues that farms became modernized in the 1920s because they adopted not only new machinery but also the financial, cultural, and ideological apparatus of industrialism. Fitzgerald examines how bankers and emerging professionals in engineering and economics pushed for systematic, businesslike farming. She discusses how factory practices served as a template for the creation across the country of industrial or corporate farms. She looks at how farming was affected by this revolution and concludes by following several agricultural enthusiasts to the Soviet Union, where the lessons of industrial farming were studied. During the early decades of the 20th century, agricultural practice in America was transformed from a pre-industrial to an industrial activity. In this study Deborah Fitzgerald argues that farms became modernised in the 1920s because they adopted not only new machinery but also the financial, cultural and ideological apparatus of industrialism. Fitzgerald examines how bankers and emerging professionals in engineering and economics pushed for systematic, businesslike farming. She discusses how factory practices served as a template for the creation across the country of industrial or corporate farms. She also looks at how farming was affected by this revolution and concludes by following several agricultural enthusiasts to the Soviet Union, where the lessons of industrial farming were studied. Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 13 1. The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture 22 2. By the Numbers: Economics and Management in Agriculture 45 3. Agricultural Engineers and Industrialization 87 4. Farms as Factories: The Emergence of Large-Scale Farming 118 5. The Campbell Farming Corporation 141 6. Collectivization and Industrialization: Learning from the Soviets 169 Conclusion: Changing the Landscape 196 Appendix 203 Abbreviations 207 Notes 209 Index 247 During the early decades of the twentieth century, agricultural practice in America was transformed from a pre-industrial activity. In this book Deborah Fitzgerald investigates how and why farmers chose to modernize at that time, a period of serious economic depression in farming. She argues that farms became modernized in the 1920s because they adopted not only new machinery but also the financial, cultural, and ideological apparatus of industrialism. During the early part of the 20th century farming in America was transformed from a pre-industrial to an industrial activity. This book explores the modernization of the 1920s, which saw farmers adopt not just new technology, but also the financial cultural & ideological apparatus of industrialism