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

255 Pages·2003·0.87 MB·English

by  Deborah Fitzgerald

Yale Agrarian Studies Series
James C. Scott, series editor

Every Farm a Factory
The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture
Deborah Fitzgerald
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
Copyright © by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that
copying permitted by Sections and of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by
reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fitzgerald, Deborah Kay.
Every farm a factory :the industrial ideal in American agriculture /
Deborah Fitzgerald.
p. cm. — (Yale agrarian studies series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. )
ISBN ---(cloth : alk. paper)
. Agriculture—Economic aspects—United States—History—th
century. . Family farms—United States—History—th century. .
Agricultural credit—United States—History—th century. . Farms,
Size of—Economic aspects—United States—History—th century. .
Farm mechanization—Economic aspects—United States—History—th
century. . Agriculture—Capital investments—United States—History—th
century. . Farm mortgages—United States—History—th century. .
Business cycles—United States—History—th century. . Farm foreclosures—
United States—History—th century. I. Title. II. Yale agrarian studies.
HD.F 
.(cid:2)—dc 
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in
this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
         
To Eric and Jake

Contents
Acknowledgments, ix

Introduction,

1 The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture,
2 By the Numbers: Economics and Management in

Agriculture,

3 Agricultural Engineers and Industrialization,

4 Farms as Factories: The Emergence of Large-Scale Farming,

5 The Campbell Farming Corporation,
6 Collectivization and Industrialization: Learning from the

Soviets,

Conclusion: Changing the Landscape,

Appendix,

List of Abbreviations,

Notes,

Index,

Acknowledgments
One of the great pleasures of working on a writing project is the chance
to meet and learn from a lot of interesting and helpful people. New
friends and old have helped me every step of the way, and most in ways
I can’t exactly explain. First, thanks go to the “shadow brains” behind
so many history books, that is, the librarians and archivists who know
not only their own collections, but also a million other things that one
would hardly have the wit to ask about. Librarians from many institu-
tions have been very helpful, including those at Cornell University’s
Mann Library, as well as at its Special Collections at Olin Library, at
the Historical Society of Wisconsin, at the Rockefeller Archives Cen-
ter, especially Darwin Stapleton, at the National Archives, at the Ban-
croft Library and the Giannini Collections, both at the University of
California, Berkeley, at the J. C. Penney Archives, at MIT’s Humani-
ties Library, at Harvard University’s Widener Library, and at Special
Collections at Iowa State University’s Park Library. Special thanks for
help above and beyond the call of duty go to John Skarstad at Shields
Library and Special Collections at the University of California, Davis,
Special Collections at Montana State Library, Ellie Arguimbau at
ix