The Connection between Farming, Manufacturing, and railroads in Postbellum United States
Hey everyone, today we are going to take a look at the agricultural industry in postbellum United States and the affect that railroads and manufacturing had on it. Within this we will also be looking at the broader implications on how it affected the future of agriculture in the United States, including my chosen topic, which was subsidies in for small farms. The decades following the Civil War marked a period of reinvention for American agriculture, a sector fundamentally transformed by two powerful allies: railroads and manufacturing. Farming, particularly in the Midwest and Plains, shifted from small-scale, subsistence operations to more commercialized, specialized enterprises due to the economic pressures and opportunities created by transportation and industrialization. Railroads brought connectivity, while manufacturing provided the tools that allowed farms to scale up operations to meet an expanding urban demand. Together, these industries not only reshaped farmin...