Developing the Country “Scientific Agriculture” and the Roots of the Republican Party
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
DEVELOPING THE COUNTRY “SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE” AND THE ROOTS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY by Ariel Ron A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Robin Einhorn, Chair Professor Brian DeLay Professor Richard Walker Spring 2012 Developing the County: “Scientific Agriculture” and the Roots of the Republican Party Copyright 2012 By Ariel Ron 1 ABSTRACT Developing the Country: “Scientific Agriculture” and the Roots of the Republican Party By Ariel Ron Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Robin L. Einhorn, Chair This dissertation examines the emergence and political significance of the antebellum agricultural reform movement in order to investigate how economic change structured party realignment in the decade before the Civil War. It focuses attention on a critical yet almost ignored constituency of the period, northeastern farmers, showing why they would steadfastly support a Republican Party typically associated with manufacturers. Second, it uncovers the roots of one of our most powerful and enduring special interest groups—the agricultural lobby—demonstrating its powerful impact on federal policy as early as the antebellum period. It thus sheds new light on the causes of sectional conflict and on the course of American state development in the 1800s. At midcentury the rural Northeast faced a four-fold challenge: (1) depleted soils resulting from over-cropping; (2) western competition in grains; (3) steady out-migration; and (4) increasingly virulent pest infestations. Agricultural reformers responded by arguing for a modernized “scientific agriculture” that would reinvigorate the northeastern countryside. The new farming would be intensive, sustainable, and profitable, its practitioners both market and technology savvy. In order to offset western advantage in grains, reformers urged northeastern farmers to specialize in hay, wool and perishables for nearby urban centers. In order to increase production, they urged the adoption of commercial fertilizers, rational bookkeeping practices, and other innovations. I argue that as northeastern farmers shifted toward more capital intensive crop production for domestic markets, they forged an alliance with nascent American manufactures. Ideologically, this alliance was sustained by a vision of mutual reciprocity between town and country that promised rural modernization within a rubric of overall national growth. Practically, its substance was state aid for domestic economic development. Agricultural reformers lobbied vigorously for federal institutions such as land grant colleges and the Department of Agriculture while manufacturers demanded a protective tariff. Such claims on the federal government brought both groups into increasing conflict with southern slaveholders, who feared that any expansion in federal domestic functions portended danger for slavery. Consequently, agricultural reformers and manufacturers were drawn into the Republican Party’s antislavery cause as a way to break southern power in Washington. Ariel Ron - Abstract - 2 Based on print and manuscript sources from across the Northeast, the dissertation integrates histories of party politics, commercial agriculture, education, the environment, and science and technology, to show how rural northeasterners organized themselves in order to demand that state and national governments help them prosper in a rapidly changing economy. These demands not only influenced the immediate course of American politics toward the Civil War, but helped define long-term processes of state formation by initiating a matrix of state and federal agencies that by the early twentieth century reached into virtually every rural county in the country. i To the memory of my mother, Elaine Ron (1943-2010) ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My first and deepest thanks go to my parents, Elaine Ron and Moshe Ron, who always encouraged me to pursue my interests. My wife, Nataly Abramovitch, and many other friends and family members also gave me crucial support in diverse ways. Among them were numerous fellow graduate students, especially Anna Armentrout, Daniel Immerwahr, MacKenzie Moore, Bea Gurwitz, Chris Shaw, Corey Brooks, Amos Bitzan, Bill Wagner, Michelle Branch and, at another institution, Matt Karp. Friends Jacob Press, Jason Pien, Lana Skrtic, Ido Heskia, Adam Neustein and Ofer Gazit are also due many thanks. Academically, I want to thank all of my professors at Berkeley, each of whom was excellent. I could not have asked for a better adviser than the brilliant Robin Einhorn, whose engagement and advice were indispensible to this project. David Henkin dissected my thoughts with scalpel precision and provided critical guidance throughout, as did Brian DeLay and Richard Walker at a later stage. During my coursework, David Hollinger, Rebecca McLennan, and Jennifer Spear helped ground my research in the broader themes of American history, while Irwin Scheiner and Andrew Barshay provided a surprisingly useful point of comparison in the history of Japanese development from the Tokugawa to the Meiji periods. Cathryn Carson helped me navigate aspects of the history of science. Mark Peterson responded to my research with thoughtful questions and much encouragement. Three undergraduate professors at the Univeristy of Maryland—Arthur Eckstein, Howard Smead, and Charles Lilley—helped put me on the path that led to this dissertation. I was fortunate to take courses with Margaret Weir and Marion Fourcade in Sociology that expanded my horizons beyond the history discipline. In this respect I also owe thanks to three scholarly groups I participated in. The first and most informal was the “Development Group” with Daniel Immerwahr and sociology graduates Mike Levien and Dan Buch. More recently I have benefited from the meetings of the Working Group in American Political Development, where Professor Eric Schickler and graduates Devin Caughey, Phil Rocco, Sara Chatfield, Ruth Bloch Rubin, and Beth Pearson offered valuable feedback from a historically minded, political-science perspective. Beyond Berkeley, I participated in the highly stimulating New Fiscal Sociology workshop and panel series sponsored by Professors Monica Prasad, Ajay Mehrotra, and Isaac Martin. At several conferences Professors Richard Bensel, Nicolas Barreyre, Gautham Rao, Brian Schoen, and Jason Opal read and commented helpfully on my work. I owe an extra debt of gratitude to Stephen Meardon for answering many questions on economic theory. Richard John has twice put me onto valuable research sources. Several institutions, beside the Berkeley History Department, helped support the research that went into this dissertation. I was fortunate to receive two short-term fellowships from the Library Company of Philadelphia through its Program in Early American Economy and Society, headed by Professor Cathy Matson. The Library Company is a wonderful place to do research and interact with other scholars, not least because of its fantastic staff, particularly Jim Green, Connie King, Linda August, Linda Wisniewski, Nicole Joniec, and Wendy Woloson. A grant-in-aid from the Hagley Museum and Library’s Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society proved very useful thanks to Carol Lockman and Linda Gross. A the New-York Historical Society, where I Ariel Ron - Acknowledgments - iii was able to conduct research thanks to a short-term fellowship from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Joseph Ditta was most helpful and introduced me to David Gary, who graciously shared his research on Rufus King’s Long-Island farm. I also want to thank John Pollack of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Pennsylvania and the staff of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. In Berkeley, librarians Lynn Jones and Jennifer Dorner introduced me to many valuable resources, particularly the huge range of newly available online databases. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 1 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... ii INTRODUCTION Agriculture and the “Economic” Causes of the Civil War ........................................ 1 Part I: Structure and Ideology CHAPTER 1 Rise of the Agricultural Reform Movement, 1785-1860 .......................................... 21 CHAPTER 2 The “Home Market”: Structural Change and Developmental Ideology in the Rural Northeast, 1815-1860 .............................................................. 57 Part II: Policy and Politics CHAPTER 3 A Crisis of Agricultural Expertise: Science, Technology and Institutional Authority during the 1850s .................................................................... 97 CHAPTER 4 From “Private Enterprise” to “Governmental Action”: The Strug- gle to Build Institutions of Agricultural Education and Research ........................ 124 CHAPTER 5 National Means, Sectional Ends: Federal Agricultural Policy, 1836-1862 ...................................................................................................................... 159 CONCLUSION Agricultural Reform and Northern Economic Nationalism ................................. 204 Appendix A: Tables ....................................................................................................