Dbq on the Gilded Age

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DBQ Essay Between the years 1865 and 1900, America was undergoing a period of time in which the agricultural industry was experiencing great improvements. This period of time was known as the Gilded Age in which advancements in technology, government policies, and economic conditions all helped reorganize and progress American agriculture. The introduction of such occurrences as Bonanza farming, the spreading of the construction of railroads, and the Homestead and Dawes Severalty Acts all took part in reforming the agricultural part of America. Documents A, D, and J all discuss the fact that technological advancements had increased the production of crops, causing overproduction, which is not necessarily a good thing. Document A is a chart depicting the price per bushel of wheat, cotton, and corn compared to the millions of bushels produced every five years. As the years progressed, it is seen that the price per bushel steadily decreased as the amount of bushels increased, leading to overproduction. This overproduction may have been the result of farmers beginning to utilize irrigation systems as well as machinery to produce the crops quicker and easier. Also, document D shows the image of cattle guiding a machine in order for the farmer to harvest the vast amount of wheat more sufficiently. The picture implies that the technology used by farmers had become more and more popular, causing most farmers to take part in Bonanza farming in which they would harvest larger amounts of land in order to participate in large-scale commercial farming. Document J, written by Williams J. Bryan, infers that the cities heavily rely on the farms, but the farms do not rely on the cities in return. He mentions this due to the fact that typically those in the cities longed for the gold standard to take place whereas the farming class preferred the inflation of currency through the
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