Disrupting Amber Waves of Grain: Manufacturing, Agriculture and the Mcnary Haugen Policy Revolt of the 1920s

John Moore, Walsh College

During the 1920s the American economy experienced significant change. The 1920 census marked the first time in American history where more people lived in urban areas than rural ones. A rapidly growing manufacturing sector, spurred by technological change, incentivized many American workers to move from farm to city. This paper addresses the economic and political friction that pitted rising manufacturing interests versus waning agricultural influence during this timeframe. The thesis question asks how economic and demographic change impacted Agriculture’s political influence on economic policy. The clash between competing Industrial and Agricultural special interests sparked a populist Agricultural effort to enact legislation that would subsidize American Agriculture. These efforts culminated in the McNary-Haugen Farm Relief bills of 1924, 1926, 1927 and 1928, bookended by associated legislative initiatives such as the Fordney-McCumber Tariff, the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. The research for this paper uses primary source data that includes, but is not limited to, examining the roll call votes and debates associated with the McNary-Haugen legislation and related bills, census and economic data measured at the state level, trade data and print media in identifying the variables that shaped American policy debates during the 1920s. The perspectives that this paper offers provide a reference point to compare and contrast with our present time. The 1920s featured disruptive events that included technological change, demographic shifts, income inequality issues, and competing special interest blocs over economic policy. Our contemporary economy features a similar transition from manufacturing to an intellectual-capital dominated economy. Many of these core issues from the 1920s have been resurrected in various forms in the early twenty-first century. A better understanding of the disruptions from technological change in the 1920s can potentially contribute to our better understanding of how to best create policy in our own times.

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 Presented in Session 200. Land, Climate, Conflict and Mobility