with the railroads was that they were charging too much for the transportation of the farmer’s products (Boardman 21).The US was entering into a new century with many changes. Even though it looked exciting the economy had flaws, and the class system was complex. With the new immigration boom in the US, everything was changing. Now the lower class was made up of the immigrants who lived in poverty in the large cities. It also consisted of factory workers who had no land. The upper class now had new rich people who had made their money investing (Boardman 20).The outlook of the country was not good because of the agricultural depression that began in 1873 and just lasted. The farmers were not producing as usual due to the machines that didn’t harvest the crops probably. The crops from New Zealand and Australia increased because of the refrigerator ships, which brought meat to the US. Economy and agriculture was no longer balanced. Because of all these things, the landowners had no other choice but to give up their political power (Boardman 16).Even though there were a lot of crops, there were not a lot of farmers. Because of industrialization, farmers were leaving their farms for other occupations. There was also a depression going on at the time. Agricultural prices went down and did not come up until after 1910. Wheat prices declined three-quarters and corn went down two-quarters. Poverty was seen in farmers and sharecroppers. At the same time other things happened like droughts, soil erosion, plaques of grasshoppers, floods, and boll weevils. This devastated the farmers and the countryside. Even though the farm jobs rose, the non-farm jobs were more popular and prosperous. By 1870 farmers were the minority work force in the country (Balkin 23).Times were really bad due to the economic depression. Factories were closing and people were getting laid off. However, there were lucky people who kept their jobs but worked fewer h...
