Industrial Era Dbq

The Industrial Era was an ever changing time for the United States of America that saw many changes which helped, and harmed the economy. It occurred in the late eighteenth century and continued into the early nineteenth century. This time period had an effect which differed from person to person. It was beneficial to the wealthy, and damaging to the lower class. Individuals who were in the lower class were farmers, as well as factory workers. There was a lot of adapting which needed to take place; for example, the lower class had to work tirelessly in order to earn the same amount of money as they previously would have made. During this era, many changes occurred for both groups, the farmers had to learn how to adapt, and factory workers had

The Industrial Revolution brought down the prices of crops produced by farmers, this meant that farmers were not making enough money to pay off their debts. This increasing problem was slowly digging farmers into a hole with what seemed to be no escape. To add on to their everlasting money problems, middlemen and railroad companies were price gouging the farmers. This meant, the companies were asking farmers to pay prices which had been far higher than the actual value of the products needed for the farmers to raise crops. Companies did this, because they knew that farmers could not buy their goods from other businesses due to the fact that there were not any others in sight. Despite the hardships, the farmers united to fight this growing problem. The farmers during the Industrial Revolution had only adapted to the aspects that benefitted them and fought against the features of this era that harmed them. For example, although the farmers became more social and reliant on each other, they were not making as much money as they were before. Because of the decrease in revenue, they created the Farmer’s Alliance and the Populist platform to fight the big