Disadvantaged Classes in American Agriculture

Report Foreword: This more or less impressionistic study of the "sore spots" in American rural life was made to reveal in broad outline the major factors that tend to reduce approximately one-third of the farm population of the Nation to submarginal standards of living. Because it attempts to survey rural social conditions throughout the Nation, it was necessary to confine the data used almost solely to such secondary sources as U. S. Census reports. The authors do not claim that the investigation is on the plane of scientific research for the analyses do not go deep enough to warrant such a claim. They hope that revealing the widespread prevalence of the conditions described, and delineating clearly the areas in which these conditions tend to concentrate, will lead to detailed analyses of the conditions and the areas. The title, "Disadvantaged Classes in American Agriculture," one of a number of possible choices, was selected because it most nearly describes the arrangement of data, chapter by chapter, than any other title that was formulated. But it does not imply that the "classes" referred to are classes in the sense of castes, or that there is no social interchange between the farm families being discussed and other farm families in the same community, or with other farm families throughout the Nation. Rural poverty has existed in considerable magnitude in the United States for a long time. The depression served to reveal the areas in which this poverty was most prevalent and most nearly chronic. Different agencies of the Federal Government in recent years have analyzed these conditions and areas from such standpoints as the land, farm income, and soil erosion. It is the purpose of this report to describe these conditions and areas in terms of farm families and the conditions under which they live.