Arkansas and the New South, 1874–1929 by Carl Moneyhon

Author:Carl Moneyhon [Moneyhon, Carl H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610755528
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

Turn-of-the-Century Prosperity and Challenges

Agricultural problems in the 1880s and early 1890s appeared to deflect the people of Arkansas from the economic change they had envisioned. That diversion turned out to be only a temporary one, however. From the mid-1890s into the first two decades of the twentieth century economic conditions improved. The editors of the Arkansas Gazette welcomed the New Year and the new century in 1900, concluding that after years of crisis and stagnation the future was one of promise. Everything in Arkansas, they believed, was headed in the right direction. While only a few years before the South had been depressed and its economy stagnant, the turning point had been reached and the entire region was making strides in the direction of “progress.” The editors saw increased investments in manufacturing and improved markets as signals of a new era. As always, the Gazette’s editors may have been too optimistic, but change was taking place. The forces that had produced so much hopefulness earlier continued to be active, and the state’s integration into the national market proceeded at a faster pace. Continued economic development brought with it a variety of new problems, but coming out of an economic depression most of Arkansas’s leaders preferred to avert their attention from these questions in their excitement about new prospects.

Between 1900 and 1920 a wide variety of impulses pushed the Arkansas economy forward, but the most important factor was the increase in demand for many goods produced in Arkansas. Prices rose steadily for agricultural, timber, mining, and manufacturing products from the end of the 1890s. Demand and rising prices were stimulated further by the outbreak of World War I, which forced many European nations to rely more heavily on American goods. Arkansans responded with increased productivity. New farm crops were introduced in response to market demand. Natural resources were developed further. Manufacturing advanced to the point that new, nationally competitive industries emerged.

Agriculture continued to be the dominant sector in the economy, but after a decade of hard times for farmers, the future looked much brighter. Having reached a low of 6 cents per pound in 1898, cotton prices began to climb. By 1900 it had reached 9.6 cents, ten years later it was at 15.1 cents. In 1917, the first year of the world war for Americans, cotton prices reached 23.5 cents, then peaked three years later at 33.9 cents. Corn prices, which had been at 28 cents in 1889, reached $1.52 per bushel in 1919. Wheat prices had bottomed out in 1894 at 55.9 cents per bushel, then also began a heady ascent to its peak of $2.46 in 1920.

The chief effect of rising farm prices was a rush to increase the number of acres in cultivation, usually for the production of cash crops. In the first decade of the century, nearly 36,000 new farms were started, bringing the total number of farms to 214,678 consisting of 17,416,075 acres. The rate of growth slowed during the next ten years, and farm acreage increased only moderately.

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