Master of Arts, Miami University, 2003, History

This thesis examines farmers' changing identity and rhetoric in response to the shifting structure of American agriculture in the mid to late 20th century and places the development of the American Agriculture Movement in historical context. Faced with increasingly competitive markets as a result of rising production, farmers turned to large-scale production for survival. A rapidly declining farm population with growing consumer political power led to concerns that the agrarian way of life—what many believed to be a vital part of America—was quickly dying and that farmers could do little to stop the process. These trends led to transformations in farm identity reflected in changes in farm protest group strategy and rhetoric of the National Farmers Organization of the 1960s to that of the AAM of the late 1970s. Non-farmers, while believing in the agrarian myth, did not see modern farmers as representative of old agrarian values.

Committee: Allan Winkler (Advisor) Subjects: History, United States