Two things allowed settlement: the iron moldboard plow, invented in the 1830s, and the technology of drainage. Jane Smiley, in her novel One Thousand Acres, writes about the Germans who settled what was considered waste land in northern Iowa, and with enormous labor ditched and tiled it, making it some of the most productive land in the world. The story is the same in central Illinois and in northern Indiana, as well.
The newly opened lands of nineteenth century Illinois gave rise to great fortunes of the bonanza farmers and land speculators. The landlords, merchants, timbermen, and manufactures who built the prosperous small towns with their gracious main streets, that dotted the countryside, lived symbiotically–though often antagonistically –with the farmers. These towns and their rural hinterlands produced America’s leaders — its intellectuals, artists, inventors, and statesmen. These developers were not austere: while most of the grand houses are in the towns, from time to time one will see the ostentatious mansion of a bonanza farmer presiding over what were once its vast farmlands.
That was in the 19th century. But that world, which still animates the popular imagination (why else do people so love to hate Wal-Mart?), began to wane almost as soon as it was born. It was a world predicated on small-scale manufacturing, on large amounts of manual and animal labor. Its riches came from serving the rapidly industrializing cities, and from the seemingly limitless supply of unskilled laborers pouring into the U.S. from Europe. By 1890 the land was settled, the frontier officially closed. The "Golden Age" of American Agriculture was short, beginning in 1897 and reaching full flower between 1910 and 1914. By World War I the balance shifted to industry; the cities never gave back their preeminence.
continued
The newly opened lands of nineteenth century Illinois gave rise to great fortunes of the bonanza farmers and land speculators. The landlords, merchants, timbermen, and manufactures who built the prosperous small towns with their gracious main streets, that dotted the countryside, lived symbiotically–though often antagonistically –with the farmers. These towns and their rural hinterlands produced America’s leaders — its intellectuals, artists, inventors, and statesmen. These developers were not austere: while most of the grand houses are in the towns, from time to time one will see the ostentatious mansion of a bonanza farmer presiding over what were once its vast farmlands.
That was in the 19th century. But that world, which still animates the popular imagination (why else do people so love to hate Wal-Mart?), began to wane almost as soon as it was born. It was a world predicated on small-scale manufacturing, on large amounts of manual and animal labor. Its riches came from serving the rapidly industrializing cities, and from the seemingly limitless supply of unskilled laborers pouring into the U.S. from Europe. By 1890 the land was settled, the frontier officially closed. The "Golden Age" of American Agriculture was short, beginning in 1897 and reaching full flower between 1910 and 1914. By World War I the balance shifted to industry; the cities never gave back their preeminence.
continued
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