Drivers of the Farmers’ Protest Movement in Late Nineteenth Century: Revisiting Douglass North’s Thesis
Drivers of the Farmers’ Protest Movement in Late Nineteenth Century: Revisiting Douglass North’s Thesis

Summary/Abstract: This paper reexamines Douglass C. North’s claim that the Farmers’ Populist Movement in the late nineteenth century was not because of rural distress. North used wholesale prices for farm and other products, in addition to farmland prices, to conclude that farm products’ terms of trade were improving. By constructing a rural consumer price index using Thurston M. Adams’ detailed study on Vermont farmers, we find that wholesale farm prices declined more than the consumer prices, with no correlation between the increase in farmland prices and farmers’ income. The findings reinforce the economic hardship thesis as an explanation of the farmers’ protest movement.

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