Farm Tenancy in the U.S., 1890-1938: New Evidence from an Old Study for Assessing the 'Agricultural Ladder'

20世纪最初几十年，随着农场经营者中所有者的比例下降，农场阶梯上的流动性在美国被视为一个问题。随着租房者、佃农和劳工数量的增加，人们对美国农业的持续生存能力表示担忧。由于“农业阶梯”（从劳动者到农民，再到佃户，再到所有者）似乎越来越难以攀登，评论家们对土壤质量和全国农民的素质感到担忧。类似的担忧在很大程度上激发了发展中国家对农场租赁和土地改革的兴趣。虽然这些问题本身就很重要，但农场租赁和农业阶梯上升的原因也很有趣，因为在南方，它们是黑人向北方迁移的重要背景。尽管人们一直强调改变南方的农业技术和促进这种迁移的北方就业机会，但人们对20世纪初南方农业阶梯上有限的晋升机会在多大程度上影响了这种大规模的人口再分配知之甚少。这项研究解决了这些问题。它使用了1920年五个县农业普查中的个人层面数据，以及1938年对农民进行的独特详细调查，以探索农业阶梯的动态。我们将用1920年人口普查的县级数据补充个人数据。人口普查数据包含的信息包括：租客和业主之前的农业经验，农民从雇佣劳动者到租客再到业主的年龄，在成为业主之前在梯子的各个阶梯上花费的时间，以及租客与业主的关系。调查数据包含每个人完整的职业历史信息（他们在每个日期的任期状态可追溯到1890年），他们的位置，以及他们的各种个人和农场特征。我们提出假设来解释农业阶梯上下移动的程度，以及为什么它会随着时间和空间的变化而变化。对1938年数据的初步研究表明，与当时评论家的悲观情绪相反，我们没有发现20世纪30年代农民的前景比前20年更黯淡。就我们的样本而言，20世纪20年代农民的境况（就工作流动性而言）比30年代还要糟糕。与预期一致，20世纪10年代被证明是农业阶梯普遍上升的年份。

Mobility up the farm ladder came to be seen as a problem in the United States in the early decades of the twentieth century as the fraction of farm operators who were owners fell. Concerns were voiced about the continued viability of American agriculture as the number of renters, sharecroppers, and laborers rose. Commentators feared for the quality of the soil and for the quality of the nation's farmers, as the "agricultural ladder" (the progression from laborer to cropper to renter to owner) seemingly became more difficult to ascend. Similar concerns motivate much of the interest in farm tenancy and land reform in developing countries today. Though these are issues of importance in their own right, the causes of farm tenancy and the ascent up the agricultural ladder are also of interest because, in the South, they were an important part of the context within which black migration to the North occurred. Though much emphasis has been placed on changing Southern farm technology and Northern employment opportunities in promoting this migration, not know much is known about the extent to which limited opportunities for advancement up the agricultural ladder in the early twentieth century South influenced this massive population redistribution.This study addresses these issues. It uses individual-level data from five counties in the 1920 Census of agriculture along with a uniquely detailed survey of farmers conducted in 1938 to explore the dynamics of the agricultural ladder. We will supplement the individual-level data with county-level data from the 1920 Census. The census data contain information on: the prior farming experience of tenants and owners, the ages at which farmers ascended the ladder from wage laborer to tenant to owner, the time spent on various rungs of the ladder prior to becoming owners, and the relationship of tenants to owners. The survey data contain information on each individual's complete career history (their tenure status at each date back as far as 1890), their location, and a variety of their personal and farm characteristics. We develop hypotheses to explain the extent of movement up and down the agricultural ladder and why it changes over time, and across space. The preliminary examination of the data from 1938 indicate that, contrary to the pessimism of commentators at the time, we do not find dimmer prospects for farmers in the 1930s than the previous two decades. For our sample, farmers fared worse (in terms of job mobility) in the 1920s than the 1930s. Consistent with expectations, the 1910's proved to be years of general ascent up the agricultural ladder.