GOVT 2306 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Railroad Commission Of Texas, Federal Reserve System, Cotton
1 Sep 2015
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The capitalist process of creative destruction (joseph schumpter) creates a new economic and social world, and destroys old ones: Railroads, steam and steel transformed america, nationalizing market and making new opportunities for people and businesses. Technological innovation with gasoline combustion engines, electricity, radio = economy restructured. Serious cultivation started 1821 with arrival of white americans. Cotton industry development was promoted by statehood, political independence, and removal of native american threat. Further stimulated by 1870"s barbed wire (protect crops from animals), building of railroads led to national markets, new plow to dig up soil and increase productivity. Newcomers during 1870"s became sharecroppers or tenant farmers. Consequences: condemned texans to lives of economic and social dependency. crop-lien system - to extend credit to farmers in exchange for liens on their crops. Helped fuel radical political discontent in rural areas (grange and populist. Movement) and led to defining style of texas politics.
