Revolution in the Countryside": Shifting Financial Paradigms Amid the Rhetoric of the "Farm Crisis," 1925-1933

Abstract

This dissertation uses historical recovery and rhetorical analysis to argue that the Farmer Labor Party in Minnesota in the 1920s and early 1930s was successful in its efforts to change the debt relationship between the farmer, banker, and the state. The party's rhetorical success helped originate a financial paradigm shift that lead to the creation in 1933 of national banking and debt structures for the agricultural sector that still exist. This dissertation fills in a significant gap in scholarship related to discussions of agricultural finance in the decade prior to the passage of the Farm Credit Act of 1933 and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which includes the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act of 1933. There are additional insights into early efforts at regulation-free financialization of agriculture and farm mortgages; a map for social movement scholars and practitioners interested in altering debt relations and facilitating changes at a federal legislative level; and contextualization of New Deal agricultural interventions.