Economic Conditions in the South, Late 1920s
During World War I, southern farmers made unimaginable profits from supplying the cotton that went into things such as uniforms for the troops. Furthermore, southern farmers were constantly supplying the British and French with food. The war caused overproduction. There were huge surpluses which came with low prices during a time period when many farmers were in huge debt. Rural poverty was rampant, which excluded some people from the market economy. White farmers were hit by the depression ten years before anyone else.
Few farms in the South had running water or electricity. Furthermore, wages were very low. Cotton was what these farmers depended on. When the price of cotton crashed due to reduced demand after the war and man-made fibers becoming more readily available, the plight of Southern farmers was increased. Farm workers were earning a third of the wage of industrial workers.
Furthermore, with new technologies, larger farms were becoming more efficient and profitable than small family-oriented farms, driving southern farmers into the ground even further. There was pressure to constantly buy new farming technologies that were being developed at the time in order to be able to compete. As more and more was spent, and less and less was made, the farmers had huge deficits. The graph below demonstrates this occurrence. This led to the buildup of massive debt. The 1920s can be seen as the beginning of the end of the small independent southern farmer.
Throughout the novel, there are several times when Anse’s frustration with this shift can be seen. The best example is , "Durn that road. And it fixing to rain, too. I can stand here and same as see it with second-sight, a-shutting down behind them like a wall, shutting down betwixt them and my given promise," (Faulkner 35). Anse associates the road with the industrialization of the south and southern agriculture. This is driving his family into a worse and worse state.
Works Cited
Authors: Tibby Mihaila, Jiahui Liao, Rachael Frenza and Rebecca Purdy