Golden Age of American Agriculture

The Golden Age of American Agriculture, as described in the account of Harry S. Truman’s farm years, was a time of steadily rising prices and expanding production. For Truman and his father, John Truman, that prosperity did not mean ease: the farm’s growing prospects demanded longer, harder work, while family obligations and John’s political ambitions added to the strain.

A period of rising prices

The book places Truman’s farm years within a wider agricultural upswing. By 1912, wheat had reached 90 cents a bushel, and prices for corn, hay, and other crops were climbing as well. The favorable market made farming unusually promising, but it also gave the family reason to push production. Prosperity arrived as work to be done, not as leisure.

Long days in the fields

One summer day in 1912, Truman and his father spent twelve hours loading nearly 300 bales of hay into a railroad car. Truman was exhausted by sundown. When lightning appeared on the horizon, John insisted they return to cover the hay still waiting to be baled. They worked in the dark, with Truman passing up 14-foot boards as his father placed them on the haystack; Truman counted 32 boards. The episode captures the period’s double edge: the crop represented value, but protecting it demanded still more labor after an already punishing day.

Expansion and uncertain prospects

The following year, John more than doubled the herd, from 30 cows to 82. The family produced enough hay for 600 bales, and John looked ahead to sowing 400 acres of wheat in hopes that a successful crop would put them on firmer financial ground. The work remained relentless. Truman described sowing wheat, handling 100-pound sacks, and then turning to hay while the grain was threshed. At night he wrote to Bess Wallace; nearby, his father sometimes fell asleep in his chair. The farm’s rising output brought hope, but the hoped-for relief depended on another large harvest.

Farm work and family strain

The agricultural boom unfolded alongside Truman’s trips to Independence and Kansas City, lodge meetings, and correspondence, leaving him with a crowded schedule. John sometimes accused him of losing interest in the farm and struggled to wake him in the mornings. Truman, in turn, worried that his father was working too hard. When John pursued an appointed road-overseer position covering the southern half of Washington Township, including Grandview Farm, Truman objected: the job involved continuous country-road maintenance for two dollars a day, and he believed his father’s attachment to politics was drawing him away from the farm. The period’s promise of agricultural gain thus sat within a family life shaped by exhaustion, competing duties, and differing ideas about where a man’s effort belonged.