The Deed and the Wage · Episode 5 of 10 · 24 min
Did the Homestead Act Stop American Socialism?
For a century American workers were told there was a back door out of the wage bargain: 160 acres and independence somewhere west. The episode asks whether that door was ever really open, finding that few eastern workers went west but the idea of exit may have shaped wages and politics. When the census declared the frontier closed in 1890, the labor argument turned inward.
Who's who
- Thomas Jefferson+10 more episodesAuthor of the freeholder ideal of the independent cultivator
- Galusha GrowPennsylvania congressman and legislative father of the Homestead Act
- Abraham Lincoln+7 more episodesSigned the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862
- Horace Greeley+2 more episodesNew York Tribune editor associated with Go West, young man
- Frederick Jackson TurnerHistorian whose 1893 frontier thesis made free land the key to democracy
- Werner SombartGerman economist who blamed missing American socialism partly on abundance
- Carter GoodrichEconomist who began the empirical demolition of the safety-valve doctrine
- Fred A. ShannonHistorian who argued the city was the farmer's safety valve
Where it happens
- Beatrice, NebraskaNear where Daniel Freeman filed one of the first homestead claims
Timeline
- 1785Land Ordinance establishes the rectangular survey of the public domain
- May 20, 1862Lincoln signs the Homestead Act offering 160 acres
- 1890Census states there can hardly be said to be a frontier line
- July 12, 1893Turner presents his frontier thesis in Chicago
- 1892-1894Homestead lockout and Pullman strike follow the frontier's announced close
Still debated
Historians dispute how much the exit option raised American wages, since direct worker migration was small. Turner's thesis is largely rejected in strong form, homestead success rates are rough estimates, and the Go West quote's attribution is uncertain.
← PreviousWhy Free Land Produced Slavery and SharecroppingNext →The Case Against the Land Theory of Capital and Labor
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