Introduction

Agriculture has always been critical to the Arkansas economy. In the Arkansas Territory (1819 – 1836), over 90% of the Arkansas population worked on the land as farmers or farm workers. When Arkansas was admitted to the Union, agriculture continued to dominate the state’s economy. Although over time mechanization (use of machines and technology), urbanization (growth of cities), and the emergence of multiple other sectors of the economy contributed to the decreasing impact of agriculture on the US and Arkansas economies, in the early 21st century, around 45% of Arkansans still live in rural areas. However, while in the past nearly all residents of rural areas were engaged in agriculture, today many of them commute to work in towns and cities or are employed in other sectors of the economy. Despite that, agriculture is still Arkansas’ largest industry.

For the first 150 years of Arkansas history, not much changed in how people cultivated land and run farms. Although certain inventions had an important impact on agriculture in the late 18th (1700s) and in the 19th (1800s) centuries  (e.g., cotton gin, cotton harvester,  grain elevator, etc.), agricultural workers used the same basic tools and followed the same farming practices, especially on small farms. That changed rapidly and dramatically in the mid-20th century (1900s). According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, “In 1940 [in Arkansas], tenants or sharecroppers cultivated more than sixty percent of the land, and more than ninety percent of farmers used horses or mules as draft animals. By 1964, the statistical importance of tenant-sharecroppers, and the number of horses and mules, had been reduced to the point that federal officials no longer collected data on them.” With the advancement of technology and population growth, fewer farms were run just to feed farming families. Farms became bigger, more industrialized, and more business-oriented.