{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/72421"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/72421","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Strategies for Commercialization: Missouri Agriculture, 1860-1880","abstract":"The conventional wisdom that commercialization fostered specialization, in the aggregate and on the farm, is not confirmed by farm-level evidence. I create a linked sample of rural farms and households from the 1860, 1870 and 1880 population and agricultural censuses of Missouri, and add data from local property tax records in order to document and model farmers' production strategies for commercialization. The story of agricultural change in Missouri during the post-Civil War period is not one of commercialization creating opportunities for farmers to specialize. Instead, it is the story of commercialization fostering diversification.","abstract_html":"The conventional wisdom that commercialization fostered specialization, in the aggregate and on the farm, is not confirmed by farm-level evidence. I create a linked sample of rural farms and households from the 1860, 1870 and 1880 population and agricultural censuses of Missouri, and add data from local property tax records in order to document and model farmers' production strategies for commercialization. The story of agricultural change in Missouri during the post-Civil War period is not one of commercialization creating opportunities for farmers to specialize. Instead, it is the story of commercialization fostering diversification.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Gregson, Mary Eschelbach"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Economics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Atack, Jeremy"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2014,"date_issued":"2014-12-17T22:25:58Z","date_published":"2014-12-17T22:25:58Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:06Z","subjects":["History, United States","Economics, General","Economics, History"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["(UMI)AAI9329047"],"render_values":[{"text":"(UMI)AAI9329047","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/72421","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Atack, Jeremy"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Gregson, Mary Eschelbach"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2014-12-17T22:25:58Z","10000-01-01","1993"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Economics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["History, United States","Economics, General","Economics, History"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/72421","(UMI)AAI9329047"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["The conventional wisdom that commercialization fostered specialization, in the aggregate and on the farm, is not confirmed by farm-level evidence. I create a linked sample of rural farms and households from the 1860, 1870 and 1880 population and agricultural censuses of Missouri, and add data from local property tax records in order to document and model farmers' production strategies for commercialization. The story of agricultural change in Missouri during the post-Civil War period is not one of commercialization creating opportunities for farmers to specialize. Instead, it is the story of commercialization fostering diversification.","I develop a model of endowment-contingent crop choice that explains why Missouri farmers chose to diversify as marketing costs fell and commercialization progressed. The decline in marketing costs during the late nineteenth century, other things equal, meant that soil suitability became a more important determinant of the most profitable use of land. In areas with heterogeneous soil and topology such as my Missouri sample, the model predicts that farmers would diversify as they commercialize. Moreover, my model reconciles the farm-level evidence with the macro story of comparative advantage and provides a testable hypothesis for explaining the pattern of agricultural development in other places and at other times.","Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T22:25:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 9329047.pdf: 10476321 bytes, checksum: 460c5c673d4eec302ed77154bfe32e48 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1993","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 72589 Lift date: Forever Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","U of I Only","258 p.","Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1993."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Strategies for Commercialization: Missouri Agriculture, 1860-1880"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Atack, Jeremy"],"dc:creator":["Gregson, Mary Eschelbach"],"dc:date":["2014-12-17T22:25:58Z","10000-01-01","1993"],"dc:description":["The conventional wisdom that commercialization fostered specialization, in the aggregate and on the farm, is not confirmed by farm-level evidence. I create a linked sample of rural farms and households from the 1860, 1870 and 1880 population and agricultural censuses of Missouri, and add data from local property tax records in order to document and model farmers' production strategies for commercialization. The story of agricultural change in Missouri during the post-Civil War period is not one of commercialization creating opportunities for farmers to specialize. Instead, it is the story of commercialization fostering diversification.","I develop a model of endowment-contingent crop choice that explains why Missouri farmers chose to diversify as marketing costs fell and commercialization progressed. The decline in marketing costs during the late nineteenth century, other things equal, meant that soil suitability became a more important determinant of the most profitable use of land. In areas with heterogeneous soil and topology such as my Missouri sample, the model predicts that farmers would diversify as they commercialize. Moreover, my model reconciles the farm-level evidence with the macro story of comparative advantage and provides a testable hypothesis for explaining the pattern of agricultural development in other places and at other times.","Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T22:25:58Z (GMT). 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