1930-1970: Largest growth in energy consumption

Energy consumption grew by 350 percent.

Infusions of energy had greatest impact on the farm.

Country Life Movement: advocated the application of "scientific, standardized, and mechanized production which would increase food supplies and lower prices."

"Henry Fordizing" agriculture: assembly line production and the Fordson tractor.

1932: over 1 million tractors in use.

Tractors changed the amount of production greatly.

Horses required periodic rest, and there were concerns with heat and cold.

Two-plow tractor covered as much ground as eight horses.

Other machines replaced fieldhands: "Flame weeders" replaced the hoe. Chemical defoliants made the leaves drop.

Sharecropper and the mule soon vanished.

Despite increased efficiency farmers were not making increased revenues.

More product, less demand.

Yields per acre increased and improved technologies eliminated waste.

Advent of tractors released 25 percent of the nation’s farmland that had been used to feed horses.

Steady increases in food preservation forced farmers to compete in a world market.

General Foods introduced frozen vegetables in the 1930’s without much success.

By the 1950’s public accepted frozen foods as part of a "natural" diet.

Farm population declined from 30 million in 1940 to 4.8 million in 1989.

The average farm doubled in size to 460 acres.

Farmers had "better crops and better animals and bigger debts and more worries."

1970’s: bankruptcy and poverty were more common in the countryside than in the city.

End of 20^th century less than 2 percent of the population remains on farms.

Why? Because of intensive energy use. Machines make it possible to cultivate large areas of land.

Power sources for agriculture consisted primarily of petroleum and natural gas.

Ecological critics attacked this shift from "biologically derived energy to machine-derived fossil fuel."

A dependency on banks instead of Mother Nature.

Ecologists complained of the big machines now on the market and referred to them as "monsters" and "acre eaters."

Ecologists were dismissed as romantic agrarians but were actually future-oriented and the ravages being taken upon the soil.

With electricity in the house, family activities no longer centered on the hearth and the kerosene lamp.

Electricity encouraged open floor plans and lighter color schemes.

Horse and buggy had spacious porches.

Electrified house slowly lost "this realm of neighborly sociability."

The driveway became "the exit and entrance ramp to domestic life."

1956: Introduction of the federally funded interstate highway system.

The highway was a blow to the "life" of urban communities.

Crucial contradiction: originally introduced to alleviate downtown traffic congestion.

But invariably bypassed downtown areas entirely.

1970’s: "center" of consumption moved to the shopping malls.

By 1960 there were more than 3800 shopping centers.

Malls destroyed Main Street and were privately controlled without political or cultural institutions.