ABSTRACT
Writers frequently refer to the plight of the wheat farmer when they describe the type of farm distress in the 1920’s that the phrase agricultural “depression” implies. Data on mortgage foreclosures, farm bankruptcies and price disparity all suggest that wheat farmers suffered more than any single commodity group from the postwar agricultural crisis. Furthermore, the wheat farmers’ problem seems to clinch the argument that farm distress in the twenties resulted from overexpansion and overproduction. There is no doubt that wheat acreage and exports rose to unprecedented levels during the war. It is significant, therefore, that this contribution to the war effort seemed to make wheat farmers more vulnerable than most producers to the threat of postwar overproduction and depression. One economic historian, writing as recently as 1968, has reiterated this viewpoint when he asserts that “the immediate origins of the 91farm problem that overtook the United States after 1920 lay in the expansion of staple production during World War I and in the subsequent erosion of the overseas market for surplus agricultural commodities. The plight of the wheat farmer was especially acute…” 1
