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- United States history cannot fully be understood without studying its rural life and agricultural heritage. Agriculture fueled the social and economic engine which built our nation, which generated our state and local governments, which stimulated and regulated pioneering, farming, land tenure, and the trading of agricultural commodities. Much of what defines the national character of Americans, our cultural values and morés, is rooted in our agrarian past. The farm family was the basic social unit molding American life for nearly 200 years. Agriculture has transformed the American countryside and provided its rural strength. Due to the centrality of agriculture in the American experience, economic, social, and cultural historians, as well as those in science and technology, have been fascinated by the published record of agriculture and rural life, and must utilize it regularly.
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