History of the United States II / Unit 2 USH2 0161 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Freight Rates
Captions available
The idea
Railroads charged such high shipping rates that many Plains farmers could not sell their crops at a profit.
In practice
A farmer paying so much to ship his grain east that the harvest earned him little or nothing.
Where people slip
The railroad that made Plains farming possible also squeezed it. Farmers' anger at the rates grows into the Populist revolt of unit five.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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