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Wheat People

Giancarlo Valdetaro

“Wheat People”, by the Kansas Historical Society’s Kansas Museum of History, offers a look into the history and early stages of Kansas wheat’s commodity chain. It describes how wheat was first introduced to Kansas farmland, the evolution of its harvesting, and what happens to it in the stages of the commodity chain immediately after harvesting, when it gets taken to a mill in order to be processed. Furthermore, it describes the people surrounding this commodity chain, from the Eastern European immigrants who first brought wheat to Kansas to be grown and harvested, to the transformation of the role of community in farming as mechanization and farm consolidation have increased since the Civil War, to the families and surrounding communities of farmers and how they react to the life cycle of both wheat and those around them.

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Brought up at the beginning of the exhibit, and central to its narrative, is the discussion of Russian-Germans who first brought wheat to Kansas at the end of the nineteenth century. “Wheat People” links to another exhibit by the Kansas Museum of History, “From Far Away Russia”, which explores in more detail the timeline and characteristics of this migration. Through these two exhibits, we learn that Germans – especially Mennonites, Lutherans, and Catholics – fled from war to Russia in the 18th century, enticed by the degree of autonomy afforded to them by the czar. For Mennonites, who object to compulsory military service, life in Russia included exemption from such obligations. Whilst in Russia, they lived in tightly knit religious communities, preserving their German customs and growing very skilled at growing wheat on the Russian prairies.


Unfortunately, the independence these communities cherished began to erode in the mid-nineteenth century. The erosions included the elimination of the Mennonite exemption to being drafted into the military. At the same time, newly built railroads in

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A community prepares to thresh wheat

Kansas sent advertisements and advertising agents into Russia meant to entice migrants. They knew that these German expats in Russia were skilled farmers and would be able to make good use of the land alongside the railroads that the railroad companies were looking to sell. Therefore, with the additional incentives of free transportation, land for churches, and even seed to start planting wheat in some cases, the first Russian-Germans went to Kansas to report back on conditions in 1874. By 1879, over 10,000 had moved.

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Whilst waiting for others to return from the grain elevator, a man takes a break to read

Once in Kansas, they first congregated in communal structures before building and moving into homes more typical of the area they had just moved to, whilst still living in closely knit communities centered around religious and cultural traditions that would persist for decades.  In the meantime, they applied the expertise they had gained growing wheat in Russia. This was especially significant as Kansas had experienced drought, depression, and even insect infestation, devastating the corn crop in the years before the Russian-Germans arrived. With the knowledge of wheat that they brought, these new immigrants injected an estimated nearly $1 million into the state’s economy in just their first year in the state, 1874.

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This transition from corn to wheat took place simultaneously with the mechanization of farming in Kansas. Initially, this was in the form of machines that threshed wheat in place of the crews that were required to do it before. Although this reduced the amount of human labor needed, it also cut down on the communal nature of threshing, as neighbors no longer needed as much of each other’s labor to have a successful crop. This positive feedback loop of mechanization and isolation continued during and after World War I, when combines – which both cut and threshed the wheat – began to be used by more and more farmers in Kansas. This let farmers harvest more wheat, but estranged them from each other in a new way, as the importance of timing to using a combine meant farmers purchased their own combines because sharing with neighbors wouldn’t work well. Along with new varieties of wheat, the increasing ability through the 20th century to grow and harvest more wheat with less human labor also led farmers to purchase more land, often through debt, in order to compete, steadily leading to the consolidation of Kansas wheat growers and the erosion of family farmers seen across the agricultural industry today.

 

Although the exhibit manages to capture the, often lighter, lived experiences in the lives of wheat farming communities whilst detailing these changes in the industry, it leaves some elements to be desired beyond the technical production side of wheat’s commodity chain. It could explore a little more about the labor relations on the farms and the effects consolidation, as well as following the

commodity chain farther into production past the mill where the wheat is processed, but it does a very good job creating a full picture of the community that surrounds the early links of this commodity chain. At the end of it, the reader comes away with a clear picture of how the lives of farmers, their families, farm equipment providers, the surrounding townspeople, and those who work at grain mills are impacted by wheat. In a nation where bread is on store shelves in all but the most exceptional circumstances, but the who, where, and how behind the production of this bounty is increasingly opaque, this illustration of communities is crucial. Commodities gain value from their impact on us, whether that be when we gather with our family around a fresh loaf of bread or when we first till the soil in preparation for that year’s planting of the wheat crop. Thankfully, this exhibit sheds some much-needed light on the latter.

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A wheat-farming family, taking a meal together in the field

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