U.S. Census Office, Proportion of Improved Land to Total Area, 1900 (1903)

Farms in the United States expanded greatly throughout the late 1800s as people moved West. This map from the Statistical Atlas,1900 illustrates the percentage of "improved land" to total land for each county across the country in 1900, highlighting the proportion of land being used for agriculture, with the heaviest shade of green marking counties where 75 percent or more of the total land area was under cultivation. Farm life in the late nineteenth century, as told by Hattie Spencer in her interview with Walker Winslow, consisted of solitarity and self-reliance. The Spencer family's clothes, food, and medicines were all made from their own home, and ventures off of the family's farm were a rarity, despite those for Sunday Church. Lifestyles such as this were common in the growing farmland of Western America as more agricultural production became necessary throughout the nineteenth century. As farmland expanded, farmers began to associate in groups known as Granges and Farmers' Alliances, addressing the hardships and problems of farming across America. In the election of 1892, the farmers of America put up a candidate for President in their own political party: the People's Party, also known as the Populists. Despite the abundance of farmland in the United States, the hopes of a President representing the farmers of America were diminished following the election, with the Populist candidate only drawing in approximately 8% of the American votes. Though political representation never became a reality for the farmers and agricultural producers of America, farming and agriculture continued to grow in abundance and necessity, making up much of Western America's economic output.