Question

The Farmers’ Plight

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

1. What or who do the people underneath the tracks represent?

The farmers' plight ( the farmers problem) shows that the farmer is at the mercy of the railroad and that the farmer is trying to warn the businessman (investors) but as you see with the one who is reading the paper no one is paying the farmer any attention. The people being held down by the tracks don't seem to care.

2. Why do you think the cartoonist portrayed the tracks in this way?

Because the tracks are cutting through the farmland causing "The Farmers Plight" (plight=problem). The railroads caused the prices of their crops to drop, the farmers had to mortgage out their farms to buy more land to produce more crops (still bringing in less money), banks were foreclosing, the land took a huge hit and became less sustainable for crops and while all of the hardship fell on the "normal" folk/farm folk the railroads were monopolizing off of the hardship.