Excerpts from the Preface: The primary purpose of this publication is an analysis of the operation of the so-called agricultural ladder. The method of analysis was suggested by an article published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics for May 1937, by John D. Black and R. W. Allen, entitled, "The Growth of Farm Tenancy in the United States." The authors said the purpose of their article was "to explore the evolution of the existing farm tenure situation in the United States, in general and to some extent regional, and discover its meaning and its significance for the present." The purpose of this report can be said to be the same as that of the article by Black and Allen but because the data so clearly reveal information for interpreting the operation of the agricultural ladder, it is more sharply focused on that subject. The major conclusion of this report is that a general decline in tenure status of agricultural workers between 1880 and 1940 occurred in almost every part of the United States.
