• Weydemeyer@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Sure - meaning a small-time farmer who typically doesn’t hire anyone to work the land (usually . doing it themselves). Not quite subsistence farming as the goal is to have a small surplus to be able to pay for stuff you can’t just make yourself.

    Americans like Thomas Jefferson had this vision of the country - in its ideal form - being an entire nation of yeoman farmers. One reason stealing more native land was important was the rich could always promise the (white) poor that they could improve their lot in life by moving west and becoming a yeoman farmers.

    • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      from what i’ve dug up, yeoman seems to refer to a now nonexistent middle class? i don’t know, it’s fifteen minutes of research without coffee, i can’t verify the accuracy of my work.