[9rx]

> Those are usually large plantations

There are no plantations around here. This was cattle and grain country in that time. Farmers got rich because all of sudden their manual labour capacity was multiplied by machines. The story is quite similar to those who used software to multiply their output in our time, and similarly many tech fortunes have built mansions just the same.

> Not shacks, but nothing gigantic or luxurious.

Well, they weren't palaces. You're absolutely right that they don't look like mansions by today's standards, but they were considered as such at the time. Many were coming from tiny, one room log cabins (stuffed to the brim with their eight children). They were gigantic, luxurious upgrades at the time. But progress marches forward, as always.

[danans]

> Farmers got rich because all of sudden their manual labour capacity was multiplied by machines.

This sounds like a semantic disagreement.

I think you are using the word "farmer" to mean "large agricultural landlord". Today, those terms may have a lot of overlap, because most of us don't work in agriculture like we did then, but in the past, it wasn't so much the case.

Back then, the landlord who had the "big house" wasn't called a farmer, but often a "Lord" or "Master".

"Farmers" were mostly people who worked as tenants on their land. The confusion in US history started early as the local feudal lords of the time (the founding fathers) rebranded themselves as farmers in opposition to their British rulers, but the economic structure of the societies was scarcely different.

[9rx]

> Back then, the landlord who had the "big house" wasn't called a farmer, but often a "Lord" or "Master".

Feudalism in North America, in the 1900s? Your geography and timelines are way off.

[danans]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, slavery and sharecropping were primary forms of agricultural labor.

Those are far closer to medieval feudal peasantry than 20th century industrial labor, regardless of the lack of an official hereditary aristocracy in the US.

[SoftTalker]

Sharecropping was very common. And a hard way to earn a subsistence living.

[saghm]

> Look at the farms that have the houses of that era standing on them and you'll soon notice that they are all mansions.

> There are no plantations around here.

FWIW you haven't really stated where "here" is for you. It's not necessarily going to be the same for everyone, and based on the parent comments, the potential area under discussion could include the entirety of the US and Europe (although the initial comment only mentioned UK specifically, it doesn't seem clear to me that it's explicitly only talking about that). I'm not sure you can categorically state that no one in this conversation could be talking about areas that have plantations.