Editing Yeoman (section)

=== Yeoman farmer ===
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[[File:Wisconsin state coat of arms (illustrated, 1876).jpg|thumb|Coat of arms of Wisconsin during the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], with yeoman on the right]]

In the United States, yeomen were identified in the 18th and 19th centuries as non-slaveholding, small landowning, family farmers. In areas of the [[Southern United States]] where land was poor, like [[East Tennessee]],<ref>The difficulty yeoman farmers faced in this region was notorious enough that it inspired the lyrics "Corn don't grow at all on Rocky Top; dirt's too rocky by far" in [http://www.utk.edu/athletics/tn_songs.shtml Rocky Top] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090830214750/http://www.utk.edu/athletics/tn_songs.shtml |date=2009-08-30}}, now one of Tennessee's state songs.</ref> the landowning yeomen were typically [[Subsistence agriculture|subsistence farmers]], but some managed to grow [[crop]]s for market. Whether they engaged in subsistence or [[commercial agriculture]], they controlled far more modest landholdings than those of the [[Planter (American South)|planters]], typically in the range of 50–200 acres. In the Northern United States, practically all the [[farm]]s were operated by yeoman farmers as [[family farms]].

[[Thomas Jefferson]] was a leading advocate of the yeomen, arguing that the independent farmers formed the basis of [[Republicanism in the United States|republican values]].<ref>Samuel C. Hyde Jr., "Plain Folk Yeomanry in the Antebellum South", in John Boles, Jr., ed., ''Companion to the American South,'' (2004) pp. 139–155</ref> Indeed, [[Jeffersonian Democracy]] as a political force was largely built around the yeomen.<ref>Steven Hahn, ''The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850–1890'' (1983)</ref> After the [[American Civil War]] (1861–1865), organizations of farmers, especially the [[The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry|Grange]], formed to organize and enhance the status of the yeoman farmers.<ref>Thomas A. Woods, ''Knights of the Plow: Oliver H. Kelley and the Origins of the Grange in Republican Ideology'' (2002)</ref>