Hi. Does anyone know what government intervention(s) led to the depression of 1894?
Do you mean the “Long Depression” of 1873-1879 (so-called by Wikipedia?)
Considering that real capita incomes increased by 50% from the 1870s to 1890s ( while the average workweek also went down somewhat - see Chapter 6 from DiLorenzo’s How Capitalism Saved America), I would say that the idea of a long depression is just a misunderstanding of deflation, which sometimes happens during periods of growth and sometimes happens during periods of decline.
Most economists and historians see the Long Depression as a bad thing, when in fact it was a period of tremendous growth accompanying falling prices.
I think he is referring to the Depression of 1894, which ended the long period of rising productivity and deflation. By the way, the period between 1873 and 1879 was a period of productive stagnation. Real growth took place between 1879 and 1893 (with brief years of depression in the mid-80s).
I am referring to the depression of 1894. From what I understand, too many farmers were producing too much food, causing a decline in prices, which caused a whole host of problems for them as one can imagine. I suspect that government was at the minimum a contributing factor to the depression, but I just don’t know how.
The following article was suggesed elsewhere as an explanation: Bimetallic Nightmare
There is also an extensive thread that deals with the issue and pointed to the article named The Silver Panic, which seems to be the most promising summary.
As a hint, all of them speak about government manipulation with the gold-to-silver ratio. 
“By the way, the period between 1873 and 1879 was a period of productive stagnation.”
Jonathan, can you expand on this? Rothbard indicates that the decade of the 1870’s saw robust growth in real GDP.
Alex writes,
From what I understand, too many farmers were producing too much food, causing a decline in prices, which caused a whole host of problems for them as one can imagine.
Agricultural productivity had risen before the civil war, but rose at an even greater pace afterwards (possibly due to the rise in cost of labor), and so the farmer had been experiencing “problems” throughout the last forty years of the 1800s. Typically, farmers blamed high railroad rates (high transportation costs; although, railroad rates remained the same, more or less, for that period of time) and falling prices, although there is evidence that agricultural incomes actually rose (although, not as as fast as non-farm incomes). In any case, that era represents a second industrial revolution in the United States, where agriculture became relatively unimportant given rises in productivity, and agricultural workers had to find employment in urban centers; it was simply a large structural change in the American economy.
The depression of 1893 didn’t have to do with falling agricultural prices. Rothbard believes that the depression was was a result of free-silver agitation (where the Treasury decided to buy large amounts of silver to satiate mostly farmers) and a resumption of greenback circulaton by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (i.e. inflation).
David Sherin writes,
Jonathan, can you expand on this? Rothbard indicates that the decade of the 1870’s saw robust growth in real GDP.
Here is data on industrial production (using 1900 as the index year = 100). As you can see, industrial production falls between 1873 and 1876, and remains relatively stagnant between 1877 and 1878 (let’s call this a period of recovery).
| 1870 | 25 |
|---|---|
| 1871 | 26 |
| 1872 | 31 |
| 1873 | 30 |
| 1874 | 29 |
| 1875 | 28 |
| 1876 | 28 |
| 1877 | 30 |
| 1878 | 32 |
| 1879 | 36 |
| 1880 | 42 |
A railroad bubble caused by state subsidies drove it in the right direction, inflation caused by the monetization of silver, and of course FRB. Nothing new.