R. Douglas Hurt

African American life in the rural South, 1900-1950

During the first half of the twentieth century, degradation, poverty, and hopelessness were commonplace for African Americans who lived in the Souths countryside, either on farms or in rural communities. Many southern blacks sought relief from these conditions by migrating to urban centers. Many others, however, continued to live in rural areas. Scholars of African American rural history in the South have been concerned primarily with the experience of blacks as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, textile workers, and miners. Less attention has been given to other aspects of the rural African American experience during the early twentieth century. African American Life in the Rural South, 1900-1950 provides important new information about African American culture, social life, and religion, as well as economics, federal policy, migration, and civil rights. The essays particularly emphasize the efforts of African Americans to negotiate the white world in the southern countryside. Filling a void in southern studies, this outstanding collection provides a substantive overview of the subject. Scholars, students, and teachers of African American, southern, agricultural, and rural history will find this work invaluable.

American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century: How It Flourished and What It Cost (review)

The history of American agriculture in the twentieth century is a story of scientific and technological achievement, activist federal government, and remarkable productivity. It is also a story of violence, racism, and dispossession, among a host of other factors, both good and ill, that have shaped the history of the countryside. Despite the salience of agriculture to the American experience, much remains to be said about its recent history. The scholars who have studied American agriculture in historical context have included economists, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, and geographers. Their chief concerns have been technology, government policy, social change, ethnicity, and agricultural economics. Each discipline brings a particular emphasis and methodology to research and analysis, and each tends to ignore the others. This study is no different. Bruce. L. Gardner, Distinguished University Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Maryland, has provided a sweeping econometric overview of American agriculture during the twentieth century. His intent was to address the reasons for increased productivity and farm income as well as the changes in farm size and population. Gardner is concerned with economic winners and losers and the role of government policy in promoting marketing, trade, and expansion. He has met his goal with an economic introduction to the major reasons for agricultural change and development in the United States. His is a fact-filled, positive economic history. It is, however, a history without people. Gardner analyzes technological change, economic structures, outmigration, rural poverty, commodity markets, and government policy, among other topics, and in several concluding chapters seeks to explain what the data mean. He does not tell scholars of American agricultural history much that is new, but he adds to our understanding important details based on econometric analysis. He points out that farm poverty has declined, and that agricultural income now approximates the average income of nonfarm households. This is due, in part, to flight from the land and also to government policies. Gardner does not systematically trace the development of those policies, but rather touches on the highlights. His conclusions are clear but already known: “the growth of agriculture as a sector of the economy is provided by investment, farm productivity improvement, and governmental support for agricultural research” (p. 337). Government price-support programs, of course, gave it some stability. American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century will appeal primarily to agricultural economists. Gardner’s econometric approach and willingness B O O K R E V I E W S

The Historiography of American Agriculture

Agriculture is fundamental to the American experience. It has shaped American economic, political, and social history since the founding of Jamestown. And, although farmers have declined to two percent of the population and while they no longer exercise their political power of the past, agricultural history merits thought and reflection for anyone who studies American civiliza tion, and it can be easily integrated into American history course work. To do so, the instructor can take a national, regional, state, or topical approach. In all probability, the instructor will use all or a combination of these methods. Although space prevents critical analysis, teachers who want to incorporate agriculture into their American history classes can draw upon the following survey of litera ture. My intent is to provide the American history teacher with a working bibliography for major topical areas in the field of agricul tural history. These books will pro vide a place to begin, and each study can be easily obtained through the interlibrary loan services of a public library. History teachers quickly will find that a single, authoritative text does not exist for a broad overview of American agricul tural history. William W. Cochranes The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis traces the main fea tures in American agriculture from the colonial period to the mid-1970s. Co chrane discusses topical matters, such as the role of government, transportation, and technological change. In Whereby We Thrive: A History of American Farming, 1607-1972, John T. Schebecker primarily emphasizes scientific and technological change, but he also analyzes land policy and marketing. Walter Ebeling provides a regional approach to American agricul tural history in The Fruited Plain: The Story of American Agriculture. The in structor can best use these three studies as