| All We Knew Was to Farm: Rural Women in the Upcountry South, 1919-1941 Contributor(s): Walker, Melissa (Author) |
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ISBN: 080186318X ISBN-13: 9780801863189 Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press OUR PRICE: $57.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: May 2000 Annotation: In the years after World War I, Southern farm women found their world changing. A postwar plunge in farm prices stretched into a twenty-year agricultural depression and New Deal programs eventually transformed the economy. Many families left their land to make way for larger commercial farms. New industries and the intervention of big government in once insular communities marked a turning point in the struggle of upcountry women -- forcing new choices and the redefinition of traditional ways of life. Melissa Walker's All We Knew Was to Farm draws on interviews, archives, and family and government records to reconstruct the conflict between rural women and bewildering and unsettling change. Some women adapted by becoming partners in farm operations, adopting the roles of consumers and homemakers, taking off-farm jobs, or leaving the land. The material lives of rural upcountry women improved dramatically by midcentury -- yet in becoming middle class, Walker concludes, the women found their experiences both broadened and circumscribed. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Women's Studies - History | United States - 20th Century - Social Science | Sociology - Rural |
| Dewey: 331.483 |
| LCCN: 99038678 |
| Series: Revisiting Rural America |
| Physical Information: 1.06" H x 6.36" W x 9.37" (1.37 lbs) 344 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1900-1949 - Chronological Period - 1930's - Cultural Region - South - Demographic Orientation - Rural - Sex & Gender - Feminine |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In the years after World War I, Southern farm women found their world changing. A postwar plunge in farm prices stretched into a twenty-year agricultural depression and New Deal programs eventually transformed the economy. Many families left their land to make way for larger commercial farms. New industries and the intervention of big government in once insular communities marked a turning point in the struggle of upcountry women--forcing new choices and the redefinition of traditional ways of life. Melissa Walker's All We Knew Was to Farm draws on interviews, archives, and family and government records to reconstruct the conflict between rural women and bewildering and unsettling change. Some women adapted by becoming partners in farm operations, adopting the roles of consumers and homemakers, taking off-farm jobs, or leaving the land. The material lives of rural upcountry women improved dramatically by midcentury--yet in becoming middle class, Walker concludes, the women found their experiences both broadened and circumscribed. |
Contributor Bio(s): Walker, Melissa: - Melissa Walker is an associate professor of history at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. |