The Depression Dilemmas of Rural Iowa, 1929-1933

by Ossian, Lisa L.

• ISBN13: 9780826219466
• ISBN10: 0826219462
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-02-20
• Publisher: Univ of Missouri Pr

Summary

To many rural Iowans, the stock market crash on New York#x19;s Wall Street in October 1929 seemed an event far removed from their lives, even though the effects of the crash became all too real throughout the state. From 1929 to 1933, the enthusiastic belief that most Iowans held in Iowan President Herbert Hoover was transformed into bitter disappointment with the federal government. As a result, Iowans directly questioned their leadership at the state, county, and community level with a renewed spirit to salvage family farms, demonstrating the uniqueness of Iowa#x19;s rural life. Beginning with an overview of the state during 1929, Lisa L. Ossian describes Iowa#x19;s particular rural dilemmas, evoking, through anecdotes and examples, the economic, nutritional, familial, cultural, industrial, criminal, legal, and political challenges that engaged the people of the state. The following chapters analyze life during the early Depression: new prescriptions for children#x19;s health, creative housekeeping to stretch resources, the use of farm #x1C;playlets#x1D; to communicate new information creatively and memorably, the demise of the soft coal mining industry, increased violence within the landscape, and the movement to end prohibition. The challenges faced in the early Great Depression years between 1929 and 1933 encouraged resourcefulness rather than passivity, creativity rather than resignation, and community rather than hopelessness. Of particular interest is the role of women within the rural landscape, as much of the increased daily work fell to farm women during this time. While the women addressed this work simply as #x1C;making do,#x1D; Ossian shows that their resourcefulness entailed complex planning essential for families#x19; emotional and physical health. Ossian#x19;s epilogue takes readers into the Iowa of today, dominated by industrial agriculture, and asks the reader to consider if this model that stemmed from Depression-era innovation is sustainable. Her rich rural history not only helps readers understand the particular forces at work that shaped the social and physical landscape of the past but also traces how these landscapes have continued in various forms for almost eighty years into this century.

Author Biography

Lisa L. Ossian describes Iowa's particular rural dilemmas, evoking, through anecdotes and examples, the economic, nutritional, familial, cultural, industrial, criminal, legal, and political challenges that engaged the people of the state during the early years of the (heal Depression.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
"Main Traveled Gravel Roads" An Iowa Tour before the Fall, 1929
October 1929: The Stock Market Plummets	p. 21
Echoes during the Fall Plowing: Iowa's Reactions to the Wall Street Crash
Welfare	p. 37
Renewed Concerns, New Prescriptions: Politics of Farm Children's Health
Domesticity	p. 59
Making Do: Farm Women's Coping through Creative Homemaking
Art	p. 81
"An Athens of Sorts": Poetry of Place and Farm Playlets
Industry	p. 99
The Angry, Fading District Thirteen: The Demise of Soft-Coal Mining
Violence	p. 115
Gangsters, Bandits, Mad Men, and Suicides: Fear, Anger, and Death within a Troubled Landscape
Policy	p. 135
Prohibition Possibly Prohibited: Voicing Temperance Concerns
November 1932: The Presidential Farm Campaigns	p. 151
Dealing Anew or Same Stacked Deck ?
Conclusion	p. 171
The Depth yet the Crest
Iowa's Dilemmas by 1933
Epilogue	p. 181
"Too Much" and "Too Little"
Rural Iowa after 1933
Notes	p. 199
Bibliography	p. 219
Index	p. 229
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