Fertile Ground, Narrow Choices

by Sharpless, Rebecca

• ISBN13: 9780807847602
• ISBN10: 0807847607
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

This moving account illustrates the centrality of women's efforts to the welfare -- even survival -- of their families on the cotton farms of central Texas.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Women, Cotton, and the Crop-Lien System

Women, Daughters, Wives, Mothers: Gender and Family Relationships

Keeping Warm, Keeping Dry: Housekeeping and Clothing in the Blackland Prairie

Living at Home: Food Production and Preparation in the Blackland Prairie

Making a Hand: Women's Labor in the Fields

Life Beyond the Farm: Women and Their Communities

Staying or Going: Urbanization and the Depopulation of the Rural Blackland Prairie

Notes

Bibliography

Index Maps

Major physical features of the Blackland Prairie of Texas Counties of the Blackland

Prairie of Texas Moves of the Rice family, Hunt County, Texas Illustrations

Spring plowing, Williamson County Mother and children at a cotton wagon, Kaufman County Board and batten tenant farmer's house, Ellis County Landowner's daughter weighing cotton

Kaufman County African American church on the open prairie, Ellis County

Tables

Number of Tenants and Landowners in Four Blacklands Counties, 1900-1940

Average Age of Farmers' Wives at First Marriage in Four Blacklands Counties, by Ethnic Group, 1900 and 1910

Average Number of Births and Surviving Children Born to Farmers' Wives under Age

Forty-Five in Four Blacklands Counties, by Ethnic Group, 1900 and 1910

Months of Field Work Women Performed Per Year, by Ethnic Group

Percentage of Women Performing Farming Tasks, by Ethnic Group, in Hill County, 1921

Literacy Rates for Women under Age Forty-Five in Four Blacklands Counties, by Ethnic Group, 1900 and 1910

Change in Numbers of Tenants and Farm Owners in Four Blacklands Counties, 1930 and 1940

Population Growth of Towns in Four Blacklands Counties, 1900-1940

Population Growth of Major Blacklands Cities, 1900-1940

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