The Queen Of American Agriculture

"This biography explores the life of a woman who, at once, broke from tradition, honored tradition, and created new traditions. Virginia Claypool Meredith's efforts to recognize women for what they had accomplished while encouraging them to accomplish even more established a rich and far-reaching legacy that continues to live on today."--BOOK JACKET.

R. Douglas Hurt's brief history of American agriculture, from the prehistoric period through the twentieth century, is written for anyone coming to this subject for the first time. American Agriculture is a story of considerable achievement and success, but it is also a story of greed, racism, and violence. Hurt offers a provocative look at a history that has been shaped by the best and worst of human nature. Here is the background essential for understanding the complexity of American agricultural history, from the transition to commercial agriculture during the colonial period to the failure of government policy following World War II. Complete with maps, drawings, and over seventy splendid photographs, this revised edition closes with an examination of the troubled landscape at the turn of the twenty-first century. It also provides a ready reference to the economic, social, political, scientific, and technological changes that have most affected farming in America and the contributions of African Americans, Native Americans, and women. This survey will serve as a text for courses in the history of American agriculture and rural studies as well as a supplementary text for economic history and rural sociology courses.

Provides a solid foundation for understanding American agricultural history and offers new directions for research A Companion to American Agricultural History addresses the key aspects of America’s complex agricultural past from 8,000 BCE to the first decades of the twenty-first century. Bringing together more than thirty original essays by both established and emerging scholars, this innovative volume presents a succinct and accessible overview of American agricultural history while delivering a state-of-the-art assessment of modern scholarship on a diversity of subjects, themes, and issues. The essays provide readers with starting points for their exploration of American agricultural history—whether in general or in regards to a specific topic—and highlights the many ways the agricultural history of America is of integral importance to the wider American experience. Individual essays trace the origin and development of agricultural politics and policies, examine changes in science, technology, and government regulations, offer analytical suggestions for new research areas, discuss matters of ethnicity and gender in American agriculture, and more. This Companion: Introduces readers to a uniquely wide range of topics within the study of American agricultural history Provides a narrative summary and a critical examination of field-defining works Introduces specific topics within American agricultural history such as agrarian reform, agribusiness, and agricultural power and production Discusses the impacts of American agriculture on different groups including Native Americans, African Americans, and European, Asian, and Latinx immigrants Views the agricultural history of America through new interdisciplinary lenses of race, class, and the environment Explores depictions of American agriculture in film, popular music, literature, and art A Companion to American Agricultural History is an essential resource for introductory students and general readers seeking a concise overview of the subject, and for graduate students and scholars wanting to learn about a particular aspect of American agricultural history.

Honoring Wayne D. Rasmussen, Mr. Agriculture at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and throughout the nation, this book comprises essays by distinguished authors from varied disciplines on the past achievements, current status, and future challenges of agriculture history.

Nineteenth-century farm families needed land for the next generation. Their quest shaped agricultural settlement across Canada. This overview of rural history in Quebec, Ontario, and the Prairies provides a new perspective on the ways in which agriculture and the family farm were central to the country's expansion and essential to understanding social, political, and economic changes. How Agriculture Made Canada shows how differences between the agricultural development of Quebec and that of Ontario had a decisive influence on the settlement of the Prairies. Peter Russell demonstrates that farming families eventually ran out of land against the edges of the St Lawrence lowlands. While Quebec-based Habitants reached their region's limits earlier, Ontario encouraged people to migrate west. Russell argues that the thousands of relocated Ontario farmers changed Manitoba's bilingual openness to an exclusively English-speaking province that then assimilated East European arrivals. Thus, if not for the agricultural crises in the Canadas, Manitoba might have been at least as francophone as anglophone. The first comprehensive synthesis on the history of Canadian farming in decades, How Agriculture Made Canada reveals the lasting impact that nineteenth-century agricultural changes have had on the nation.