Changing works : visions of a lost agriculture / Douglas Harper.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harper, Douglas A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Agriculture--United States.

Agriculture.

Dairy farming.

Agricultural innovations.

United States.

Agricultural innovations--United States.

Dairy farming--New York (State).

New York (State).

Agriculture--United States--Pictorial works.

Agricultural innovations--United States--Pictorial works.

Dairy farming--New York (State)--Pictorial works.

Genre:

Pictorial works.

Illustrated works.

Physical Description:

xi, 302 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Summary:

The work of Douglas Harper has for two decades documented worlds in eclipse. A glimpse into the life of dairy farmers in upstate New York on the cusp of technological change, Changing Works is no exception. With photographs and interviews with farmers, Harper brings into view a social world altered by machines and stuns us with gorgeous visions of rural times past. As a member of this community, Harper relates compelling stories about families and their dairies that reveal how the advent of industrialized labor changed the way farmers structure their work and organize their lives. His new book charts the transformation of American farming from small dairies based on animal power and cooperative work to industrialized agriculture.

Changing Works combines Harper's pictures with classic images by photographers such as Gordon Parks, Sol Libsohn, and Charlotte Brooks -- men and women whose work during the 1940s documented the mechanization and automation of agricultural practices. Part social history, then, and part analysis of the drive to mass production, Changing Works examines how we farmed a half century ago versus how we do so today through pictures new and old and through discussions with elderly farmers who witnessed the makeover.

Ultimately, Harper challenges timely ecological and social questions about contemporary agriculture. He shows us how the dissolution of cooperative dairy farming has diminished the safety of the practice, degraded the way we relate to our natural environment, and splintered the once tight-knit communities of rural farmers. Mindful, then, of the advantages of preindustrial agriculture, and heeding the alarming spread of mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease,

Contents:

Research with Photographs 15

Historical Frameworks 29

The Machine in the Garden 44

Horses and Tractors 61

Making Hay 85

Oats and Corn: Changing Works 113

The Corn Revolution 137

The Meaning of Changing Works 159

Gendered Worlds 183

Souping Up Cows 207

The History since Then 247.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-295) and index.

ISBN:

0226317226

OCLC:

44979584