Planting hope on worn-out land : the history of the Tuskegee Land Utilization Project : Macon County, Alabama, 1935-1959 / Robert G. Pasquill, Jr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pasquill, Robert G.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tuskegee Land Utilization Project--History.

Tuskegee Land Utilization Project.

Land use, Rural--Alabama--Macon County--History.

Land use, Rural.

Land use--Alabama--Macon County--Planning--History.

Land use.

Planning.

History.

Tuskegee National Forest (Ala.)--History.

Tuskegee National Forest (Ala.).

Alabama--Macon County.

Physical Description:

152 pages, 8 pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Montgomery, AL : NewSouth Books, [2008]

Summary:

The Great Depression of the 1930s contained misery for millions of Americans. Nowhere was the despair greater than in Macon County, Alabama, where hundreds of poor families lived on and worked land that had been eroded and depleted until it no longer supported crops. Ironically, this was once some of the deepest, richest soil in America-in the fabled Black Belt of Alabama, home to huge cotton plantations and thousands of slaves. After the Civil War, however, sharecropping and tenant farming impoverished former slaves and former slave owners alike, and decades of poor farming practices ruined the land.

In Planting Hope on Worn-Out Land, U.S. Forest Service historian Robert Pasquill examines how 11,000 acres in Macon County (home to famed Tuskegee Institute) were rehabilitated through the Tuskegee Land Utilization Project and the accompanying Prairie Farms Resettlement Project. These New Deal projects of the Resettlement Administration converted the land to its best use of forests and pastures and provided decent homes and jobs to families who had been trapped in poverty.

Contents:

Tenant farming and 'The Big Hungry'

The Resettlement Administration

A planned land use demonstration

The Tuskegee project area

The Tuskegee project, 1935-1938

The Prairie farms resettlement project

SCS supervision

East Alabama district SCS lease

National, November 1959

Discussion of success and failure.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-143) and index.

ISBN:

9781588382054

1588382052

OCLC:

80461169