Sweet tyranny : migrant labor, industrial agriculture, and imperial politics / Kathleen Mapes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mapes, Kathleen, 1967-

Series:

Working class in American history

The working class in American history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Migrant agricultural laborers--Middle West--History--20th century.

Migrant agricultural laborers.

Child migrant agricultural laborers--Middle West--History--20th century.

Child migrant agricultural laborers.

Agricultural laborers, Foreign--Middle West--History--20th century.

Agricultural laborers, Foreign.

Rural industries--Middle West--History--20th century.

Rural industries.

Industrialization--Middle West--History--20th century.

Industrialization.

Agriculture and politics--Middle West--History--20th century.

Agriculture and politics.

Agriculture--Economic aspects--Middle West--History--20th century.

Agriculture.

Emigration and immigration.

Government policy.

History.

Rural conditions.

Agriculture--Economic aspects.

Middle West--Rural conditions.

Middle West.

United States--Emigration and immigration--Government policy--History--20th century.

United States.

Imperialism--History--20th century.

Imperialism.

Physical Description:

xi, 307 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2009]

Summary:

In this innovative grassroots to global study, Kathleen Mapes explores how the sugar beet industry transformed the rural Midwest by introducing large factories, contract farming, and foreign migrant labor. Identifying rural areas as centers for modern American industrialism, Mapes contributes to the ongoing expansion of labor history from urban factory workers to rural migrant workers. She engages with a full range of people involved in this industry, including midwestern family farmers, industrialists, eastern European and Mexican immigrants, child laborers, rural reformers, Washington politicos, and colonial interests.

Engagingly written, this book demonstrates that capitalism was not solely a force from above but was influenced by the people below who defended their interests in an ever-expanding imperialist market. The issue of how Americans would satiate their growing demand for sweetness-whether with beet sugar grown at home or with cane sugar raised in colonies abroad-became part of a much larger debate about the path of industrial agriculture, the shape of American imperialism, and the future of immigration.

Contents:

Rural industrialization and imperial politics

Contract farming in rural Michigan

Family farms, child labor, and migrant families

Farmers and the Great War

Immigrant labor and the guest worker program

Mexican immigrants and immigration debate

Child labor reformers and industrial agriculture

Remaking imperialism and the industrial countryside

The politics of migrant labor.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [247]-300) and index.

ISBN:

9780252034367

0252034368

9780252076671

0252076672

OCLC:

246893190