Reaping a greater harvest : African Americans, the extension service, and rural reform in Jim Crow Texas / Debra A. Reid.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reid, Debra A., 1960-

Series:

Sam Rayburn series on rural life ; no. 14.

Sam Rayburn series on rural life ; no. 14

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Texas Agricultural Extension Service.

United States. Rural Development. Texas.

United States.

African American agriculturists--Texas.

African American agriculturists.

Agriculture and state--Texas.

Agriculture and state.

African Americans--Texas--History.

African Americans.

Rural extension--Texas.

Rural extension.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

College Station : Texas A&M University Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Jim Crow laws pervaded the south, reaching from the famous "separate yet equal" facilities to voting discrimination to the seats on buses. Agriculture, a key industry for those southern blacks trying to forge an independent existence, was not immune to the touch of racism, prejudice, and inequality. In "Reaping a Greater Harvest," Debra Reid deftly spotlights the hierarchies of race, class, and gender within the extension service. Black farmers were excluded from cooperative demonstration work in Texas until the Smith-Lever Agricultural Extension act in 1914. However, the resulting Negro Division included a complicated bureaucracy of African American agents who reported to white officials, were supervised by black administrators, and served black farmers. The now-measurable successes of these African American farmers exacerbated racial tensions and led to pressure on agents to maintain the status quo. The bureau that was meant to ensure equality instead became another tool for systematic discrimination and maintenance of the white-dominated southern landscape. Historians of race, gender, and class have joined agricultural historians in roundly praising Reid's work.

Contents:

African Americans and rural reform in Texas, 1891-1914

Forming separate bureaucracies : the Negro Division of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, 1915-20

Segregated modernization : taking the message into African American fields and farm homes

Public reform in black and white : the maturation of a segregated division

Building segregated social welfare : Texas' Negro Division and Roosevelt's New Deal

Beyond the farm : cultivating new audiences and support systems at home and abroad

Separation despite civil rights

Measuring greater harvests.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-60344-505-6

OCLC:

607108481