The white scourge : Mexicans, Blacks, and poor whites in Texas cotton culture / Neil Foley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foley, Neil.

Contributor:

American Council of Learned Societies.

Series:

American crossroads ; 2

ACLS Fellows’ publications.

ACLS Humanities E-Book.

American crossroads The white scourge

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cotton picking--Social aspects--Texas--History--20th century.

Cotton picking.

Cotton growing--Social aspects--Texas--History--20th century.

Cotton growing.

African Americans--Texas--History--20th century.

African Americans.

Mexican Americans--Texas--History--20th century.

Mexican Americans.

White people--Texas--History--20th century.

White people.

Cotton picking--History--Social aspects--20th century--Texas.

Cotton growing--Social aspects--History--20th century--Texas.

African Americans--History--20th century--Texas.

Mexican Americans--History--20th Century--Texas.

White people--History--20th century--Texas.

Texas--Race relations.

Texas.

Texas--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 326 p. ) ill., maps ;

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In a book that fundamentally challenges our understanding of race in the United States, Neil Foley unravels the complex history of ethnicity in the cotton culture of central Texas. This engrossing narrative, spanning the period from the Civil War through the collapse of tenant farming in the early 1940s, bridges the intellectual chasm between African American and Southern history on one hand and Chicano and Southwestern history on the other. The White Scourge describes a unique borderlands region, where the cultures of the South, West, and Mexico overlap, to provide a deeper understanding of the process of identity formation and to challenge the binary opposition between "black" and "white" that often dominates discussions of American race relations.In Texas, which by 1890 had become the nation's leading cotton-producing state, the presence of Mexican sharecroppers and farm workers complicated the black-white dyad that shaped rural labor relations in the South. With the transformation of agrarian society into corporate agribusiness, white racial identity began to fracture along class lines, further complicating categories of identity. Foley explores the "fringe of whiteness," an ethno-racial borderlands comprising Mexicans, African Americans, and poor whites, to trace shifting ideologies and power relations. By showing how many different ethnic groups are defined in relation to "whiteness," Foley redefines white racial identity as not simply a pinnacle of status but the complex racial, social, and economic matrix in which power and privilege are shared.Foley skillfully weaves archival material with oral history interviews, providing a richly detailed view of everyday life in the Texas cotton culture. Addressing the ways in which historical categories affect the lives of ordinary people, The White Scourge tells the broader story of racial identity in America; at the same time it paints an evocative picture of a unique American region. This truly multiracial narrative touches on many issues central to our understanding of American history: labor and the role of unions, gender roles and their relation to ethnicity, the demise of agrarian whiteness, and the Mexican-American experience.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. The Old South in the Southwest: Westward Expansion of Cotton Culture, 1820-1900

2. "The Little Brown Man in Gringo Land": The "Second Color Menace" in the Western South

3. The Whiteness of Cotton: Race, Labor Relations, and the Tenant Question, 1900-1920

4. Tom Hickey and the Failure of Interracial Unity: The Politics of Race, Class, and Gender in the Socialist Party of Texas, 1911-1917

5. The Scientific Management of Farm Workers: Mexicans, Mechanization, and the Growth of Corporate Cotton Culture in South-Central Texas, 1900-1930

6. The Whiteness of Manhood: Women, Gender Identity, and "Men's Work" on the Farm

7. The Darker Phases of Whiteness: The New Deal, Tenant Farmers, and the Collapse of Cotton Tenancy, 1933-1940

8. The Demise of Agrarian Whiteness: The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union in Texas and the Socialization of Farm Workers

CONCLUSION

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-316) and index.

ISBN:

9780520918528

0520918525

9780585047720

0585047723

OCLC:

1419790151

Publisher Number:

2027/heb00595 hdl