Mixed Harvest: The Second Great Transformation in the Rural North, 1870-1930 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Mixed Harvest: The Second Great Transformation in the Rural North, 1870–1930 * Leo Landis (bio) Mixed Harvest: The Second Great Transformation in the Rural North, 1870–1930. By Hal S. Barron. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. xiv+301; illustrations, notes, index. $49.95 (cloth); $18.95 (paper). In the last five years agricultural historians have published a number of significant surveys of American agriculture and rural people. Hal Barron’s study of the period 1870 to 1930, which he argues was an era of transformation for the rural North, is another contribution in this vein. The work is largely a social and cultural history of the northern United States. Barron examines the relationship of rural people and change manifested in the society of the rural North, which he defines as encompassing two geographic regions: the Northeast (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware) and the Midwest (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota). The volume is divided into three parts, each comprising two chapters, in each of which an individual topic illustrates the diverse attitudes and behaviors of rural people. The tensions existing among rural Americans demonstrate the varying opinions of the farmers in Barron’s study. He identifies six movements that reflect the changing cultural attitudes of farm families in an increasingly urban and industrialized nation. In case studies, he discusses how farmers formed and rethought their attitudes and altered their behavior regarding improved roads, educational reform, dairying, grain cooperatives, mail-order warehouses, and the emergence of a consumer culture in the countryside. Barron looks to a number of factors within and beyond the control of farmers, and asserts that traditional interpretations that rely on a duality of “traditional versus modern” are too simple (p. 9). The transformation in rural society that Barron sees was brought about by two developments: the advent of large businesses operating nationally as well as locally and the rise of urban populations and a consumer culture that “threatened to erode traditional sources of authority and diminish the social and cultural primacy of local communities” (p. 8). The result was a new way of life and new cultural mores for succeeding generations of American farm families. [End Page 889] Farmers reacted to external forces in diverse ways, both as individuals and as a group. One example is their responses to the monopolistic ownership of grain elevators by grain syndicates and the syndicates’ collusion with railroad companies. In the 1880s many farmers sought to construct their own elevators, rely on “cooperation,” and negotiate directly with the railroads. Sometimes opposition from existing elevators contributed to the demise of upstart farmers’ elevators, and in other instances bickering among the farmers themselves resulted in their decline. Regardless, these efforts met with limited success and usually failed after a few years. Barron remains focused on his topic, even when discussing such a broad geographic region. The sources employed are excellent. Whether analyzing dairy producers in New York or grain farmers in Kansas, he strikes a balance between individual accounts and broader generalizations. Contemporary commentary and reminiscences give a human face to the achievements and struggles in the countryside. He cites the reflections of rural women in the early days of the automobile, such as Laura Drake of Indiana, who remembered that nobody touched her father’s car “but him” (p. 197). He uses agricultural and home economic extension service records extremely well to extend the evidence beyond the individual. Barron cites a New York study that reported that in 1929 only five of forty women in Yates County, New York, knew how to drive. With such limited access it is understandable that young people sought any opportunity to seize the wheel of a motor car. Families could travel greater distances in cars, and Saturday night developed into a social night for farm families in the nearby towns. Automobiles allowed farmers a greater circle of travel, but not all rural families immediately purchased motor vehicles. At times Barron insufficiently supports his arguments. For example, he attributes the demise of the Chatauqua to the introduction of the radio. As...