Yeoman Farmers Research Articles

Indian Agriculture in America: Prehistory to the Present

is a sweeping survey of Indian agriculture from its ancient origins to the present. It combines a wealth of historical, anthropological, legal, and economic information in a clear, readable synthesis. This is without doubt the most thorough and comprehensive treatment of Indian agriculture in print. It is multidisciplinary and impressive both in scope and in depth. Hurt shows a deft hand in summarizing not only the literature on the evolution of agriculture in North America, but also the dismal failure of Indian policy to build on earlier Native achievements. book is the starting point for any serious consideration of the literature on subjects ranging from the domestication of corn, to pre-contact irrigation, to current Indian water rights. Richard White, author of It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own. This extremely worthwhile work is a significant contribution to both Indian history and general history. Gilbert Fite, past president of the Agricultural History Society and the History Association. Merits the attention of all who are concerned about the past, present, and future of Indians. The chapters devoted to the past century should be required reading for students of modern agricultural and Indian history. Peter Iverson, author of When Indians Became Cowboys: Native Peoples and Cattle Ranching in the West. A very thorough and readable account. The scope of this work is truly impressive. The bulk of it revolves around the implementation of United States federal Indian policies aimed at transforming Native Americans into self-sufficient yeoman farmers and farm families during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Hurt's chapters on Indian agriculture and water rights in the twentieth century are very timely and instructive. Should become a standard text for Indian history courses. New Mexico Historical Review. A useful introduction to the subject that is organized in an admirably clear fashion and can be recommended to student and specialist alike. Journal of History. Offers fresh and vital insights into the life and culture of the Indian. American Historical Review. A comprehensive, authoritative account of one of the most significant topics in the history of Indian-white relations. Western Historical Quarterly.

Ties that Bind?

One of American historiography's hardiest perennials is the question of whether or not the Civil War somehow marked a great divide in southern history. Did the Civil War, and all its concomitants, trigger a radical and fundamental reorganization of southern society or did the war and emancipation force only momentary and superficial changes in a tenaciously conservative social order characterized both before and after the war by horrendous inequalities of wealth, harsh and often violent subordination of blacks, and ruthless repression of laborers regardless of race? Was the highly publicized New South of the postbellum era dramatically different from the oft-mythologized Old South of the prewar years, or had white southerners surrendered little but their weapons at Appomattox, keeping their values (though not their powder) dry and intact for use in a reconstruction that would ultimately prove little more than a restoration? Some sixteen years ago, Sheldon Hackney predicted that any resolution of this ongoing debate would depend heavily on sophisticated local and their conclusions.' In recent years, a number of historians have taken Hackney's suggestion to heart (and to the archives), eschewing sweeping, broad-brush treatments of the South as a whole in favor of intensive local studies focusing on a county, a geographical region, or, at their most expansive, an individual state. At their best, these intensive studies of smaller geographical areas have enriched southern historiography with careful examinations of individuals, communities, and of often neglected groups such as yeoman farmers, tenants, artisans, and freedmen. Though hardly ignoring local elites or their power, these

Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography (review)

348CIVIL WAR HISTORY Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography. By Thomas E. Schott. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Pp. xx, 552. $37.50.) An important and long-standing gap in Southern history is now filled by this comprehensive and critical biography of Alexander H. Stephens. Thomas Schott, chief of the office ofhistory at TinkerAir Force Base in Oklahoma, not only has done his research covering a long period in a first rate manner, but he writes well and with a nice mixture of sympathy for and detachment from his subject. If there weresuch a study available about Jefferson Davis, Southern and especially Confederate history would be fortunate indeed. Born frail and sickly, as he remained all his life, Stephens was the son of a yeoman farmer who was also a stern school teacher. Schott speculates in an enlightening but restrained fashion about the fact that the mother of "Little Aleck" died when he was only a few months old, and he had a cool, unhappy relationship with his stepmother. Never marrying , he was passionate only about politics and his beloved, younger half brother, Linton. Through the aid of generous patrons who recognized his great seriousness and abilities, Stephens attended a classical academy in Washington, Georgia, and then Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) in Athens. Graduating first in his class at age twenty in 1832, he hungered for recognition—which he soon found by reading law and then entering into a successful practice and an apprenticeship in the Georgia legislature. Though Stephens's role as a United States congressman and leading Georgia Whig in the 1840s and 1850s is meticulously charted, that portion of the study is perhaps not as important as the section dealing with the secession crisis, the formation of the Confederacy, and the war years. Loving order and the Constitution (as he understood it) above all, Stephens and his conservative Unionist allies in Georgia are portrayed as thoroughly cowed and disorganized during the secession crisis, with Stephens finally allowing the despair with which he always flirted to conquer him. Yet he soon played a key role in drafting the Confederate constitution and became vice-president partly because he lost the scattered support he had for the presidency, according to Schott's account, when he "refused to commit himself to striking the first blow against the Union" (p. 328). Thus a self-righteous vice-presidentbecame linked to an equally selfrighteous president, and Schott blames Davis about as much as Stephens for the rift that eventually developed between them. While mentioning at several points Stephens's profound belief in the innate inferiority of blacks, Schott does not harp on the obvious and only mentions Stephens 's famed "cornerstone speech" at Savannah in March 1861, in a brief yet illuminating section. BOOK REVIEWS349 Stephens, in openly opposing certain policies of the Richmond government after 1862, is portrayed as a true lover of liberty (for whites) who "did not harbor a traitor's heart" (p. 367). Schott concedes that Davis understood the nature of the Civil War far better than did Stephens, but faults the president for believing that Southern hearts could be won for the cause "by increasingly burdensome laws ever more capriciously executed" (p. 396), and for the foolishness of treating the politically influential Stephens like a cipher. Yet in the last analysis, Schott argues that Stephens put himself in an indefensible position by 1864: "Somehow in his excursions through the ethereal realms of truth Stephens had failed to understand what a shambles war always makes of morality, what an unreasoning activity it is, and what a pitiful weapon philosophy is to oppose the minions of Mars" (p. 414). Still hungry for vindication through political recognition and office after the war, Stephens eventually served again in the House of Representatives and finally, at the time ofhis death in 1882, as a governor ofhis state—one who was by then addled by alcohol and morphine. One might wish for some final conclusions concerning the long, important career of this strangely fascinating man, but they have to be found in the author's preface and scattered throughout the volume. "He was always trying to prove his manhood...

The Quakers and Emigration From Ireland to the North American Colonies

The Quakers and Emigration From Ireland to the North American Colonies Audrey Lockhart* The Quaker movement developed rapidly in Ireland in the course of the sixth decade of the seventeenth century, having been introduced in 1654 by William Edmundson. The first missionaries from England directed much oftheir proselytising zeal at the large military establishment. The Cromwellian army had been recruited mainly among the non-conformist sects in England and so, not surprisingly , it yielded many convincements. Although most of the English soldiers, even those who received Irish land as payment for their military service, returned home, numbers of them stayed to settle in Ireland, either as farmers, or, after selling their land grants, as shopkeepers.1 Significant among these was Captain Thomas Holme from the north of England who gained experience as a landowner in County Wexford before becoming Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania.2 Another Quaker convert was the boy-soldier, Robert Turner, from Cambridge, who, after selling his allotted lands, became a successful linen merchant in Dublin.3 A close friend and agent of William Penn, he was proprietor of land in three colonies before he also emigrated to North America in 1683." When the Quaker preachers turned to the civilian population of Ireland they drew most response from the recently established Protestant settlers, known as "planters", as well as from the early AngloProtestant plantations in the south of Ireland, that is, from among people of "British stock" and, significantly, with few exceptions, * Audrey Lockhart received an M.A. in history from Trinity College, Dublin, and is the author of Some Aspects of Emigration from Ireland to the North American Colonies, 1665-1775. 1.Robert Dunlop, ed., Ireland under the Commonwealth, Documents, (2 vols., Manchester, 1913). 2.Wexford, register of births, microfilm reel no. 212, 2; Wexford Monthly Meeting register of births, microfilm reel no. 215, 265, Friends House Library, London (hereafter referred to as FHL, which is the depository of all the microfilm reels cited, unless otherwise indicated); Abraham Fuller and Thomas Holme, A Compendious View ofSome Extraordinary Sufferings of the People Called Quakers. . . (Dublin, 1731), 51. 3.Dublin register of births of Quakers, 1655-1750, reel no. 213, 19-20. 4.John Bowne, The Journal of John Bowne, 1650-1694, ed. H.F. Ricard, (New Orleans, 1975),29. 67 68Quaker History from the same social classes as in England.5 These might be called the middle-income entrepreneurial classes—merchants, artisans and yeoman farmers—in fact, the sort of people who had been coming to Ireland for centuries, irrespective of politics and the sword. To them belonged William Edmundson who has been dubbed "the father of Irish Quakerism." He came from the north of England in 1652 for the prime purpose of setting up shop.6 Quakerism made little headway, however, among the Presbyterians of Scottish origin who were concentrated in the north of Ireland , while only in unusual circumstances did any of the native Roman Catholics join the movement. From the first, therefore, most of the Quakers of Ireland claimed English birth or descent. Notable exceptions included the parents of James Logan, secretary to William Penn, and some relatives of Robert Barclay, the Apologist, who came from Scotland later in the century.7 Quakers in Ireland, as elsewhere, endured much vilification and persecution, although often unauthorised and seldom instigated by the highest officials in the land.8 In fact, except in the matter of tithes, the harassment of Quakers in Ireland was less severe than in England after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. During the reign of Charles II, therefore, Ireland became the chief refuge of English Quakers seeking to carry on their business in a less prohibitive environment. As a result, the Quaker community in Ireland reached its peak of strength and influence in those years.' Outstanding among Englishmen who transferred their businesses to Ireland at this time were Anthony Sharp of Gloucester who became Dublin's leading wool merchant, the Stretteli brothers from Cheshire, and members of the Jacob and Penrose families, all of whom were soon to establish connections with the North American colonies.10 The founder of Pennsylvania himself had been associated 5.Thomas Wight, A History of the Rise...

Myths and the definition of policy problems

In this paper we argue that behind widely accepted problem definitions are myths, stories which draw on tradition and taken for granted knowledge. These myths, which may or may not be true in a factual sense, are important to the definition of problems because they link public issues to widely accepted ways of understanding the world and to shared moral evaluations of conditions, events, and possible solutions to problems. Such myths perform a double-edged function in a policy or planning process. On the one hand, they can provide creative inspiration for policies, a way of translating community values into action proposals, and a powerful means to communicate to a broad public and rally support. They can mediate social and economic change by allowing new policies to carry familiar meaning. On the other hand, a myth can conceal crucial contradictions and realities, legitimize policies that benefit the powerful, and support anachronistic perceptions of policy problems. These ideas are explored in case histories of two areas of urban policy. In one we trace the support for home ownership to a transformation of the Jeffersonian myth of the independent yeoman farmer as the ideal citizen. This use of myth made home ownership the cornerstone of US housing policies and helped suppress alternatives. Though debate over home ownership occurs in the context of housing policy, the tacit purpose is to maintain a myth which is central to our identity as a nation. In the second example, public officials and analysts engaged in an explicit myth-making process to garner support for public-private partnerships as a central tool in urban redevelopment. The myths, which drew on familiar themes, made socially beneficial cooperation seem easy to achieve and legitimized new political and institutional arrangements though it also concealed implementation difficulties. Though myths complicate the effort to use rational, systematic analysis, they are an inevitable part of policy making and planning processes. Planning professionals must openly confront myths and make creative, responsible, use of them rather than allow policies and plans to be subject to their unexamined influence.

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-90.

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-90.

Reviews

Book reviewed in this articleREVIEW OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE, 1984A selective survey of periodical literature on British economic and social history published in other journals.GREAT BRITAINT. F. T. Baker (Ed.)‐ The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of the County of Middlesex, Vol. VIII.K. J. Stringer. Earl David of Huntingdon, 1152‐1219: A Study in Anglo‐Scottish History.Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran. The Growth of English Schooling, 1340‐1548: Learning, Literacy, and Laicization in P re‐re formation York Diocese.Mary Prior (Ed.). Women in English Society, 1500‐1800.Philip Riden (Ed.). George Sitwell's Letterbook, 1662‐66.Philip Riden. History of Chesterfield, Volume II, Part I, Tudor and Stuart Chesterfield.Margaret Spufford. The Great Reclothing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen and their Wares in the Seventeenth Century.Patrick McGrath. (Ed.). A Bristol Miscellany.Roger Burt. The British Lead Mining Industry.John Cannon. Aristocratic Century: The Peerage of Eighteenth‐century England.L. E. Cochran. Scottish Trade with Ireland in the Eighteenth Century.Jeffrey G. Williamson. Did British Capitalism Breed Inequality?Richard Dennis. English Industrial Cities of the Nineteenth Century: A Social Geography.Royden Harrison and Jonathan ZeitlinRoger Penn. Skilled Workers in the Class Structure.David J. V. Jones. The Last Rising: The Newport Insurrection of 1839.M.J. Daunton. House and Home in the Victorian City: Working‐Class Housing, 1850‐1914.Martha Vicinus. Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850‐1920.Alun Howkins. Poor Labouring Men: Rural Radicalism in Norfolk, 1870‐1923.Michael Sanderson. From Irving to Olivier: A Social History of the Acting Profession in England, 1880‐1983.R. P. T. Davenport‐Hines, Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior.Jim Tomlinson. British Macroeconomic Policy since 1940Alec Cairncross. Wars of Recovery: British Economic Policy, 1945‐51.B. A. Holderness. British Agriculture since 194S‐L. S. Pressnfxl and John Orbell. A Guide to the Historical Records of British Banking.GENERALL. A. Clarkson and E. M. Crawford. Ways to Wealth: The Cust Family of Eighteenth‐century Armagh.William H. Sewell. Structure and Mobility: The Men and Women of Marseilles, 1820‐70.Arndt Fleischer. Patentgesetzgebung und Chemisch‐Pharmazeutische Industrie im Deutschen Kaiserreich, 1871‐1918.Hknry Ashby Turner Jr. German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler.Manuel Martin Rodriguez. Pensamiento ecónomico espaol sobre la Poblacidn.Kathleen Burk. Britain, America and the Sinews of War, 1914‐1918.Hal S. Barron. Those Who Stayed Behind: Rural Society in Nineteenth‐century New England.Charles W. Cheape. Family Firm to Modern Multinational: Norton Company, a New England Enterprise.Norman B. Wilkinson. Lammot du Pont and the American Explosives Industry, 1850 84.Steven Hahn. The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850‐90.James C. Cobb. Industrialization and Southern Society, 1877‐1984.Gilbert C. Fite. Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865‐1980.Richard B. Sheridan. Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680‐1834.Jean Stubbs. Tobacco on the Periphery: A Case Study in Cuban Labour History, 1860‐1958.Srinivasa Ambirajan. Political Economy and Monetary Management: India, 1766‐1914.Peter Greenhalgh. West African Diamonds, 1919‐83: An Economic History.J. C. Russell. Late Ancient and Medieval Population Control.R. J. Holton. The Transition, from Feudalism to Capitalism.Robert I. Rotberc and Theodore K. Rabb

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890. By Steven Hahn (New york: Oxford University Press, 1983. xvii and 340 pp. $29.95)

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890. By Steven Hahn (New york: Oxford University Press, 1983. xvii and 340 pp. $29.95)

The Waltham Black Act and Jacobitism

Interest in the origin of Walpole's Black Act (9 Geo. 1, c. 22), or the Waltham Black Act, as it was actually called, has arisen from work by Pat Rogers and E. P. Thompson. It was an act of exceptional severity, making no less than some fifty new offenses capital, and its origins have been debated by legal as well as by political historians. While Rogers stressed the criminality of the Blacks, Thompson set the act in a sociohistorical context, suggesting that its importance was in assisting the placemen of the Hanoverian establishment and Walpole's administration to a stronger hold on lands in the Black areas, at the expense of older and smaller gentry and the usage rights of yeomen farmers, tenantry, and the poor. In Thompson's argument the Black Act has exemplary significance for the tendency of greater Whig land owners toward more efficiently exploitative procedures, backed by ferocious legislation. The involvement in Blacking of Alexander Pope's kinsmen Charles and Michael Rackett, stressed by both Rogers and Thompson, constituted a point of additional interest.The difference between Rogers and Thompson over whether Pope felt shame at his relatives' predicament turns in part on the political dimension of Blacking. Aside from the politics of conflict over land usage, Thompson rejected a link between the Blacks and the Jacobites, even though the act was introduced in the midst of legislation against the Atterbury conspiracy.

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 , and: White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth-Century Georgia (review)

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 , and: White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth-Century Georgia (review)

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890.

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890.

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890

Journal Article The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850–1890. By Steven Hahn. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. xix + 340 pp. Maps, tables, appendix, notes, essay on sources, and index. $29.95.) Get access William Warren Rogers William Warren Rogers Florida State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 71, Issue 1, June 1984, Pages 135–136, https://doi.org/10.2307/1899873 Published: 01 June 1984

The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890

Despite the vast changes in plantation agriculture following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the lot of small farmers was little improved. Examining the nonplantation region of upcountry Georgia as a microcosm of the South, Steven Hahn showed how farmers were buffeted by such forces as the unravelling of antebellum household economy, the development of market forces, the growth of a new class of merchants-landlords, and rising tensions between town and countryside-and how their resentments fueld the Populist movement at the end of the 19th century. For this updated edition, Hahn will add new material to discuss how the book has stood up since it was published over twenty years ago, how the arguments and questions were received, and what influence they may have had on scholarship. He will also consider what has happened to historical interest in Populism, poor white people and populist politics, as well as why he thinks it likely that interest may revive and what sort of questions and arguments may drive it.

A Small Planter's Profits: The Cole Estate and the Growth of the Early Chesapeake Economy

M i ~ OST historians now agree that small plantations predominated on the tobacco coast during the seventeenth century, but few have studied them closely. Basic questions are still unanswered. Did small planters grow most of the food their families consumed? What surpluses did they produce besides tobacco? How did they spend their income? What proportion went to wages, rent, clothing, tools, or taxes? Were nearly all their earnings exported or was a substantial proportion spent locally, in the domestic economy? How profitable were their operations? Was income merely adequate to keep a planter afloat, or did small plantations afford opportunities for tenants to become landowners and yeoman farmers to join the local gentry? How did small planters cope with the recurring depressions in the Chesapeake economy, with the secular decline of tobacco prices, and with the gradual increase in the costs of land and labor? One result of the ongoing renaissance of Chesapeake studies has been the accumulation of a considerable body of knowledge concerning the lives of small planters. Much work remains to be done, but we know a good deal about their opportunities, their demographic characteristics, their familial structure, and their changing position in politics and society.'

The Indian Rights Association, the Allotment Policy, and the Five Civilized Tribes, 1923-1936

D URING THE LAST two decades of the 19th century, Indian reform movements organized in response to a series of bloody Indian/white confrontations. The most influential was the Indian Rights Association (IRA), founded in Philadelphia on December 15, 1882, by 30 eastern philanthropists. Nearly all of these reformers were socialgospel Christian humanists who supported assimilation of Indians into white society. Indians would undergo acculturation, reformers argued, after destruction of native culture which rested not only on different religions and language, but on tribal organizations with indigenous systems of communal ownership. Thus, assimilation required dividing tribal estates into individual plots so that Indians would be transformed into -yeomen farmers.' Forty years after inception, the allotment policy failed to promote improved economic conditions and assimilation. Lack of credit, remoteness from markets, and insufficient technical assistance from the Indian Bureau contributed to its failure; more important, however, Bureau officials never provided incentives and institutions to enable Indians to benefit from, or function in, an industrial society. The allotment policy forced Indians to accept responsibilities of individual ownership and American citizenship, while it deprived them of a political system that had provided the basis of social stability in their communities. Because of the lack of institutions for allocation of resources and settlement of disputes, the federal government assumed guardianship over the tribes.2 Allotment was particularly destructive to the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma. After enactment of the Curtis Act of 1901-which divided communal property into 160 acre plots, disbanded tribal governments, and forbade native religion-Indian land was reduced from 15,000,000 to 1,500,000 acres. The Act of May 27, 1908, which transferred jurisdiction over the Five Tribes from the federal government to Oklahoma county courts, further dispossessed Oklahoma Indians.3 Those Christian reformers who advocated assimilation of Indians into white society have been considered responsible for loss of Indian land under this legislation.

The Power of Things: Recent Studies in American Vernacular Architecture

THE STUDY OF VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE DIFFERS FROM OTHER ASPECTS of material culture studies treated in this bibliographical issue in two ways. First, the name itself is inadequate, since an increasingly large number of apparently disparate kinds of buildings have been included under its rubric. While the term will be novel and puzzling to many readers, it was first used in the nineteenth century by architectural theorists to refer to traditional rural buildings of the preindustrial era, buildings that were apparently the houses of yeoman farmers and that seemed not to have been consciously designed or affected by the intellectual and artistic currents of the Renaissance.' They were thought to be in some sense gothic or medieval buildings, even though many of the examples cited were built long after the Reformation. Buildings of this sort or their functional equivalents in America-the log houses of the southern mountains and other folk buildings, for example-have continued to be the principal interest of many students of vernacular architecture. In recent years, however, the term has been extended to include less pretentious examples of any current style: mass-produced, middle-class housing such as one might find in any nineteenthor twentieth-century speculative development, industrial buildings, the architecture of fast-food and other commercial franchises-virtually

The Encyclopedia of Southern History (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Encyclopedia of Southern History. Edited by David C. Roller and Robert W. Twyman. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. Pp. xii, 1421. $75.00.) Roller and Twyman can take justifiable pride in their work. Here, from Abbeville to Zwaanendael, are almost 1400 pages of description, explanation , and identification of the significant persons, events, movements, institutions, and issues of southern history, prepared for an intended audience of teachers, students, scholars, and laymen. The editors define the South as the 1860 slave states plus the District of Columbia, thereby excluding Oklahoma. Articles are signed, unless written by the editors, arranged alphabetically, cross-referenced to other articles of parallel interest, and usually closed with bibliographical references. They are supplemented by thirty-six maps, seventy-two tables, and an extensive index. Unfortunately there is no listing of the 1130 contributors. Coverage is broad. For example, extended essays for each state usually embrace geography, exploration and early settlement, colonial and/or territorial history, the antebellum era, the Civil War and Reconstruction, recovery, and the twentieth century (sometimes with special note of trends since the Great Depression or World War II), and conclude with an extensive bibliography, a list of governors, and a table of population growth. Biographical sketches are also included, and a special effort was made to cover "significant figures about whom little has been written or about whom information is difficult to obtain" (p. vii), including women and blacks. There are entries for major scholars, "associations devoted to the study of the South" (p. viii), geography, linguistics, culture, literature, and natural history. Other types of entries discuss colleges and universities, families, political characteristics, political movements, churches, products, enterprises, religion, and amusements. Many users of this invaluable reference tool may feel a twinge of conscience when they examine it, because there will be a temptation to quarrel with the exclusion of some topics and the inclusion of others. However, such quibbles serve to underline the editors' problems with space limitations. There are surprisingly few unnecessary articles; it is easier to find omissions, but it is difficult to see just what could have been done to make the work more inclusive and still keep it manageable. And BOOK REVIEWS279 there are a number of entries a reader would not expect to find but is delighted to see—Humor, Local color, Minstrelsy, and Mint Julep, for example. The many historiographical discussions of individual historians and interpretations are important bonuses, as are the entries for newspapers—which often include comment on editorial policy and political loyalty—and the frequent inclusion of key court cases. This encyclopedia reflects the major concerns of American historiography in the last twenty years. There is a real effort to go beyond political, economic, and military discussions in order to reach social and cultural issues, and there is more coverage of women and blacks than would have been found in a work of this sort had it been compiled in the forties or fifties. Nevertheless, the "New History" emphasized by the current generation of younger historians is not as prominent as one might expect, both in content of articles and in authorship. The quantifiers usually get only passing mention, and even then generally not detailed enough that the layman would be aware of their distinctive approach. Although this could be taken as a sign that the New History has not yet impressed American historians, other publications, such as the major professional journals and Michael Kamman 's recent Past Before Us, seem to indicate the opposite. More likely, it is simply that a work ofthis sort does not easily lend itself to areport of the findings of the quantifiers, except in vague terms. On the other hand, The Encyclopedia of Southern History provides ample illustration of the New History's preoccupation with "history from the bottom up," as Christopher Lasch put it. Numerous articles on culture, customs, and behavior, and the discussions of institutional arrangements affecting the majority of southerners, black and white, attest to that: such entries range from Bourbon (whiskey), Clay eaters, dialects, Exodus of 1879, Folk medicine, and Galluses, to Peonage, Recreation, Shape-note songbooks, Tenant farming, Violence, Women, and Yeoman farmer. Historians of the...

The Legacy of the Nineteenth-Century New England Farmer

UPON arrival in the New World, the New England colonists made a fundamental choice: they rejected the English feudal pattern and instead based their society upon the independent farmer. Wielding axe, hammer, and scythe, the yeoman farmer subdued his acreage himself, while his wife plied the spindle, stirred the churn, and rocked the cradle. With neighbors who shared equal opportunity, he performed the citizen's duties of promoting learning and religion. Even through the close of the nineteenth century, when youth increasingly abandoned the farms for more lucrative urban occupations or land farther west, the self-sufficient rural family continued to be regarded as the cornerstone of a democratic society. Records left by generations of New England farmers during this period of western expansion show their appreciation for a unified society. Agricultural gatherings fostered a strong sense of community, and experiences were exchanged in magazines such as the Cultivator and Country Gentleman and the New England Farmer. In the proceedings of state boards were reported the creation of agricultural societies in the West, the changing character of those in the East, and interests common to both; the southern plantation slave-labor society was also examined. That society recognize the farmer's dignity was a concern commonly expressed at the agricultural meetings. There is no pursuit that tends more directly to the independence and happiness of the people than agriculture, the governor of New Hampshire told the legislature in 1836. It is a matter of gratification and pride that it is a calling scarcely less reputable than that requiring the highest order and severest application of intellect.' In a similar spirit, a speaker before the

From Planter to Yeoman Farmer

From Planter to Yeoman Farmer

Property Settlements, Financial Provision for the Family, and Sale of Land by the Greater Landowners 1660-1790

English landed society after the Restoration, and especially after the Glorious Revolution, has an historical reputation for stability, and even if this has sometimes been exaggerated by those who have commented upon it, it is clearly merited if comparison is made with the century before 1640. Possession of a great estate undoubtedly gave the aristocratic families of the age a massive economic strength, and the period is generally portrayed as one in which the ownership of property tended to pass increasingly into their hands. So perhaps it did, although any measurement is not, and may never be, possible. Yet it is certain that there remained an extremely active land market, and no contemporary observers of the land market whose correspondence has yet been studied ever complained that there was any shortage of property for sale. Moreover an examination of the title deeds of any estate built up at this time will reveal that the supply of land for sale came not only from the lesser squires and yeoman farmers, to whom the economic climate and fiscal exactions of much of this period were notoriously unkind, nor yet only from town dwellers who had inherited country estates in which they had no real interest. The substantial gentry and great landed magnates, too, are frequently found selling land, often in very considerable quantities. It is not the intention of this article to argue that, contrary to all other appearance, this is evidence that in any sense the greater proprietors were a “declining” class, for clearly they were not.