Table of Contents
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Women, Cotton, and the Crop-Lien System
1. Women, Daughters, Wives, Mothers: Gender and Family Relationships
2. Keeping Warm, Keeping Dry: Housekeeping and Clothing in the Blackland Prairie
3. Living at Home: Food Production and Preparation in the Blackland Prairie
4. Making a Hand: Women's Labor in the Fields
5. Life Beyond the Farm: Women and Their Communities
6. Staying or Going: Urbanization and the Depopulation of the Rural Blackland Prairie
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Maps
Major physical features of the Blackland Prairie of Texas
Counties of the Blackland Prairie of Texas
Moves of the Rice family, Hunt County, Texas
Illustrations
Spring plowing, Williamson County
Mother and children at a cotton wagon, Kaufman County
Board and batten tenant farmer's house, Ellis County
Landowner's daughter weighing cotton, Kaufman County
African American church on the open prairie, Ellis County
Tables
Table 1. Number of Tenants and Landowners in Four Blacklands Counties, 1900-1940
Table 2. Average Age of Farmers' Wives at First Marriage in Four Blacklands Counties, by Ethnic Group, 1900 and 1910
Table 3. Average Number of Births and Surviving Children Born to Farmers' Wives under Age Forty-Five in Four Blacklands Counties, by Ethnic Group, 1900 and 1910
Table 4. Months of Field Work Women Performed Per Year, by Ethnic Group
Table 5. Percentage of Women Performing Farming Tasks, by Ethnic Group, in Hill County, 1921
Table 6. Literacy Rates for Women under Age Forty-Five in Four Blacklands Counties, by Ethnic Group, 1900 and 1910
Table 7. Change in Numbers of Tenants and Farm Owners in Four Blacklands Counties, 1930 and 1940
Table 8. Population Growth of Towns in Four Blacklands Counties, 1900-1940
Table 9. Population Growth of Major Blacklands Cities, 1900-1940