THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF RURAL AMERICA
The Routledge History of Rural America charts the course of rural life in the United States, raising questions about what makes a place rural and how rural places have shaped the history of the nation. Bringing together leading scholars to analyze a wide array of themes in rural history and culture, this text is a state-of-the-art resource for students, scholars and educators at all levels. This Routledge History provides a regional context for understanding change in rural communities across America and examines a number of areas where the history of rural people has deviated from the American mainstream. Readers will come away with an enhanced understanding of the interplay between urban and rural areas, a knowledge of the regional differences within the rural United States and an awareness of the importance of agriculture and rural life to American society.
The book is divided into four main sections: regions of rural America, rural lives in context, change and development, and resources for scholars and teachers. Examining the essays on the regions of rural America, readers can discover what makes New England different from the South, and why the Midwest and Mountain West are quite different places. The chapters on rural lives provide an entre into the social and cultural history of rural peopleswomen, children and menas well as a description of some of the forces shaping rural communities, such as immigration, race and religious difference. Chapters on change and development examine the forces molding the countryside, such as ruralurban tensions, technological change and increasing globalization. The final section will help scholars and educators integrate rural history into their research, writing and classrooms. By breaking the field of rural history into so many pieces, this volume adds depth and complexity to the history of the United States, shedding light on an understudied aspect of the American mythology and beliefs about the American dream.
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg is Professor of History at Iowa State University and a past President of the Agricultural History Society.
The Routledge Histories
The Routledge Histories is a series of landmark books surveying some of the most important topics and them es in history today. Edited and written by an international team of world-renowned experts, they are the works against which all future books on their subjects will be judged.
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Edited by Carol Helstosky
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THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF RURAL AMERICA
Edited by Pamela Riney-Kehrberg
First published 2016
by Routledge
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2016 Taylor & Francis
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Riney-Kehrberg, Pamela, editor.
Title: The Routledge history of rural America / Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, editor.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, [2016] | Series: The Routledge histories
Identifiers: LCCN 2015040368| ISBN 9780415832922 | ISBN 9780203494219
Subjects: LCSH: Country lifeUnited StatesHistory. | Farm lifeUnited StatesHistory. | United StatesRural conditions.
Classification: LCC E179 .R78 2016 | DDC 307.720973dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040368
ISBN: 978-0-415-83292-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-49421-9 (ebk)
Typeset in ITC New Baskerville Std
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
For two of the greats of rural and agricultural history:
Allan G. Bogue
and
the late Dorothy Schwieder
Anthony J. Amato is an Associate Professor in the Social Science Department at Southwest Minnesota State University. He received a PhD in history from Indiana University. Over the years, his scholarship and publications have addressed other places and cases where economy, environment, and culture converge. He has brought an interdisciplinary outlook to research topics ranging from river management to beekeeping to household budgets. His papers have been delivered at national and international conferences, and his publications have appeared in national and international books and journals. He was co-editor of the acclaimed book Draining the Great Oasis: An Environmental History of Murray County, Minnesota.
J. L. Anderson is Associate Professor of History at Mount Royal University located in Calgary, Alberta. He is the author of Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, Technology, and Environment, 19451972 (Northern Illinois University Press) as well numerous other articles, chapters, and edited works.
Jeff Bremer is Assistant Professor of History at Iowa State University (ISU) and author of A Store Almost in Sight: The Economic Transformation of Missouri from the Louisiana Purchase to the Civil War. He teaches nineteenth-century American history and coordinates the History Education program for ISU.
Caroline Brock has been a Rural Sociology Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia since 2012. She teaches writing-intensive classes on the Amish, the Sociology of Science, Technology and Food. Her research focuses on farm decision making and sustainable agriculture amongst Amish and other farmers. She earned her PhD in Environment and Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dona Brown is a Professor of History at the University of Vermont, where she has taught since 1994. Her first book, Inventing New England: Regional Tourism in the Nineteenth Century
