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Aid to Sharecroppers

How Agrarian Class Structure and Tenant-Farmer Politics Influenced Federal Relief in the South, 1933-1935

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Caleb Southworth
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Extract

When social scientists enumerate the reasons behind the vast expansion of the U.S. welfare state during the New Deal, they commonly cite pressure from unemployed workers, the Keynesian ideology of Roosevelt's policy advisors, and the political compromise between southern congressionalDixiecrats and northern Democrats which enabled the programs that extended relief to the needy (Schlesinger 1958; Conkin 1967: chap. 3; Alston and Ferrie 1985; Goldfield 1989; Kimeldorf and Stepan-Norris 1992; Alston and Ferrie 1993; Quadagno 1994: 20–22; Fleck 1999a).While it is uncontroversial that the working class played some part in the formation of New Deal policy, it would seem that American farmers, particularly the mostly black southern tenantry, had little or no direct role in the distribution of federal relief.

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Social Science History , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , Spring 2002, pp. 33 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2002 

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Footnotes

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In writing this essay, I received helpful comments from Judith Stepan-Norris, József Böröcz, William Domhoff, Amy Harmon, Darlene Southworth,Helen Franks, Max Stevens, and three anonymous reviewers. Particular thanks go to Maurice Zeitlin for his numerous readings and rigorous criticism. Paul Southworth, Elizabeth Stephenson, and Martin Pawlocki helped with data and computer questions.

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