Kenneth E. Koons and Warren R. Hofstra, ed., After the Backcountry: Rural Life in the Great Valley of Virginia, 1800-1900 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000).
SYNOPSIS:
Koons and Hofstra's edited collection of essays examines the nineteenth-century economic, social, religious, and cultural
experience of residents in the Great Valley of Virginia. They argue that the Valley was dominated by wheat production, but
they point out that wheat achieved its greatest predominance in the post-Civil War period. They suggest that the Valley constituted
a regional "middle country," a place to pass through rather than to settle. They point out that slavery was readily adaptable
to the mixed economy of the region, and they argue that it may have prevented the economy from growing in the antebellum period.
The essays in this volume describe the settlement patterns and architectural practices of the region, finding that the Valley
wealthy did not build large houses or elaborate estates on the model of the Tidewater planters. Instead, while they held
slaves and practiced a dynamic commercial agriculture and mixed industry, they did not replicate the hierarchy or culture
of the tobacco region. J. Susanne Simmons and Nancy Sorrell's essay, "Slave Hire and the Development of Slavery in Augusta
County, Virginia," documents the widespread practice of slave hiring throughout the agricultural economy of Augusta, calling
such practices "the cornerstone" of the rural economy in Augusta.
EXCERPT:
"Wheat organized economic life as well as social experience. It shaped directly the lives of those who produced it and indirectly
the well-being of virtually every resident of the valley. Commercial wheat production served as the main catalyst for the
growth of towns and for the establishment of commercial linkages with other regions."
RELATIONSHIP:
The essays in this book provide one of the closest examinations of the nineteenth century in the Valley of Virginia we have.
We agree that slave hiring was widespread in Augusta and that slavery was well established in the region. We agree also that
wheat was a primary crop in the region in the 1850s and that wheat was never a monoculture in the Valley.
Points of Analysis to this Historiography:
"On a per capita basis, Franklin farmers grew far less corn and more wheat than their counterparts in Augusta, and their commitment
to wheat was seen by many as both the symbol of the North's wealth and the evidence of its superior labor system."
"The richest farm households in Augusta, however, had a high correlation with relatively high wheat production and low corn
production, and slavery enabled even greater success on these farms."
"Enslaved people were hired out to non-slaveholding farmers, railroad companies, and other businesses."
Citation: Key = H053
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