The migration of blacks and whites from the South since 1930 has been traditionally characterized as resulting from the mechanization of agriculture. It is argued in this article that the real cause of the migration must be situated in the crisis in cotton farming during the Depression of the 1930s. Large farm owners secured aid from the federal government in the form of agricultural subsidy payments. In response to this program, they reduced their cotton acreage, bought tractors, and displaced their tenants. This transformation drastically reduced the need for tenant labor and brought about the large-scale migrations. Regression analyses of relevant data confirm this interpretation. The major conclusion is that migrations will be shaped by social, economic, and political relations that require unique historical understanding. Further, migrations will tend to reflect conditions at the point of origin.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BaldwinS.1968Poverty and Politics.Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
2.
BenedictM.1953From Policies of the U. S., 1790–1950.New York: Twentieth Century Fund.
3.
BrannenC. O.1924“Relation of Land Tenure to Plantation Organizations”. Bulletin No. 1269, Department of Agriculture. Washington, D. C.U.S. Government Printing Office.
4.
CampbellC.1962The Farm Bureau and the New Deal.Urbana, III.: University of Illinois Press.
5.
ConradD.1965The Forgotten Farmer, Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press.
6.
DayR.1967“The Economics of Technological Change and the Demise of the Sharecropper”, American Economic Review, 57: 4237–449.
7.
DillinghamH., and SlyD.1966“Mechanical Cotton Picker and Negro Migration”, Human Organization.25 (Winter) 344–351.
8.
EldridgeH. T., and ThomasD. S.1964Population Redistribution and Economic Growth, United States, 1870–1950, Vol. III: Demographic Analyses and Interrelations.Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
9.
FligsteinN.1981Going North. Migrations of Blacks and Whites from the South, 1900–1950.New York: Academic Press.
10.
FordM.1973Political Economics of Rural Poverty in the South.Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Co.
11.
GreenwoodM.1975“Research on Internal Migration”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XIII, No. 2 (June): 397–433.
12.
GrubbsH.1971Cry from the Cotton.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
13.
HamiltonC.1964“The Negro Leaves the South”, Demography.1: 273–295. International Cotton Advisery Council. 1951. Tables of Cotton Production Data. Mimeo.
14.
HamiltonC.1959“Educational Selection of Net Migration from the South”, Special Forces.36 (October): 33–42.
15.
HamiltonC.1939“The Social Effects of Recent Trends in the Mechanization of Agriculture”, Rural Sociology, 6(March): 3–19.
16.
KileO.1948The Farm Bureau Through Three Decades.Baltimore: The Waverly Press.
17.
LeeE. S.1964Population Redistribution and Economic Growth, United States, Vol. I. Methodological Considerations and Reference Tables. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
18.
MandelJ.1978The Roots of Black Poverty.Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press.
19.
McConnellG.1953The Decline of Agrarian Democracy.Berkeley: University of California Press.
20.
MontgomeryR. H.1929The Cooperative Pattern in Cotton.New York: Macmillan Co.
21.
NourseE. G.1937Three Years of the Agricultural Adjustment Act.Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Institute.
22.
PriceD.1955“Examination of Two Sources of Error in the Estimation of Net Internal Migration”, Journal of the American Statistical Association.50: 689–700.
23.
RichardsH.1936Cotton and the AAA.Washington, D. C.: Brookings Institute.
24.
ShryrockH., and SiegelJ.1971The Methods and Materials of Demography.Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office.
25.
SjaastedL. A.1962“The Costs and Returns of Human Migration”, Journal of Political Economy.70 (October): 80–93.
26.
StamppK.1966The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–71.New York: Alfred Knopf Co.
27.
StreetJ. H.1957The New Revolution in the Cotton Economy.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
28.
TindallG.1967The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
29.
VickeryW.1977The Economics of the Negro Migration, 1900–1950.New York: Arno Press.
30.
WoodmanH. D.1968King Cotton and His Retainers.Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press.
31.
WoofterT.1969Negro Migration: Changes in Rural Organization and Population in the Cotton Belt.New York: Negro University Press.
32.
WoofterT.1936Landlord and Tenant on the Cotton Plantation. Work Progress Administration Research Monograph, Vol. V. Washington, D. C.: Work Progress Administration.
