Neo-Plantations
After World War
II the mechanization of harvesting cotton allowed
farmers to create neo-plantations, which did not
require large amounts of cheap labor and again allowed the concentration
of
agricultural production into large fields. Sharecropping continued during
this era, but the neo-plantations were a distinctively new agricultural
institution that created a new (actually old,
similar in appearance to
slave-based plantations) cultural landscape.
The restructuring of southern
agriculture resulted in a huge out-migration of blacks to northern cities.
And black southern culture--language (Black English), music (blues and
jazz), food (soul food), and social structure--also spread to the North.
What changed on this plantation during the
1950s?
Answers:
- massive rural black outmigration resulted in many former sharecropper
cabins being razed and vacant
- the remaining black workers are concentrated on the main roads, close
to the farms on which they work
- loosely-defined nucleated settlements have emerged that recall antebellum
plantation villages
- tractor station is the focus on the neoplantation
Source: Merle Prunty, "The Renaissance of the
Southern Plantation,"
Geographical Review, Vol. 65, No. 4 (October 1955), pp.
459-491.
Created on by Ingolf Vogeler on 1 February 1996; last
revised 3 December 1996.Thanks to Greg Nelms
for comments on this page.
