Author: Peter A. MorrisonPublisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271038993
Category : Rural population
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
A Taste of the Country: A Collection of Calvin Beale's Writings
Author: Peter A. MorrisonPublisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271038993
Category : Rural population
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
The Journal of Agricultural Economics Research
Author: Journal of Agricultural Economics Research
Author: The Invisible Line
Author: Daniel J. SharfsteinPublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101475803
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455
Book Description
"The Invisible Line" shines light on one of the most important, but too often hidden, aspects of American history and culture. Sharfstein's narrative of three families negotiating America's punishing racial terrain is a must read for all who are interested in the construction of race in the United States." --Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello In America, race is a riddle. The stories we tell about our past have calcified into the fiction that we are neatly divided into black or white. It is only with the widespread availability of DNA testing and the boom in genealogical research that the frequency with which individuals and entire families crossed the color line has become clear. In this sweeping history, Daniel J. Sharfstein unravels the stories of three families who represent the complexity of race in America and force us to rethink our basic assumptions about who we are. The Gibsons were wealthy landowners in the South Carolina backcountry who became white in the 1760s, ascending to the heights of the Southern elite and ultimately to the U.S. Senate. The Spencers were hardscrabble farmers in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, joining an isolated Appalachian community in the 1840s and for the better part of a century hovering on the line between white and black. The Walls were fixtures of the rising black middle class in post-Civil War Washington, D.C., only to give up everything they had fought for to become white at the dawn of the twentieth century. Together, their interwoven and intersecting stories uncover a forgotten America in which the rules of race were something to be believed but not necessarily obeyed. Defining their identities first as people of color and later as whites, these families provide a lens for understanding how people thought about and experienced race and how these ideas and experiences evolved-how the very meaning of black and white changed-over time. Cutting through centuries of myth, amnesia, and poisonous racial politics, The Invisible Line will change the way we talk about race, racism, and civil rights.
Amber Waves
Author: Newcomers to Old Towns
Author: Sonya SalamonPublisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226734137
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
2004 winner of the Robert E. Park Book Award from the Community and Urban Sociology Section (CUSS) of the American Sociological Association Although the death of the small town has been predicted for decades, during the 1990s the population of rural America actually increased by more than three million people. In this book, Sonya Salamon explores these rural newcomers and the impact they have on the social relationships, public spaces, and community resources of small town America. Salamon draws on richly detailed ethnographic studies of six small towns in central Illinois, including a town with upscale subdivisions that lured wealthy professionals as well as towns whose agribusinesses drew working-class Mexicano migrants and immigrants. She finds that regardless of the class or ethnicity of the newcomers, if their social status differs relative to that of oldtimers, their effect on a town has been the same: suburbanization that erodes the close-knit small town community, with especially severe consequences for small town youth. To successfully combat the homogenization of the heartland, Salamon argues, newcomers must work with oldtimers so that together they sustain the vital aspects of community life and identity that first drew them to small towns. An illustration of the recent revitalization of interest in the small town, Salamon's work provides a significant addition to the growing literature on the subject. Social scientists, sociologists, policymakers, and urban planners will appreciate this important contribution to the ongoing discussion of social capital and the transformation in the study and definition of communities.
Who Owns America?
Author: Harvey M. JacobsPublisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299159930
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
Land ownership by individual citizens is a cornerstone of American heritage and a centerpiece of the American dream. Thomas Jefferson called it the key to our success as a democracy. Yet the question of who owns America not only remains unanswered but is central to a fundamental conflict that can pit private property rights advocates against government policymakers and environmentalists. Land use authority Harvey M. Jacobs has gathered a provocative collection of perspectives from eighteen contributors in the fields of law, history, anthropology, economics, sociology, forestry, and environmental studies. Who Owns America? begins with the popular view of land ownership as seen though the television show Bonanza! It examines public regulation of private land; public land management; the roles culture and ethnic values play in land use; and concludes with Jacobs’ title essay. Who Owns America? is a powerful and illuminating exploration of the very terrain that makes us Americans. Its broad set of theoretical and historical perspectives will fascinate historians, environmental activists, policy makers, and all who care deeply about the land we share.
Redefining Urban and Suburban America
Author: Alan BerubePublisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815708858
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Results from Census 2000 have confirmed that American cities and metropolitan areas lie at the heart of the nation's most pronounced demographic and economic changes. The third volume in the Redefining Urban and Suburban America series describes anew the changing shape of metropolitan American and the consequences for policies in areas such as employment, public services, and urban revitalization. The continued decentralization of population and economic activity in most metropolitan areas has transformed once-suburban places into new engines of metropolitan growth. At the same time, some traditional central cities have enjoyed a population renaissance, thanks to a recent book in "living" downtowns. The contributors to this book probe the rise of these new growth centers and their impacts on the metropolitan landscape, including how recent patterns have affected the government's own methods for reporting information on urban, suburban, and rural areas. Volume 3 also provides a closer look at the social and economic impacts of growth patterns in cities and suburbs. Contributors examine how suburbanization has affected access to employment for minorities and lower-income workers, how housing development trends have fueled population declines in some central cities, and how these patterns are shifting the economic balance between older and newer suburbs. Contributors include Thomas Bier (Cleveland State University), Peter Dreier (Occidental College), William Frey (Brookings), Robert Lang (Virginia Tech), Steven Raphael (University of California, Berkeley), Audrey Singer (Brookings), Michael Stoll (University of California, Los Angeles), Todd Swanstrom (St. Louis University), and Jill Wilson (Brookings).
Hollowing Out the Middle
Author: Patrick J. CarrPublisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807042390
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
Two sociologists reveal how small towns in Middle America are exporting their most precious resource—young people—and share what can be done to save these dwindling communities In 2001, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, sociologists Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas moved to Iowa to understand the rural brain drain and the exodus of young people from America’s countryside. They met and followed working-class “stayers”; ambitious and college-bound “achievers”; “seekers,” who head off to war to see what the world beyond offers; and “returners,” who eventually circle back to their hometowns. What surprised them most was that adults in the community were playing a pivotal part in the town’s decline by pushing the best and brightest young people to leave. In a timely, new afterword, Carr and Kefalas address the question “so what can be done to save our communities?” They profile the efforts of dedicated community leaders actively resisting the hollowing out of Middle America. These individuals have creatively engaged small town youth—stayers and returners, seekers and achievers—and have implemented a variety of programs to combat the rural brain drain. These stories of civic engagement will certainly inspire and encourage readers struggling to defend their communities.
The Changing American Countryside
Author: Emery N. CastlePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 592
Book Description
The literature on rural America, to the extent that it exists, has largely been written by urban-based scholars perpetuating out-of-date notions and stereotypes or by those who see little difference between rural and agricultural concerns. As a result, the real rural America remains much misunderstood, neglected, or ignored by scholars and policymakers alike. In response, Emery Castle offers The Changing American Countryside, a volume that will forever change how we look at this important subject. Castle brings together the writings of eminent scholars from several disciplines and varying backgrounds to take a fresh and comprehensive look at the "forgotten hinterlands." These authors examine the role of non-metropolitan people and places in the economic life of our nation and cover such diverse issues as poverty, industry, the environment, education, family, social problems, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, government, public policy, and regional diversity The authors are especially effective in demonstrating why rural America is so much more than just agriculture. It is in fact highly diverse, complex, and interdependent with urban America and the international market place. Most major rural problems, they contend, simply cannot be effectively addressed in isolation from their urban and international connections. To do so is misguided and even hazardous, when one-fourth of our population and ninety-seven per cent of our land area is rural. Together these writings not only provide a new and more realistic view of rural life and public policy, but also suggest how the field of rural studies can greatly enrich our understanding of national life.