Sharecropping Sociology

378 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on sharecropping

Sharecropping was a farming work method that started in Georgia and moved throughout the south and lasted until the mid-twentieth century. Sharecropping was a way for the poverty stricken, both black and white, to make a living to get by and support their families from land owned by someone else. The owner of the particular land provided shelter, seed, equipment, mules, and tools if they had it. The such farmers who possessed their own mule and machinery were a higher class called tenant farmers, which means that they paid the landowner less money. Also, a local merchant would provide food and the supplies they needed on credit. During the harvest time the sharecropper collected a share of the crop and used the money to pay what he owed to

Show More
Related

  • Analyze The Benefits Of Farming In The West Dbq

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    New technologies not only allowed farming to become more efficient, but made the process of shipping crops west much easier. The most important innovation in farming itself was the horse-drawn combine, which required many horses to operate, but allowed wheat, a popular crop to grow in the west, to be harvested en masse. One way that eastern businessmen exploited farmers in the west was by owning the land they worked on, and taking most of their profits. Many contracts between businessmen and farmers had clauses such as, “The sale of every cropper’s part of the cotton to be made by me when and where I choose to sell, and after deducting all they owe me and all sums that I may be responsible for on their accounts, to pay them their half of the net proceeds.”

    Read More

  • The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture

    2143 Words  | 5 Pages

    Foley argues that prior to the Civil War, there was a sharp line delineating tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Tenant farmers were almost always white, owned their own tools and rented land for a third of the cotton and a fourth of the grain harvested.

    Read More

  • Sociological Theories

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the sociological theories is conflict theory. The conflict theory deals with people's level on wealth, or class. The conflict theory says that social change is beneficial, contrary to focuses on social order. In the story of the woman and her children, the conflict theory plays a big role on the situation. Police of higher class are threatening the homeless woman. The conflict theory is a constant struggle of people of higher class over powering people of lower class, or the weaker. The police are trying to over power the woman by telling her to leave. Even though the woman and her children were doing nothing wrong, the police used their power to tell her to leave. Also the people of the area showed their conflict theory by telling the police officers to come. They must have felt embarrassed to have a woman of such lower class to be around them. They used their power of class to have the woman removed from their community. The woman wants to be there because she has no home and it is a good community to be in, but the people look at it as an embarrassment to them because it makes their area look bad for someone of such lower class to be around them. The conflict theory is unique to all other theories because it separates people into categories determined by their wealth and standards. Their status is the element that categorizes them, weather it is class, race, or gender. The conflict theory do not always use class, race, and gender all at once. In this situation race and gender is not a main issue, although gender could be a reason, but it would fall under the feminist theory. This story is mainly dealing with class. Through all this conflict the woman feels over powered and domina...

    Read More

  • Coming of Age in Mississippi vs. The Jungle Paper

    1049 Words  | 3 Pages

    Crow laws and share cropping. At this day and age in American history, the life of a black child

    Read More

  • Wendell Berry's What Are People For?

    1225 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even with these faults, this society appreciates the hard work of farming compared to the easy way of living today. One point of Berry’s argument is that he believes that the land is falling more and more into the hands of speculators and professional people from the cities, who, in spite of all the scientific agricultural miracles, still have more money than farmers. Big technology and large economies have caused more abandonment of land in the country than ever before. Many of the great farmers are clearly becoming different because they lack manpower and money to maintain properly. The number of part-time farmers and ex-farmers increases every year due to the problems with money and resources.

    Read More

  • Alabama Agriculture: Growing for You and Me

    639 Words  | 2 Pages

    Farmers started sharecropping this replaced the old plantation system. “Sharecropping is a form of ...

    Read More

  • The Cotton Gin’s Impact on American Industry and Slavery

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    The invention of the cotton gin made growing cotton practical, and cotton began dominating the growing fields. Cotton was a crop that could be grown almost anywhere because it seemed to need only the land to grow in. Land that was once left empty because of poor growth capabilities was planted in the lucrative crop of cotton. Growing cotton allowed farmers to grow crops in fields that previously had to rest for a season. The southern farmers were able to realize a profit thanks to Eli’s labor and time saving machine.

    Read More

  • Sharecroppers

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    Would the system of sharecropping have worked out to be more effective, had they been able to take advantage of what the government had offered them? The lives of southern sharecroppers were the result of a greedy and corrupt system. The sharecroppers lives were subjected to substandard clothing, insufficient food supplies, and rising health issues due to a lack of respect and care for the hardworking man.

    Read More

  • Agrarian Discontent 1880 To 1900

    1453 Words  | 3 Pages

    Crops such as cotton and wheat, once the sustenance of the agriculture industry, were selling at prices so low that it was nearly impossible for farmers to make a profit off them. Furthermore, improvements in transportation allowed foreign competition to materialize, making it harder for American farmers to dispose of surplus crops. Mother Nature was also showing no mercy with grasshoppers, floods, and major droughts that led to a downward spiral of business that devastated many of the nation’s farmers. As a result of the agricultural depression, numerous farms groups, most notably the Populist Party, arose to fight what the farmers saw as the reasons for the decline in agriculture. During the final twenty years of the nineteenth century, many farmers in the United States saw monopolies and trusts, railroads, and money shortages and the loss in value of silver as threats to their way of life, all of which could be recognized as valid complaints.

    Read More

  • New England colonies

    589 Words  | 2 Pages

    Land preparation for farming and animal rearing was done using a method called girdling – tree killing. They will cut around each tree to stop nutrient from getting to the tree and the leaves will later felled down. They will now come back and cut the branches of the trees and burn the underbrush. Farmer starts plowing as the trees stumps decays and stones will be removed from the fields. Fields for farming are always small because of labor and there are boundaries between fields and the neighbors. The house or the farm was viewed as the workplace. And land given out to each family will be fenced to stop cattle from wandering off going into the farm areas. The land allocated to each family will show the family social status within the community. The towns developed individually and community involvement was given a great significant although the community was close knit.

    Read More

  • Macro Level Theories In Sociology

    1262 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sociology is the study of society and the interactions that occur within society itself. There are numerous methods of analyzing societies and the way the function, nonetheless, most methods fall in micro and macro level theories. Micro level theories allow sociologist to study smaller relationships such as individual or compact groups of people. On the other hand, macro level studies permit for larger scale investigations to take place. With both of these theories there are three theoretical perspectives used in sociology. Micro level theories include symbolic interactionism which focuses in interactions done with language and gestures and the means which allow such interactions to take place. Macro level theories include structural functionalism

    Read More

  • The Role Of The Industrial Revolution In The 1800's

    476 Words  | 1 Pages

    Back in the 1800’s, slavery was a huge deal. Many rich white men owned slaves, and made them pick cotton. You wouldn’t think that this is a big deal, but it is hard work. Once you pick the actual cotton off of the plant, you have to pick out all the seeds-individually. “Also, I do remember that picking cotton by hand was painful hard work and that I was pretty reluctant to toil that hard.”

    Read More

  • Emergence of Market Society

    1722 Words  | 4 Pages

    The market today has become so important that society takes it as completely natural. From “The Economic Problem” Heilbroner describes three main solutions, with the market being one. Furthermore into the market, Polanyis book “The great Transformation” gives insight on how much society actually allows the market to dominate. To Polanyi a market society is seen as social relations embedded in the economy instead of the economy being embedded in social relations. Examining both of these books gives a great understanding on how life was without the market and how it came to be. Taking note of Rineharts work as well on how the workplace has drastically been changed by the market is key to analyzing the transformation as a whole. As a result of the transformation, not only has human labour been altered, but another author known as Weber states that certain peoples view on the world have also be affected. This essay will establish how “the great transformation” (Polanyi) from a traditional society to one based on a market economy has vastly impacted societal workplaces, and societal beliefs around faith of idealogical conditions.

    Read More

  • Problems of the Food System

    2097 Words  | 5 Pages

    Farmers are essentially the back-bone of the entire food system. Large-scale family farms account for 10% of all farms, but 75% of overall food production, (CSS statistics). Without farmers, there would be no food for us to consume. Big business picked up on this right away and began to control the farmers profits and products. When farmers buy their land, they take out a loan in order to pay for their land and farm house and for the livestock, crops, and machinery that are involved in the farming process. Today, the loans are paid off through contracts with big business corporations. Since big business has such a hold over the farmers, they take advantage of this and capitalize on their crops, commodities, and profits. Farmers are life-long slaves to these b...

    Read More

  • How Did Indian Ocean Trade Affect The Europeans

    830 Words  | 2 Pages

    The problem of Mexican colonial farming, as of most colonial farming, was that of recruiting an adequate supply of labour while at the same time keeping the price of labour down. (Birmingham) Because of this, land as well as people in the Americas was captured and used for cultivation. Native Americans and African slaves were forced to work in these farming lands to produce sugar, tobacco, and other crops. The Columbian Exchange provided the Natives with many new crops and animals, but they paid a heavy price for

    Read More

More about Sharecropping Sociology

Open Document