Remaking the Rural World: The American South and Mexico in the Twentieth Century

297 Pages·2017·22.599 MB·English

by  Tore C. Olsson

Agrarian Crossings
America in the World
Series Editors
Sven Beckert and Jeremi Suri
A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book.
Agrarian Crossings
Reformers and the Remaking of the US
and Mexican Countryside
Tore C. Olsson
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2017 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press.princeton.edu
Jacket photograph courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center
Portions of chapters 2 and 3 were previously published as Tore C. Olsson, “Sharecroppers and
Campesinos: The American South, Mexico, and the Transnational Politics of Land Reform
in the Radical 1930s,” Journal of Southern History 81, no. 3 (August 2015): 607– 46.
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Olsson, Tore C., author.
Title: Agrarian crossings : reformers and the remaking of the US and Mexican countryside /
Tore C. Olsson.
Other titles: America in the world.
Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2017] | Series: America in the world |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016047513 | ISBN 9780691165202 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Land use, Rural—Southern States—History—20th century. | Land use,
Rural—Mexico—History—20th century. | Land reform—Southern States—History—20th
century. | Land reform—Mexico—History—20th century. | Agriculture and state—Southern
States—History—20th century. | Agriculture and state—Mexico—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC HD207 .O47 2017 | DDC 333.760975—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016047513
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon NEXT Lt Pro
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To Kelli, Juniper, and my parents

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Chapter One
Parallel Agrarian Societies
The US South and Mexico, 1870s– 1920s 12
Chapter Two
Sharecroppers and Campesinos
Mexican Revolutionary Agrarianism in the Rural New Deal 40
Chapter Three
Haciendas and Plantations
Finding the Agrarian New Deal in Cardenista Mexico 73
Chapter Four
Rockefeller Rural Development
From the US Cotton Belt to Mexico 98
Chapter Five
Green Revolutions
US Regionalism and the Mexican Agricultural Program 129
Chapter Six
Transplanting “El Tenesí”
New Deal Hydraulic Development in Postwar Mexico 159
Epilogue 191
Notes 201
Archives and Manuscript Collections Consulted 265
Index 269

ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1.1. Emiliano Zapata, Mexican agrarian revolutionary. 22
Figure 1.2. Thomas E. Watson, agrarian populist from Georgia. 23
Figure 2.1. Frank Tannenbaum researching his dissertation in rural
Mexico, 1920s. 48
Figure 2.2. Crowds welcoming Henry A. Wallace to Ciudad Victoria,
Tamaulipas, November 1940. 68
Figure 2.3. Henry A. Wallace meets with farmers in Tamazunchale,
San Luis Potosí, November 1940. 69
Figure 3.1. 1941 Roberto Montenegro painting of Henry A. Wallace
and Centeotl, the Aztec god of maize. 84
Figure 3.2. Henry A. Wallace receiving Roberto Montenegro’s painting
from the Sociedad Agronómica Mexicana, Washington, DC,
October 1941. 85
Figure 3.3. Josephus Daniels and his wife, Addie, in charro costumes,
Mexico City, 1937. 92
Figure 4.1. General Education Board corn demonstration in Mississippi,
late 1900s or early 1910s. 107
Figure 4.2. South Carolina General Education Board corn demonstrator
sits by his record- breaking harvest of 1910. 108
Figure 4.3. John A. Ferrell of the Rockefeller Foundation’s International
Health Board. 114
Figure 4.4. Henry A. Wallace, Josephus Daniels, and their wives, Ilo and
Addie, respectively, in Mexico City, December 1940. 121
Figure 5.1. Jalisco farmers receiving iron plows under the Plan de
Movilización Agrícola, 1943. 137
Figure 5.2. Lázaro Cárdenas, Henry A. Wallace, and Marte R. Gómez
touring the Rockefeller crop test plots at Chapingo,
September 1946. 145
Figure 5.3. President Miguel Alemán inspecting seed to be distributed
by the Comisión del Maíz, 1947. 148
Figure 6.1. Engineers Armando Bravo and José Yépez at Fort Loudoun
Dam, Lenoir City, Tennessee, in August 1942. 171
Figure 6.2. President Miguel Alemán standing beside Chickamauga
Dam, Chattanooga, Tennessee, May 6, 1947. 176
Figure 6.3. President Miguel Alemán with a family of former
sharecroppers in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, May 6, 1947. 177
Figure 6.4. Front page of Mexico City’s Novedades, May 7, 1947. 178
Figure 6.5. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Lázaro Cárdenas with
Tennessee Valley Authority chair Herbert Vogel in
Knoxville, Tennessee, February 3, 1959. 186
Figure 6.6. Lázaro Cárdenas crossing Fort Loudoun Dam, Lenoir City,
Tennessee, February 3, 1959. 187