Civil Eats

DECEMBER 10, 2024

Isaiah White harvests kale at his familys fifth-generation farm in Warren County, where the U.S. When the owner of the land where Byron was sharecropping died, he willed Byron at least 10 acres. By the time Byron passed away in 1931, he had accumulated 2,000 acres, on which he grew timber and raised livestock.

Plantation 144

Plantation Farming Farming Acre 144

Food Environment and Reporting Network

DECEMBER 20, 2024

In 1944, International Harvester tested the first mechanical cotton picker on a plantation just south of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Over the next two decades, tractors, mechanical harvesters, and chemical herbicides made sharecropping obsoleteyou no longer needed much labor to farm cotton or grains.

Acre 111

Acre Farming Farming Crop 111

The Equation

AUGUST 27, 2024

The failure of this act likely played a role in paving the way for sharecropping and tenant farming. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, another opportunity for land ownership was presented through sharecropping and tenant farming. This was yet another exploitative system that only benefited wealthy White farmers.

Sharecropping 112

Sharecropping Farming Farming Acre 112

The Equation

AUGUST 27, 2024

The failure of this act likely played a role in paving the way for sharecropping and tenant farming. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, another opportunity for land ownership was presented through sharecropping and tenant farming. This was yet another exploitative system that only benefited wealthy White farmers.

Sharecropping 52

Sharecropping Farming Farming Acre 52