Author: Nicholas P. Hardeman
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807124246
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
History is often measured by records of great leaders and events. Nicholas P. Hardeman convinces us that American history can be measured but the shaping force of a quiet monarch—corn. In fact, corn was more than king, it was a way of life, and Hardeman enthusiastically demonstrates that in order to understand the settling and development of America we must know about corn and its influence. Perhaps no volume has come closer to the grass roots of pre-twentieth century America. The history of American worship of property, love of the land, and the work ethic has its source in this country’s discovery of the values of corn. When Hardeman speaks of values, he emphasizes the human as equal to the economic values. He describes corn growing in early America from clearing the land through planting, cultivating, and harvesting, as it was done on the single-family farm, once the mainstay of American agriculture. He talks about the problems and the hard work of corn growing that led to an explosion of agricultural innovation, mostly American in origin, in the nineteenth century. The author gives his attention as well to corn’s ancestry and the role of the Indians in developing all six major varieties of corn. He discusses in detail the many uses of corn as food and drink and its scores of nonfood applications. Overall, Hardeman casts a glow on the “picturesque, symmetrical, checkered cornfields” of a time past. Corn was more than a commodity to the pioneer. It was a social phenomenon during every phase of its culture and especially in the husking bee, the most popular event of the entire pioneer era. Corn was integral to nearly all American culture—our language, literature, art, and mythology. “Frontiers have been erased . . . but in the subconscious of our cultural undergirding, they are with us yet—those phantom shocks in measured rows, the clamorous birds spiraling on set wings to waiting grain fields below, the rhythmic thudding of hominy blocks, the creaking of wheels and crackling of corncob fires.”
Shucks, Shocks, and Hominy Blocks
Author: Nicholas P. Hardeman
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807124246
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
History is often measured by records of great leaders and events. Nicholas P. Hardeman convinces us that American history can be measured but the shaping force of a quiet monarch—corn. In fact, corn was more than king, it was a way of life, and Hardeman enthusiastically demonstrates that in order to understand the settling and development of America we must know about corn and its influence. Perhaps no volume has come closer to the grass roots of pre-twentieth century America. The history of American worship of property, love of the land, and the work ethic has its source in this country’s discovery of the values of corn. When Hardeman speaks of values, he emphasizes the human as equal to the economic values. He describes corn growing in early America from clearing the land through planting, cultivating, and harvesting, as it was done on the single-family farm, once the mainstay of American agriculture. He talks about the problems and the hard work of corn growing that led to an explosion of agricultural innovation, mostly American in origin, in the nineteenth century. The author gives his attention as well to corn’s ancestry and the role of the Indians in developing all six major varieties of corn. He discusses in detail the many uses of corn as food and drink and its scores of nonfood applications. Overall, Hardeman casts a glow on the “picturesque, symmetrical, checkered cornfields” of a time past. Corn was more than a commodity to the pioneer. It was a social phenomenon during every phase of its culture and especially in the husking bee, the most popular event of the entire pioneer era. Corn was integral to nearly all American culture—our language, literature, art, and mythology. “Frontiers have been erased . . . but in the subconscious of our cultural undergirding, they are with us yet—those phantom shocks in measured rows, the clamorous birds spiraling on set wings to waiting grain fields below, the rhythmic thudding of hominy blocks, the creaking of wheels and crackling of corncob fires.”
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807124246
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
History is often measured by records of great leaders and events. Nicholas P. Hardeman convinces us that American history can be measured but the shaping force of a quiet monarch—corn. In fact, corn was more than king, it was a way of life, and Hardeman enthusiastically demonstrates that in order to understand the settling and development of America we must know about corn and its influence. Perhaps no volume has come closer to the grass roots of pre-twentieth century America. The history of American worship of property, love of the land, and the work ethic has its source in this country’s discovery of the values of corn. When Hardeman speaks of values, he emphasizes the human as equal to the economic values. He describes corn growing in early America from clearing the land through planting, cultivating, and harvesting, as it was done on the single-family farm, once the mainstay of American agriculture. He talks about the problems and the hard work of corn growing that led to an explosion of agricultural innovation, mostly American in origin, in the nineteenth century. The author gives his attention as well to corn’s ancestry and the role of the Indians in developing all six major varieties of corn. He discusses in detail the many uses of corn as food and drink and its scores of nonfood applications. Overall, Hardeman casts a glow on the “picturesque, symmetrical, checkered cornfields” of a time past. Corn was more than a commodity to the pioneer. It was a social phenomenon during every phase of its culture and especially in the husking bee, the most popular event of the entire pioneer era. Corn was integral to nearly all American culture—our language, literature, art, and mythology. “Frontiers have been erased . . . but in the subconscious of our cultural undergirding, they are with us yet—those phantom shocks in measured rows, the clamorous birds spiraling on set wings to waiting grain fields below, the rhythmic thudding of hominy blocks, the creaking of wheels and crackling of corncob fires.”
America's Founding Food
Author: Keith Stavely
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807876720
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
From baked beans to apple cider, from clam chowder to pumpkin pie, Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald's culinary history reveals the complex and colorful origins of New England foods and cookery. Featuring hosts of stories and recipes derived from generations of New Englanders of diverse backgrounds, America's Founding Food chronicles the region's cuisine, from the English settlers' first encounter with Indian corn in the early seventeenth century to the nostalgic marketing of New England dishes in the first half of the twentieth century. Focusing on the traditional foods of the region--including beans, pumpkins, seafood, meats, baked goods, and beverages such as cider and rum--the authors show how New Englanders procured, preserved, and prepared their sustaining dishes. Placing the New England culinary experience in the broader context of British and American history and culture, Stavely and Fitzgerald demonstrate the importance of New England's foods to the formation of American identity, while dispelling some of the myths arising from patriotic sentiment. At once a sharp assessment and a savory recollection, America's Founding Food sets out the rich story of the American dinner table and provides a new way to appreciate American history.
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807876720
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
From baked beans to apple cider, from clam chowder to pumpkin pie, Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald's culinary history reveals the complex and colorful origins of New England foods and cookery. Featuring hosts of stories and recipes derived from generations of New Englanders of diverse backgrounds, America's Founding Food chronicles the region's cuisine, from the English settlers' first encounter with Indian corn in the early seventeenth century to the nostalgic marketing of New England dishes in the first half of the twentieth century. Focusing on the traditional foods of the region--including beans, pumpkins, seafood, meats, baked goods, and beverages such as cider and rum--the authors show how New Englanders procured, preserved, and prepared their sustaining dishes. Placing the New England culinary experience in the broader context of British and American history and culture, Stavely and Fitzgerald demonstrate the importance of New England's foods to the formation of American identity, while dispelling some of the myths arising from patriotic sentiment. At once a sharp assessment and a savory recollection, America's Founding Food sets out the rich story of the American dinner table and provides a new way to appreciate American history.
Iroquois Corn in a Culture-Based Curriculum
Author: Carol Cornelius
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791440278
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Provides a framework and an example for studying diverse cultures in a respectful manner, using the thematic focus of corn to examine the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791440278
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Provides a framework and an example for studying diverse cultures in a respectful manner, using the thematic focus of corn to examine the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture.
"Fear God and Walk Humbly"
Author: James Mallory
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817357572
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 712
Book Description
A detailed journal of local, national, and foreign news, agricultural activities, the weather, and family events, from an uncommon Southerner Most inhabitants of the Old South, especially the plain folk, devoted more time to leisurely activities—drinking, gambling, hunting, fishing, and just loafing—than did James Mallory, a workaholic agriculturalist, who experimented with new plants, orchards, and manures, as well as the latest farming equipment and techniques. A Whig and a Unionist, a temperance man and a peace lover, ambitious yet caring, business-minded and progressive, he supported railroad construction as well as formal education, even for girls. His cotton production—four bales per field hand in 1850, nearly twice the average for the best cotton lands in southern Alabama and Georgia--tells more about Mallory's steady work habits than about his class status. But his most obvious eccentricity—what gave him reason to be remembered—was that nearly every day from 1843 until his death in 1877, Mallory kept a detailed journal of local, national, and often foreign news, agricultural activities, the weather, and especially events involving his family, relatives, slaves, and neighbors in Talladega County, Alabama. Mallory's journal spans three major periods of the South's history--the boom years before the Civil War, the rise and collapse of the Confederacy, and the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. He owned slaves and raised cotton, but Mallory was never more than a hardworking farmer, who described agriculture in poetical language as “the greatest [interest] of all.”
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817357572
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 712
Book Description
A detailed journal of local, national, and foreign news, agricultural activities, the weather, and family events, from an uncommon Southerner Most inhabitants of the Old South, especially the plain folk, devoted more time to leisurely activities—drinking, gambling, hunting, fishing, and just loafing—than did James Mallory, a workaholic agriculturalist, who experimented with new plants, orchards, and manures, as well as the latest farming equipment and techniques. A Whig and a Unionist, a temperance man and a peace lover, ambitious yet caring, business-minded and progressive, he supported railroad construction as well as formal education, even for girls. His cotton production—four bales per field hand in 1850, nearly twice the average for the best cotton lands in southern Alabama and Georgia--tells more about Mallory's steady work habits than about his class status. But his most obvious eccentricity—what gave him reason to be remembered—was that nearly every day from 1843 until his death in 1877, Mallory kept a detailed journal of local, national, and often foreign news, agricultural activities, the weather, and especially events involving his family, relatives, slaves, and neighbors in Talladega County, Alabama. Mallory's journal spans three major periods of the South's history--the boom years before the Civil War, the rise and collapse of the Confederacy, and the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. He owned slaves and raised cotton, but Mallory was never more than a hardworking farmer, who described agriculture in poetical language as “the greatest [interest] of all.”
New Worlds for All
Author: Colin G. Calloway
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421410311
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Calloway reminds us that neither Indians nor Colonists were a monolithic group resulting in a more nuanced appreciation for the complexity of cultural relationships in Colonial America. He provides an essential starting point for studying the interaction of Europeans and Indians in early American life.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421410311
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Calloway reminds us that neither Indians nor Colonists were a monolithic group resulting in a more nuanced appreciation for the complexity of cultural relationships in Colonial America. He provides an essential starting point for studying the interaction of Europeans and Indians in early American life.
Midwest Maize
Author: Cynthia Clampitt
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252096878
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Food historian Cynthia Clampitt pens the epic story of what happened when Mesoamerican farmers bred a nondescript grass into a staff of life so prolific, so protean, that it represents nothing less than one of humankind's greatest achievements. Blending history with expert reportage, she traces the disparate threads that have woven corn into the fabric of our diet, politics, economy, science, and cuisine. At the same time she explores its future as a source of energy and the foundation of seemingly limitless green technologies. The result is a bourbon-to-biofuels portrait of the astonishing plant that sustains the world.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252096878
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Food historian Cynthia Clampitt pens the epic story of what happened when Mesoamerican farmers bred a nondescript grass into a staff of life so prolific, so protean, that it represents nothing less than one of humankind's greatest achievements. Blending history with expert reportage, she traces the disparate threads that have woven corn into the fabric of our diet, politics, economy, science, and cuisine. At the same time she explores its future as a source of energy and the foundation of seemingly limitless green technologies. The result is a bourbon-to-biofuels portrait of the astonishing plant that sustains the world.
Tracks that Speak
Author: Charles L. Cutler
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618065103
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
An examination of the cultural impact of Native Americans on the English language studies seventy words borrowed from Native American languages, revealing what each word means, the role it played in traditional Indian societies, and its role in America today.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618065103
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
An examination of the cultural impact of Native Americans on the English language studies seventy words borrowed from Native American languages, revealing what each word means, the role it played in traditional Indian societies, and its role in America today.
The Carolina Backcountry Venture
Author: Kenneth E. Lewis
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611177456
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 668
Book Description
A study of the transformative economic and social processes that changed a backcountry Southern outpost into a vital crossroads The Carolina Backcountry Venture is a historical, geographical, and archaeological investigation of the development of Camden, South Carolina, and the Wateree River Valley during the second half of the eighteenth century. The result of extensive field and archival work by author Kenneth E. Lewis, this publication examines the economic and social processes responsible for change and documents the importance of those individuals who played significant roles in determining the success of colonization and the form it took. Established to serve the frontier settlements, the store at Pine Tree Hill soon became an important crossroads in the economy of South Carolina's central backcountry and a focus of trade that linked colonists with one another and the region's native inhabitants. Renamed Camden in 1768, the town grew as the backcountry became enmeshed in the larger commercial economy. As pioneer merchants took advantage of improvements in agriculture and transportation and responded to larger global events such as the American Revolution, Camden evolved with the introduction of short staple cotton, which came to dominate its economy as slavery did its society. Camden's development as a small inland city made it an icon for progress and entrepreneurship. Camden was the focus of expansion in the Wateree Valley, and its early residents were instrumental in creating the backcountry economy. In the absence of effective, larger economic and political institutions, Joseph Kershaw and his associates created a regional economy by forging networks that linked the immigrant population and incorporated the native Catawba people. Their efforts formed the structure of a colonial society and economy in the interior and facilitated the backcountry's incorporation into the commercial Atlantic world. This transition laid the groundwork for the antebellum plantation economy. Lewis references an array of primary and secondary sources as well as archaeological evidence from four decades of research in Camden and surrounding locations. The Carolina Backcountry Venture examines the broad processes involved in settling the area and explores the relationship between the region's historical development and the landscape it created.
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611177456
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 668
Book Description
A study of the transformative economic and social processes that changed a backcountry Southern outpost into a vital crossroads The Carolina Backcountry Venture is a historical, geographical, and archaeological investigation of the development of Camden, South Carolina, and the Wateree River Valley during the second half of the eighteenth century. The result of extensive field and archival work by author Kenneth E. Lewis, this publication examines the economic and social processes responsible for change and documents the importance of those individuals who played significant roles in determining the success of colonization and the form it took. Established to serve the frontier settlements, the store at Pine Tree Hill soon became an important crossroads in the economy of South Carolina's central backcountry and a focus of trade that linked colonists with one another and the region's native inhabitants. Renamed Camden in 1768, the town grew as the backcountry became enmeshed in the larger commercial economy. As pioneer merchants took advantage of improvements in agriculture and transportation and responded to larger global events such as the American Revolution, Camden evolved with the introduction of short staple cotton, which came to dominate its economy as slavery did its society. Camden's development as a small inland city made it an icon for progress and entrepreneurship. Camden was the focus of expansion in the Wateree Valley, and its early residents were instrumental in creating the backcountry economy. In the absence of effective, larger economic and political institutions, Joseph Kershaw and his associates created a regional economy by forging networks that linked the immigrant population and incorporated the native Catawba people. Their efforts formed the structure of a colonial society and economy in the interior and facilitated the backcountry's incorporation into the commercial Atlantic world. This transition laid the groundwork for the antebellum plantation economy. Lewis references an array of primary and secondary sources as well as archaeological evidence from four decades of research in Camden and surrounding locations. The Carolina Backcountry Venture examines the broad processes involved in settling the area and explores the relationship between the region's historical development and the landscape it created.
Early American Technology
Author: Judith A. McGaw
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807839981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 495
Book Description
This collection of original essays documents technology's centrality to the history of early America. Unlike much previous scholarship, this volume emphasizes the quotidian rather than the exceptional: the farm household seeking to preserve food or acquire tools, the surveyor balancing economic and technical considerations while laying out a turnpike, the woman of child-bearing age employing herbal contraceptives, and the neighbors of a polluted urban stream debating issues of property, odor, and health. These cases and others drawn from brewing, mining, farming, and woodworking enable the authors to address recent historiographic concerns, including the environmental aspects of technological change and the gendered nature of technical knowledge. Brooke Hindle's classic 1966 essay on early American technology is also reprinted, and his view of the field is reassessed. A bibliographical essay and summary of Hindle's bibliographic findings conclude the volume. The contributors are Judith A. McGaw, Robert C. Post, Susan E. Klepp, Michal McMahon, Patrick W. O'Bannon, Sarah F. McMahon, Donald C. Jackson, Robert B. Gordon, Carolyn C. Cooper, and Nina E. Lerman.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807839981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 495
Book Description
This collection of original essays documents technology's centrality to the history of early America. Unlike much previous scholarship, this volume emphasizes the quotidian rather than the exceptional: the farm household seeking to preserve food or acquire tools, the surveyor balancing economic and technical considerations while laying out a turnpike, the woman of child-bearing age employing herbal contraceptives, and the neighbors of a polluted urban stream debating issues of property, odor, and health. These cases and others drawn from brewing, mining, farming, and woodworking enable the authors to address recent historiographic concerns, including the environmental aspects of technological change and the gendered nature of technical knowledge. Brooke Hindle's classic 1966 essay on early American technology is also reprinted, and his view of the field is reassessed. A bibliographical essay and summary of Hindle's bibliographic findings conclude the volume. The contributors are Judith A. McGaw, Robert C. Post, Susan E. Klepp, Michal McMahon, Patrick W. O'Bannon, Sarah F. McMahon, Donald C. Jackson, Robert B. Gordon, Carolyn C. Cooper, and Nina E. Lerman.
The Story of Corn
Author: Betty Harper Fussell
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826335920
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
In an authoritative, wise, and wholly original blend of social history, art, science, and anthropology, Fussell tells the story of corn in a narrative that is as uniquely hybrid as her subject. The great epic of this amazing grain makes clear that all the civilizations of the Western hemisphere have been built on corn. 250 photos and line drawings.
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826335920
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
In an authoritative, wise, and wholly original blend of social history, art, science, and anthropology, Fussell tells the story of corn in a narrative that is as uniquely hybrid as her subject. The great epic of this amazing grain makes clear that all the civilizations of the Western hemisphere have been built on corn. 250 photos and line drawings.