When Tobacco Was King Families, Farm Labor, and Federal Policy in the Piedmont Evan P. Bennett “Bennett makes a provocative argument about the importance of family labor on the tobacco farm, the empowerment of women and children, and the development of a community culture.”—Jeannie Whayne, author of Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South “When Tobacco Was King reconstructs the lives of farm families in the Tobacco South, as well as their work and their political struggles, in vivid, nuanced detail. This brilliant account joins a short list of indispensable histories dealing with bright leaf tobacco.”—Adrienne Monteith Petty, author of Standing Their Ground: Small Farmers in North Carolina Since the Civil War Tobacco has left an indelible mark on the American South, shaping the land and culture throughout the twentieth century. In the last few decades, advances in technology and shifts in labor and farming policy have altered the way of life for tobacco farmers: family farms have largely been replaced by large-scale operations dependent on hired labor, much of it from other shores. However, the mechanical harvester and the H-2A guestworker did not put an end to tobacco culture but rather sent it in new directions and accelerated the change that has always been part of the farmer’s life. In When Tobacco Was King, Evan Bennett examines the agriculture of the South’s original staple crop in the Old Bright Belt—a diverse region named after the unique bright, or flue-cured, tobacco variety it spawned. He traces the region’s history from Emancipation to the abandonment of federal crop controls in 2004 and highlights the transformations endured by blacks and whites, landowners and tenants, to show how tobacco farmers continued to find meaning and community in their work despite these drastic changes.
The Archaeology of Smoking and Tobacco Georgia L. Fox “Fox provides important insights that will help historical archaeologists interpret tobacco-related finds and understand the multiple meanings of a commodity that has burned through the social, political, and economic fabric of the modern world.”—Frederick H. Smith, author of Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History “Few artifacts illustrate the American experience as clearly as tobacco. Fox examines how tobacco and smoking reveal broader social life across the face of the planet over a half-millennium.”—Paul Mullins, author of The Archaeology of Consumer Culture Smoking pipes are among the most commonly found artifacts at archaeological sites, affirming the prevalence and longevity of smoking as a cultural practice. Yet there is currently no other study in historical archaeology that interprets tobacco and smoking-related activities in such a wide spectrum and what clues they give about past societies. In The Archaeology of Smoking and Tobacco, Georgia Fox analyzes the archaeological record to survey the discovery, production, consumption, and trade of this once staple crop. She also examines how tobacco use has influenced the evolution of an American cultural identity, including perceptions of glamour, individuality, patriotism, class, gender, ethnicity, and worldliness, as well as notions of poor health, inadequate sanitation, and high-risk activities. Employing material culture found throughout North America and the Caribbean, Fox considers the ways in which Native Americans, enslaved Africans, the working class, the Irish, and women used tobacco. Her own research in Port Royal, Jamaica—an important New World hub in the British-colonial tobacco network—provides a fascinating case study to investigate the consumption of luxury goods in the pre-industrial era and the role tobacco played in an emerging capitalist world system and global economy. Georgia L. Fox is professor of anthropology at California State University, Chico. A volume in the series American Experience in Archaeological Perspective, edited by Michael S. Nassaney
Evan P. Bennett is assistant professor of history at Florida Atlantic University. He is a coeditor of Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule: African American Landowning Families since Reconstruction.
History October 162 pp. | 6 x 9 | 5 b/w illus., map ISBN 978-0-8130-6014-9 | Printed Case $74.95s
Archaeology/History January 176 pp. | 6 x 9 | 23 b/w illus. ISBN 978-0-8130-6041-5 | Printed Case $69.95s
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