Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 1 (2004), pp. 1–19

This paper reviews the contribution of American agricultural history over the twentieth century. It traces the earliest writings on the topic before the foundation of the Agricultural History Society in 1919. The discipline is reviewed under six heads: land policy including tenancy; slave institutions and post-bellum tenancy in the southern states; agricultural organizations; the development of commercial agriculture; government policy towards farming; and the recent concern with rural social history. A final section considers whether the lack of any definition of agricultural history has been a strength or a weakness for the discipline. 

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