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Breaking New Ground: Oral History and Agricultural History

Lurline Murray recalled that the day her son's vocational agriculture teacher pronounced expansion the only hope for farm survival, she had replied, "Well, I guarantee you, we will never put a mortgage on this piece of property as long as I live, unless it's a case of life or death." Twenty years later, other South Carolina farmers have gone under while Mrs. Murray and her son Julian have held on to their land, saved by a strategy of meeting as many of their own needs as possible, swapping work and sharing machinery with neighbors, and selectively adopting modern farming practices. In this effort, religion has been Mrs. Murray's bedrock. Asked to explain a surprisingly bountiful wheat yield, she answered, "One plants, one waters, but God giveth the increase. The Bible says Paul plants, Apollos waters, but it's God that giveth the increase. And you can't outgive God." Faith has guided her decisions and her farming philosophy., In the past half century, farmers like Lurline Murray have experienced one of the most profound transformations in the nation's history. The number of farmers has fallen precipitously. Capital investment has soared as machinery and chemicals replaced draft animals and human labor. Government policy makers increasingly control farm decisions. As historians seek to understand the interplay between these structural changes and personal, family, and community life, they are turning to oral histories of people like Lurline Murray. Interviews allow farm people themselves to interpret the meaning of broad economic changes and describe the values that inform their lives. As a result, scholars are able to incorporate the experiences of ordinary farm men and women into agricultural history and to expand its terrain. A wealth of oral history resources is available to researchers interested in agriculture.2 Academic historians and local communities alike have sought to record the