This book uses the rural reform movement in Tennessee from 1900 to 1930 as a window through which to view the Progressive campaign to reshape rural life in the South. Tennessee provides an especially valuable perspective on the nature and significance of Progressive reforms in the rural South because of the diversity of its geography and rural…

This book focuses on the domestic economy movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which intended to transform agrarian society and improve rural life through the education of rural women. The movement considered women to be partners in business with their farmer husbands and pursued the goal of making rural women more able managers and…