Rural history

Depiction of rural life in England, painted in 1883

Rural history is sub-field of social history which researches the history of life in the countryside. It is considered distinct from agricultural history which has traditionally examined the economic and technological history of agriculture.[1] Rural history may be the counterpart of urban history. Burchardt (2007) evaluates the state of modern English rural history and identifies an "orthodox" school, focused on the economic history of agriculture.

Important scholarly journals for rural history include Histoire & Sociétés Rurales in France, Agricultural History in the United States; and the Agricultural History Review and Rural History[2] in the United Kingdom.

History

Rural history emerged as a distinct discipline from Agricultural history in the 1980s and was inspired by the French Annales school which favoured integrating economic, social and political history.[1] Initially focused predominantly on the social history of rural life and later became increasingly interested in cultural history.[3]

In Europe, the study of rural history is supported by the European Rural History Organisation (ERHO).

National studies

Britain

Burchardt (2007) evaluates the state of English rural history and focuses on an "orthodox" school dealing chiefly with the economic history of agriculture. The orthodox historians made "impressive progress" in quantifying and explaining the growth of output and productivity since the agricultural revolution. A challenge came from a dissident tradition that looked chiefly at the negative social costs of agricultural progress, especially enclosure. In the late 20th century there arose a new school, associated with the journal Rural History. Led by Alun Howkins,[4] it links rural Britain to a wider social history. Burchardt calls for a new countryside history, paying more attention to the cultural and representational aspects that shaped 20th-century rural life.[5]

United States

Farmers from the Basque Country

In the U.S. most rural history has focused on the South—overwhelmingly rural until the 1950s—but there is a "new rural history" of the North as well. Instead of becoming agrarian capitalists, farmers held onto preindustrial capitalist values emphasizing family and community. Rural areas maintained population stability; kinship ties determined rural immigrant settlement and community structures; and the defeminization of farm work encouraged the rural version of the "women's sphere." These findings strongly contrast with those in the old frontier history as well as those found in the new urban history.[6]

Modernization came in the 20th century, with the arrival of mechanization, the model T, and the agricultural agent—as well as radio.[7]

France

Rural history has been a major specialty of French scholars since the 1920s, thanks especially to the central role of the Annales School. Its journal Annales focuses attention on the synthesizing of historical patterns identified from social, economic, and cultural history, statistics, medical reports, family studies, and even psychoanalysis.[8]

Bibliography

Britain

United States

Archival collections

Netherlands and Belgium

Curtis, D., 'Trends in rural social and economic history of the pre-industrial Low Countries: recent themes and ideas in journals and books of the past five years (2007-2013)', review essay in BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review 128.3 (2013) 60-95.

Historiography

Primary sources

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Burchardt 2007, p. 469.
  2. ↑ see website
  3. ↑ Burchardt 2007, p. 477.
  4. ↑ Alun Howkins, Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside since 1900 (2003)
  5. ↑ Jeremy Burchardt, "Agricultural History, Rural History, or Countryside History?" Historical Journal 2007 50(2): 465-481
  6. ↑ Hal S. Barron, "Rediscovering the Majority: The New Rural History of the Nineteenth-Century North," Historical Methods, Fall 1986, Vol. 19 Issue 4, pp 141-152
  7. ↑ Steve Craig, Out of the Dark: A History of Radio and Rural America (2009)
  8. ↑ Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School 1929–89 (1990)

Bibliography

External links

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