Immigrant Farm Fiction, “Agricultural Fitness,” and the Racialized Yeoman Farmer, 1890–1950: A Bibliography

Abstract

This annotated bibliography uncovers a forgotten body of immigrant farm fiction published from 1900 to 1950 and examines the cultural work of these novels in responding to xenophobic, nativist conceptions of immigrants as unfit for farming. Agricultural fitness discourse warned of the perceived threat to US-born writers posed by immigration, calling immigrants “unfit” to farm and viewing white, northern Europeans as the most capable and productive farmers. Employing racialized topes, characters, and plots, some farm fiction writers echoed the xenophobic idea that immigrants lagged behind US-born farmers, whereas others depicted immigrants at the vanguard of modern capitalist agriculture—defined in terms of mechanization, scientific agriculture, and agribusiness—with US-born farmers seen falling behind. These farm fictions reveal that the wider conflict around US immigration was rooted in the rural as much as the urban cultural imaginary. They engaged with the era’s public and legislative debates surrounding immigration restrictions and the decline of the family farm.