Sociology Department Colloquium: Christopher Muller

Date
Thu June 1st 2017, 12:30 - 1:45pm
Location
Mendenhall 101
Sociology Department Colloquium: Christopher Muller

Please join us for a colloquium being given by Christopher Muller, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Tenancy, Marriage, and the Boll Weevil Infestation, 1892–1930

In the early twentieth century, the cotton-growing regions of the U.S. South were dominated by families of tenant farmers. Tenant farming created opportunities and incentives for prospective tenants to marry at young ages. These opportunities and incentives especially affected African Americans, who had few alternatives to working as tenants. Using complete-count Census of Population data from 1900–1930 and Census of Agriculture data from 1889–1929, we find that increases in tenancy over time increased the prevalence of marriage among young African Americans. We then study how marriage was affected by one of the most notorious disruptions to southern agriculture at the turn of the century: the boll weevil infestation of 1892–1922. Using historical Department of Agriculture maps, we show that the boll weevil’s arrival reduced the share of farms worked by tenants as well as the share of African Americans who married at young ages. When the boll weevil infestation altered African Americans’ opportunities and incentives to marry, the share of African Americans who married young fell accordingly. Our results provide new evidence about the effect of economic and political institutions on demographic transformations.