From The Man With the Hoe to Tobacco Road: Class, Poverty and Religion and the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union

From The Man With the Hoe to Tobacco Road: Class, Poverty and Religion and the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union Public Deposited

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Harvey, Shannon Lorraine
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Religious Studies

Abstract

This thesis explores the intersections of poverty, class and religion as they were debated and depicted within the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU). The STFU was a Christian and socialist inflected union of agricultural laborers that formed in response to the Agricultural Adjustment Act in 1934. I contextualize these depictions within the larger context of debates about poverty and religion in Depression Era literature and academic scholarship, particularly as they relate to the figure of the Southern sharecropper. Particular attention is paid to the figure of minister and Socialist Party member Howard Kester, and his role as an intermediary between the union and middle class audiences.

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