Broken Heartland: The Rise of America’s Rural Ghetto

Details

Author: Osha Gray Davidson

Release Year: 1996

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Pages: 220

ISBN: 0-87745-554-6

Purchase Link: Broken Heartland: The Rise of America's... book by Osha Gray Davidson

Review

I have never been happier with a purchase made on a whim! I found this book completely by chance at the friends of Pima County Library monthly book sale, where the organization opens a full warehouse of books loosely organized by genre and members of the public can buy them at fire sale prices. I probably paid $2.00 for this book, and the value it provides is fantastic.

Broken Heartland: The Rise of America’s Rural Ghetto written by Osha Gray Davidson documents the impacts of the 1980’s farm crisis, which Davidson argues would be more accurately described as a rural community crisis, on the American Midwest. Over eight chapters, Davidson takes the reader through the political changes that gave rise to the farm crisis and explains how it gave rise to widespread poverty, the breakdown of rural communities, higher rates of suicide and violence, and the growth of right-wing populism and hate groups as a powerful political force in the Midwest. I was at first skeptical of Davidson’s use of the term ‘ghetto’ to describe rural America. This term comes with a painful, discriminatory history, and should not be used lightly. However, using the definition of the word ‘ghetto’ from the Oxford dictionary: a poor area of a city where a particular group of people live isolated from the rest of the population, for example people of the same ethnic group or background I find it hard to disagree with Davidson’s assessment.

Davidson argues that the loss of family farms in the farm crisis paired with the consolidation of farms by large agribusinesses and the associated loss of small businesses in rural communities has contributed to a continued breaking down of those communities that leaves them destitute with few opportunities for economic development and an aging population as young residents move away. These communities, desperate for any source of jobs, will give large corporations extensive benefits packages to locate, which often includes looking the other way as wages are kept extremely low and safety regulations are ignored. As a result, these communities become poorer and disintegrate further as transient populations migrate to the term in search of a job at the new factory or warehouse. Having lost the financial stability, and in many cases family history, that many of these community members once enjoyed as farmers or small business owners, they become vulnerable to the influence of hate groups seeking to take advantage of the anger and fear brought by their new economic position.

What I found so fascinating about Broken Heartland is how prophetic the book feels written nearly 30 years after its publication. For example, Chapter 6 The Growth of Hate Groups explores the rise of hate groups and populism throughout the rural Midwest, highlighting the anti-semitic and anti-government themes these groups organized around. The closing sentence of the chapter reads “If genuine alternatives [to the far-right movement] are not provided, a significant number of rural ghetto residents-bitter, desperate, and increasingly cut off from the nation’s cities- are sure to seek their salvation in the politics of hate” (p.123). The final chapter of the book, What Future? What Hope? Is similarly prophetic, detailing the rise of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and industrial scale agriculture, and warning of the dangers they pose to rural communities producing the same animals and crops as these operations. Fast forward to today, and it is evident that little happened to reverse the trend. Reading this book in the context of today’s political and agricultural climate, Davidson reads like a rural Cassandra, warning us of crises we would never heed.

The final piece I will say about this book, is how cathartic it felt to read it. Davidson studied at the University of Iowa, and much of the research for this book to place in the state. My family has roots in Iowa dating back to 1811, before Iowa was an official state. I grew up listening to my grandmother and great aunts telling stories about their childhoods growing up in the small but vibrant town of Wilton and its surrounding communities, and I was always struck by how different their experiences growing up in a rural community were from my own. Reading Broken Heartland, I see how all of the pieces fit together. The rural community today is not the rural community of the mid-20th century. It’s poorer, it has less opportunity, it is more dependent on urban areas for basic services, and the kids grow up and go to college and may not come back.

In closing, I highly recommend anyone interested in rural America to read this book. Yes, it is nearly 30 years old, and yes, some of the conditions Davidson outlines are no longer applicable. However, the bones of the book are sturdy, and readers will come away with a better understanding of the policies and decisions that shaped the rural America we know today.

Chapter by Chapter Synopsis

What follows is a synopsis of each chapter. My intention is not to rewrite the book or make reading it irrelevant, but to distill the arguments into a paragraph or two that give a sense of the topic. My hope is that this will help you find the sections most relevant to you.

Chaper 1: Decline and Denial (Pages 1-12)

Chapter 1 sets the scene in Mechanicsville Iowa, establishing the community as "The true America" highlighting all the characteristics associated with idyllic rural America: hospitality, dependability, and community, but then contrasting that immediately with the description of that America dying out as businesses close, towns depopulate, and communities sink further into despair. The chapter closes by introducing the farm crisis as the first point to understand in comprehending the broader crisis facing rural America.

Chapter 2: Roots of the Farm Crisis (Pages 13-46)

This chapter feels like it should almost be two chapters. The chapter summarizes the roots of the farm crisis of the 1980s. Beginning with an argument that the American Heartland came closest to achieving the Jeffersonian ideal of a land of yeoman farmers, this idyllic picture is again slowly stripped away as the reader learns how the homestead act only benefitted very few small farms in reality, and contributed to the creation of large farms while a majority of high quality farmland was given to railroads and land speculations. This transitions to a discussion of the role of federal policy in first supporting small farmers through the new deal and then threatening their existence through conservative market policies from the 50s-80s. Davidson also touches on the revolving door of corporate interests into government, and details how big ag corporations flourished while farmers have been foreclosing and losing their homes and land. Davidson further explains that this farm crisis has had an unequal impact on black farmers, almost eliminating them from the American farming populace. Finally, the chapter closes with a discussion of how large-scale farming is destroying the environment by draining aquifers, polluting rivers and water supplies, stripping soils, and increasing fossil fuel consumption. 

If anything, it is most striking to see how little has changed in the decades since this book was released, many of the challenges outlined by Davidson are still prevalent today, particularly water pollution and overdrawing, corporate monopolization, and an aging farm population putting agriculture on the brink of a massive land overhaul

Chapter 3: The Rise of the Rural Ghetto (Pages 47-68)

This chapter uses the analogy of a sinkhole to explain the decline in rural communities. Drawing on a 1960s study on the ghettoization of rural communities in the Ozarks caused by an initial economic crisis, this chapter links the decline of farms to the eventual decline of entire communities. The chapter explores how the loss of farms leads to the loss of businesses that service them, the banks that service the businesses, and the population that comprises the town. As wealthy residents leave, poorer residents are left behind with a lower tax base to support the community. The chapter closes with a 1940s study that suggests rural communities with several small farms are stronger than those with fewer industrial farms

Chapter 4: Poverty and Social Disintegration (Pages 69-85)

This chapter feels like the soul of the book. And it evoked more emotion within me than any other nonfiction story I've read. The chapter dissects the growing problems of hunger and homelessness in rural America as a result of the farm crisis, with several vignettes describing the impacts of the crisis on various people. The chapter closes with the author's conversation with a Catholic priest who laments the "social erosion" from which people have become less willing to help each other, and more willing to cast blame for one's struggles on the person experiencing them rather than show compassion.

Chapter 5: The Dying of the Light (Pages 89-100)

This chapter Discusses the profound impacts of the rural and farm crisis on mental health. The chapter uses a vignette of a murder-suicide in Iowa as an example of how struggling economic conditions are leading to increases in murders and suicides, abuse, and mental health struggles. Part of the reason rural communities are affected more significantly than others is their lack of mental and social services that are more prevalent in cities

Chapter 6: The Growth of Hate Groups (Pages 101-124)

This chapter relates the economic downturn of rural america to the uptick in hate groups in the 1980s. It is morbidly fascinating how true many of the statements in the chapter are obviously date (on page 111 a sentence mentions MTV production techniques as state of the art ) and how many remain true in the 2020s (on page 116 Davidson remarks that desperate Midwestern farmers were a perfect target for the far right’s messaging)

The main argument of the chapter is that the economic downturn if the Midwest made a destitute people who were angry and looking for leadership, and that this was quickly exploited by the far right, who viewed these disenchanted farmers as the perfect group from which to build a base of support grounded in fascist ideology. The chapter warns that these groups are likely to increase their influence over time, and that claim is eerily prophetic when read several decades after the publication of the book.

Chapter 7: The Second Wave (Pages 125-152)

Chapter 7 focuses on rural development efforts in the wake of the farm crisis. The thesis of the chapter is that state and local efforts to incentivize industrial investment within their communities rarely if ever provides the economic benefits it is expected to and actually entrenches poverty as these communities forego tax revenues, labor laws, and environmental regulation to encourage development. Additionally, Davidson argues that measuring rural development in job or economic growth is the entirely wrong measure.

Furthermore, once these new factories do open, they attract more people from external communities than internal ones, and these people tend to be uneducated and destitute, resulting in increased poverty and crime in rural communities. The chapter closes by taking aim at the reemergence of homework in the 1980s as a new form of sweatshop that exploits women's role in the household and pays below minimum wages. Despite being heavily exploitative, communities still expressed support for these jobs because they were all that was available. 

Chapter 8: What Future, What Hope? (Pages 153-170)

This chapter ties the rest of the book together, starting with the claim that rural America is now a 1000 little ghettos, as economies have crashed, incomes have fallen, poverty has risen, and the youth leave the town for the city. Davidson expands on this description by likening rural America's status as that of a colony to America's urban centers. The social fabric of rural communities is destroyed in order to bring profits and cheap goods to the urban center. The chapter also documents how large super farms are actually not the solution they are foretold to be, as they are less efficient than medium sizes farms, and do less for rural communities. Davidson argues that any revitalization of the rural community must start with a focus on agriculture and not industry, and that the focus should be community development rather than strictly economic development. The chapter closes with a call for more sustainable agricultural practices, as the current industry threatens to destroy the ecosystem, and a call for stronger democratic institutions that protect people and not corporations. The failure of the US to achieve either of these goals, in fact, we have fallen farther from them, highlights just how prophetic this book reads so many decades after it's publication