Full Citation

Title: From the Field to the Classroom: The Boll Weevil’s Impact on Education in Rural Georgia

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2015

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI: 10.1017/S0022050715001515

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: I examine how production of a child labor-intensive crop (cotton) affected schooling in the early twentieth-century American South. Because cotton production may be endogenous, presence of an agricultural pest (the boll weevil) is employed as an instrument. Using newly collected county-level data for Georgia, I find a 10 percent reduction in cotton caused a 2 percent increase in black enrollment rate, but had little effect on white enrollment. The shift away from cotton following the boll weevil's arrival explains 30 percent of the narrowing of the racial differential in enrollment rates between 1914 and 1929.

Url: http://www.richardbbaker.com/files/RBaker_From_the_Field_to_the_Classroom.pdf

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Baker, Richard, B

Periodical (Full): The Journal of Economic History

Issue: 4

Volume: 75

Pages: 1128-1160

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other, Race and Ethnicity

Countries: