Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Fall/Section018/John H. Abner

Overview

John H. Abner was interviewed by Walter Corbett on December 2, 1938. John was a tobacco farmer in North Carolina. He had a total of three wives and fifteen children to help his planting career. He loved his job because he thought that on the farm people were free and independent. Unlike others in that period, Walter was clever and considerate with forethought. He never got fooled by the high price; otherwise, he would have lost his business during the great depression. “Up and down”, that’s how he described the life a tobacco farmer.

Biography

Early Life

John H. Abner was born in Alamance County in 1876. As he was just a boy, he first worked for Mr. Charles Maynard, a landowner, to do farm work. During this time, he learned a lot and gradually became an expert in growing and curing tobacco. There was no definite rule of curing as to “how hot the barn should be kept or how long the fire should be kept going”, but John had developed his own tobacco feel: he could determine whether the tobacco was properly cured just from the smell, the color, or the feeling of a leaf. He worked there for a long time until 1896 when he was twenty years old. This valuable experience laid a solid foundation for his own future career.

Adult Life

In 1896 John also married his first wife, Maggie Sellars, and they began share-cropping on F. P. Rogers’ land for two seasons. Then John started his own business: he bought a mule and rented a piece of land from Mr. Maynard to grow crops and tobaccos. He stayed here for nine years; during this period, six children were born. Unfortunately, in 1909 John lost his wife, but he had to keeping working and supporting his big family. Two years later he put four more acres in tobacco and married his second wife, Annie Liza. In 1915 he decided to risk buying a 20-acres land by giving a mortgage note for the payment. John, the children, and the mule work very hard that year and finally the great day came. John sold the load of tobacco and paid off the note. This was an extremely meaningful moment for him since he officially became a landowner that day. Though he still did not have enough money to buy a house, his credit was good so he could take a loan and build his own house, in which eight of his children were born. After the big war, the lean year for tobacco started in 1930, the year of Great depression. The big companies ruined many farmers by not bidding; however, Walter had raised other foodstuff as he normally did every year. The tobacco market, as well as the whole U.S economy, began to recover after the New Deal proposed by President Roosevelt.

Social Context

Formation of Tobacco Warehouse Auction System

At the beginning of nineteenth century in Virginia, lax inspection of tobacco leaf caused the manufacturers to receive inferior leaf, so they then required tobacco to be re-inspected by the agents. Therefore, having tobacco inspected in rural warehouse became popular. Gradually, the inspectors were assumed the role of auctioneer. However, sometimes the inspectors would act as evil commission merchants. The warehouse then formally became a place for sale of the leaf instead of a place to inspect the quality. This system also spread to North Carolina tobacco business.

Reformation of plantation system

After the civil war, the slavery of tobacco cultivation was abolished, which gave black families chances to start their own plantation career and try new ways of life. Though at first, white planters wanted to keep their land and estates, strong resistance from black farmers forced them to give up and share their resources. Also, in the early twentieth century, the greater access to credit allowed more farmers to buy land and rely on family labor to grow tobacco. Therefore, many people became official landowners and began to have many children to help them. Despite these two reformations, the unchanging facts were that growing tobacco was still extremely tedious, requiring a lot of time, energy, and experience. Moreover, farmers could hardly get fair prices in the marketplace; however, they still enjoyed planting because the working mode was more democratic. Evan P. Bennett, the author of the book "When Tobacco Was King", describes "the arduous growing season on tobacco farms, which farm families remembered as grueling. But they also took pride in their skills and enjoyed the cooperation and socializing the work encouraged." Bennett argues that only federal policy could save the tobacco farmers.

The Great depression for tobacco business

At the beginning of the twentieth century, tobacco was only a kind of marginal good; however, in 1917, the government changed it into a consumer good and consumption rapidly increased because soldiers in World War I needed it. The high demand during the war led to the problem of overproduction, which drove the price of tobacco leaf to fell rapidly below the cost after the war. The tobacco farmers lost their money, so they could just ask for more and more credit, which made them owe more debits. Many farmers felt angry and began to form cooperatives to oppose the big companies, but that did not work. The early action by President Herbert Hoover did not successfully solve the depression in time. That’s because of its lack of fiscal intervention by governments and central banks, insufficiency of financial regulation towards banking system, and the extremely tight monetary policy. The tobacco companies also cut the wages of workers to almost none, which was part of Hoover’s first measures of contractionary fiscal policy; therefore, they made huge profit while others could hardly make a live. "The price of tobacco leaf fell. The farmers who planted and cultivated the flue-cured tobacco used to make cigarettes felt 'weak and angry.' Their labors had made a handful of powerful white men exceptionally wealthy, but the farmers felt exploited and undervalued by the reviled ‘oligopoly’ of R.J. Reynolds, Liggett & Myers, Lorillard, and James B. Duke’s American Tobacco Company," Scott W. Stern described.

Bibliography

Correspondence, Special. “Tobacco Farmers Protest to Board; Virginia Congressman Goes to Washington to Ask Aid for Growers. Auction System Scored Producers Hope Agricultural Adjustment Administration Will Find New Method.” The New York Times. The New York Times, October 22, 1933. https://www.nytimes.com/1933/10/22/archives/tobacco-farmers-protest-to-board-virginia-congressman-goes-to.html.

Robert, Joseph Clarke. “Rise of the Tobacco Warehouse Auction System in Virginia, 1800-1860.” Agricultural History 7, no. 4 (1933): 170–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3739353.

READ, CHARLES. Journal of American Studies 49, no. 3 (2015): 639–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24485687.

Stern, Scott W. “How War Made the Cigarette.” The New Republic, October 14, 2021. https://newrepublic.com/article/155164/war-made-cigarette.

When Tobacco Was King: Families, Farm Labor, and Federal Policy in the Piedmont, Journal of American History, Volume 102, Issue 3, December 2015, Pages 914–915, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jav639