Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2024/spring/Section13/Bill Saunders

Overview

A small, Southern farmhouse sits on the edge of a growing field.

Bill Saunders was an American farmer and landowner living in Bahama, a small community in Durham county, North Carolina. On November 21st, 1938, he was interviewed by Travis Jordan of the Federal Writer's Project.

Biography

Early Life

His birthday is unknown, but at the time of the interview, Saunders was likely in his late 50s. Saunders fought in the Spanish-American War, and also enlisted in the First World War, though his role was a cook in a South Carolina training camp, and he never saw Europe. Saunders also worked in the US Post Office and worked a rural mailing route, after which he purchased his farm in Bahama.

Adult Life

In his later years, Bill Saunders lived on a farm surrounded by farming fields and trees. He raised cattle, hogs, and goats, and grew grain in his fields. Saunders was unmarried and without children, a lifestyle that he was perfectly pleased with. He was both an extremely independent man who prized his personal freedom, and a man closely tied to his community. Saunders was closely tied to his Episcopalian church community, and filled in as a preacher and Sunday school teacher in their absences. He also gave his services as a handyman when they were needed. In regards to his neighboring farmers, Saunders also believed in community and collaboration. Saunders also employed a single sharecropping tenant, and at the time of the interview it was a black man named Dave. He supplied Dave with a house, the land, animals to help till the soil, seed, and half of the fertilizer, and the pair split the crop half and half. Saunders was well read, concerning himself with both local and national affairs, as well as remaining up to date on farming trends and techniques. He was also highly critical of New Deal programs of relief and crop control, citing them as reasons for difficulty in finding reliable sharecroppers.

Social Contexts

Sharecropping Systems in Southern America

Sharecropping was a system of tenant-farming widely used in the post-Civil War South, and it was often quite exploitative. Many impoverished Southerners were desperate for work, and were subject to this practice. In this system, a landowner would typically lease land, a house, seed, and farming equipment to a sharecropper in exchange for a percentage of their crop. While there were a great number of black laborers in these systems, the majority of sharecroppers were poor white farmers. Many sharecroppers would find themselves in scenarios were they were acquiring debt at a far faster rate than they were able to pay it off, eventually being trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Religious Faith among Rural Southerners

Christianity of many forms was extremely strong in the American South during the time of the Great Depression, and acted as space of community during the hardship of the great depression. Many social and charitable services were provided by churches at a time when there was little outside help to be found for many rural southerners. Churches acted as spaces for social gathering, and as support networks. The Pentecostal, Methodist, and Baptist traditions were predominant in the rural south. Additionally, the belief in higher power and worship with peers was a ray of hope and comfort for many who were ravaged by poverty. For many, particularly in more rural regions, the church served as the only source of schooling or education. Religion permeated the lives of rural southerners, and was not simply a church service on Sundays. Worship and scripture reading was household routine for many.

Relief Programs in the Rural South

The New Deal introduced a number of relief programs to all of the United States, including Southern America. Many southern state governments and general populaces were recalcitrant to this aid, placing an emphasis on individualism and low spending, but would eventually give in and accept it. The FSA (Farm Security Administration) gave financial aid to struggling farmers in the rural South, a policy that garnered criticism by many. The FSA also provided resettlement services wherein farmers with poor soil quality or other land based disadvantages would be moved to new areas for the establishment of more viable farms. Another large federal agency with heavy influence on rural Southern farming was the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration). Many of their policies, such as crop control, drew criticism from Southern Americans. This policy was intended to stabilize prices, and instituted incentives to stop overproduction of certain crops, typically cotton or tobacco in Southern states. Some of these policies displaced poor landowning farmers and sharecroppers, as many did not have the means to switch to other types of crop. Wealthier landowners found far more benefits from the policies than many more impoverished farmers, particularly black Americans.

Footnotes

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References

Gellman, Erik S., and Jarod H. Roll. “Owen Whitfield and the Gospel of the Working Class in New Deal America, 1936-1946.” The Journal of Southern History 72, no. 2 (2006): 303–48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27649072.

Jordan, Travis, "Bill Saunders Federal Writers’ Project Interview", November 21st, 1938, Folder 1, Federal Writers’ Project Papers, 1936-1940, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Flynt, Wayne. “Religion for the Blues: Evangelicalism, Poor Whites, and the Great Depression.” The Journal of Southern History 71, no. 1 (2005): 3–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27648650.

Whatley, Warren C. “Labor for the Picking: The New Deal in the South.” The Journal of Economic History 43, no. 4 (1983): 905–29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2121055.

W.O. Saunders. 1935. “The Independent. Vol. XXVIL (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, December 13, 1935, Image 1.” December 13, 1935. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025812/1935-12-13/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1930&index=42&rows=50&words=&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=North+Carolina&date2=1936&proxtext=&y=18&x=15&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1.

W.O. Saunders. 1935. “The Independent. [Volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, November 29, 1935, Image 8.” November 29, 1935. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025812/1935-11-29/ed-1/seq-8/#date1=1930&index=32&rows=50&words=&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=North+Carolina&date2=1936&proxtext=&y=18&x=15&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1.