Sweet Tyranny

In this innovative grassroots to global study, Kathleen Mapes explores how the sugar beet industry transformed the rural Midwest by introducing large factories, contract farming, and foreign migrant labour. Identifying rural areas as centres for modern American industrialism, Mapes contributes to an ongoing re-orientation of labour history from urban factory workers to rural migrant workers. She engages with a full range of individuals, including Midwestern family farmers, industrialists, Eastern European and Mexican immigrants, child labourers, rural reformers, Washington politicos, and colonial interests. Engagingly written,Sweet Tyrannydemonstrates that capitalism was not solely a force from above but was influenced by the people below who defended their interests in an ever-expanding imperialist market.

Kathleen Mapes is an associate professor of history at the State University of New York, Geneseo.