Ervins important undertaking inspired farmers statewide to see their barns in a new light and brought attention to an often overlooked category of Michigans architecture. ~Michigan History Magazine "When I was a young girl growing up within the farm community near Rankin, in Genesee County, I heard the working sounds of tractors plowing large fields and watched the harvests of soybeans, wheat, hay, and oats. My ancestors were Michigan pioneers and farmers near Ludington and Grand Blanc. My love for all things farming came from them and continues to this day. Respect for the land and a deep respect for the profession of farming is the hallmark of this book. Since I began to canvass the state nearly two decades ago Ive had the good fortune to visit the farms and talk to many generational farmers and families. Before Michigan became a state in 1837, pioneers came from all over the world to farm this fertile land then known as, The Land of Many Waters. Clearing giant trees of pine, oak, ash and maple, they plowed with ox or a team of horses, for the purpose of raising crops. Wheat, oats, corn and barley, were some of the first crops a new homesteader raised. Barns were built out of logs from the trees, to shelter bushels of precious grains and valuable animals. Just think what it must have been like in the 1800s to travel by water and wagon through wilderness and swamps to the new territory called Michigan! These courageous pioneers, and those that came after them throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, were happy to find a place to call home."

A coffee-table celebration of the beauty and impact of the tower. An artistic focus, rather than technical. Minimal bibliography. No index. 10 In this richly detailed memoir, Jager evokes rural America (i.e. Missaukee County, Michigan) in the 1940s and a life defined by wartime economy, the mores of Dutch Calvinism, and the seasons of a small family farm. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A window into the roles and construction of Michigan family farms

Between 1940 and 1974, the number of African American farmers fell from 681,790 to just 45,594--a drop of 93 percent. In his hard-hitting book, historian Pete Daniel analyzes this decline and chronicles black farmers' fierce struggles to remain on the land in the face of discrimination by bureaucrats in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He exposes the shameful fact that at the very moment civil rights laws promised to end discrimination, hundreds of thousands of black farmers lost their hold on the land as they were denied loans, information, and access to the programs essential to survival in a capital-intensive farm structure. More than a matter of neglect of these farmers and their rights, this "passive nullification" consisted of a blizzard of bureaucratic obfuscation, blatant acts of discrimination and cronyism, violence, and intimidation. Dispossession recovers a lost chapter of the black experience in the American South, presenting a counternarrative to the conventional story of the progress achieved by the civil rights movement.

A hilarious memoir about a newly single mother who makes a seemingly impossible resolution: to stay in her century old-farmhouse and continue raising her three boys on well-water, chopping wood, and dirt. “Glints with Link's raw, willful energy.... Possesses that rare, elusive, but much sought-after feeling of authenticity." (The New York Times Book Review) When Mardi Jo Link finds herself newly single after nineteen years of marriage, she decidesto stay in her old farmhouse with her three boys. Armed with an unflagging sense of humor and a relentless optimism that would put Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm to shame, Link and her resolute accomplices struggle through one long, hard year of blizzards, foxes, bargain cooking, rampaging poultry, a zucchini-growing contest, and other challenges.