Cattle, Cotton, Corn: A History of Central Texas Middle-Class Ranches, 1880-1930

From about a generation after the end of the Industrial Revolution up until the Great Depression, Texas agriculture went through many changes. Unlike the massive, storied ranches spun into romantic westerns or Hollywood films, small family ranches had to adapt constantly to the economic present.

Cattle, Cotton, Corn draws from the minutiae of family records and oral accounts to piece together the history of several middle-class ranches in Central Texas that were operational from 1880 to 193...