Virtue or Blight? Food Gardens and the Racial State, 1917-1945

• In Event: 41006 - Racial Capitalism and the Environment

Abstract

The first half of the twentieth century in the United States was characterized by significant political, economic, and social upheaval, including two world wars, the Great Depression, and major demographic shifts. During these decades, food insecurity was widespread, and food gardens became a crucial means of self-provisioning. In some instances, the federal government supported programs aimed at encouraging Americans to grow their own food, for example through the victory garden campaigns of World War I and World War II. In these contexts, gardening was a civic duty and gardens were a symbol of ideal citizenship. Elsewhere, though, state documents described food gardens, specifically those located in non-white neighborhoods, immigrant communities, and low-income areas, as disorderly and wasteful, as signs of blight. This paper explores how state policies and programs between 1917 and 1945 influenced the social meanings and material consequences of urban and suburban food gardens. It asks: under what circumstances did the state support subsistence food gardens and self-provisioning, and under what circumstances did the state withhold support? We find that the contradictory meanings of food gardens across time and space reveal an underlying racial logic, one that the state utilized to rationalize the unequal distribution of resources and services in successive waves of crisis. While white Americans in suburban areas gardened with active government support, non-white Americans and migrant laborers cultivated food in a context of state abandonment and, at times, active obstruction.

Authors

• Danielle M Jacques, Brandeis University

• Rachel G. McKane, Brandeis University