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 penetrating look at the condition of family farming--yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

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.

A visual feast of the Midwest's homegrown bounty In this splendidly illustrated book, food writer and self-described farm groupie Janine MacLachlan embarks on a tour of seasonal markets and farmstands throughout the Midwest, sampling local flavors from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. She conducts delicious research as she meets farmers, tastes their food, and explores how their businesses thrive in the face of an industrial food supply. She tells the stories of a pair of farmers growing specialty crops on a few acres of northern Michigan for just a few months out of the year, an Ohio cattle farm that has raised heritage beef since 1820, and a Minnesota farmer who tirelessly champions the Jimmy Nardello sweet Italian frying pepper. Along the way, she savors vibrant red carrots, slurpy peaches, vast quantities of specialty cheeses, and some of the tastiest pie to cross anyone's lips. Informed by debates about eating local, seasonal crops, organic farming, sanitation, and biodiversity, Farmers' Markets of the Heartland tantalizes with special recipes from farm-friendly chefs and dozens of luscious color photographs that will inspire you to harvest the homegrown flavors in your own neighborhood.

"Thoughtfully documenting the voice and emotions of many who might otherwise remain unheard, Hemalata Dandekar provides in-depth accounts and insights, underpinned by quietly rigorous analysis, about family interactions and the perceptions, understandings, and memories of family members . . . a tribute to the indomitability of the human spirit as an enduring force in sustaining farm life on the Michigan farms." ---Anatole Senkevitch, Jr., Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan Michigan's family farms form the backbone of the state. One need only see the Centennial Farm signs that dot the sides of the state's country roads to understand that. Hemalata Dandekar shows in her new book just how connected those family farm buildings are to the families that inhabit them. Eight family-farm case studies display farm buildings' relationship to the land they sit on, their function on the farm, the materials they're made with, the farm enterprises themselves, and the families who own them. Photographs, plans, elevations, and sections of typical, exemplary traditional farm buildings show the aesthetic and architectural qualities of those types of buildings across the state. The ways in which the buildings serve the productive activities of the farm, shelter and nourish the people and livestock, yield a living, and enable the aspirations of farm people are shown in the words and photographs of the farmers themselves. The buildings form a window into the lives of Michigan's family farms and into the hearts and minds of the people who have lived and worked in them their entire lives. Hemalata C. Dandekar is head of City and Regional Planning at California Polytechnic State University. She specializes in urbanization, urban-rural linkages, rural development, and gender and housing. She developed her love of Michigan farmers and farm architecture during her years as a student, professor, and then director at the Urban Planning program of the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.