Volume III: The Tobacco Issue
The third volume of SlackWater explores tobacco, the cash crop that rocketed the Maryland colony to economic prosperity. The cultivation and sale of tobacco dominated the southern Maryland economy until the onset of World War II, when the Navy confiscated 7,000 acres of fertile farmland at Cedar Point for the construction of a naval testing facility. As the economy shifted away from agriculture, so did attitudes. Farmers who had spent their lives toiling away on their tobacco fields throughout the summer heat soon found themselves vilified for a crop they took great pride in producing. Published the first year of the Maryland Tobacco Buyout, students explored the impending fate and cultural legacy of a crop that had defined the regional landscape for the past 350 years through the voices of tobacco farmers and local legislators.
Editor’s Introduction: On Tobacco and Oral History
PART I: SURGERY ON THE EAGLE: THE MASTER SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT
Surgery on the Eagle, by Peter K. Andreone
A View from the Top, by Peter K. Andreone
A Foot in Both Worlds, by Peter K. Andreone and Jason Proetorius
PART II: CULTURAL LEGACY
The Lure of Sotweed, by Henry Miller
In My Time When I Was Coming Along, told by Elsie Bean
The Southern Maryland Tobacco Barn, by Julia A. King
Eastern Europe’s Emigres, told by Joseph Gresko, Sue Roskos, and John Sivak
Stop and Realize What’s Coming, told by John Frank Mattingly, Jr.
I’m Getting Ready to Get Myself in Trouble, told by Howard Chase
Tobacco Gets in Your Blood, told by Joseph Vallandingham
PART III: FACING THE FUTURE
Changing Hands: A Bleak Outlook for Farm Labor, by Dyani Payne-Tijero
Pride in Tobacco, told by Donna Sasscer
The Future–that’s a Big Question in My Mind, told by George B. Reeves
The Economy Has Left Us Behind Like a Jet Plane, by Rebecca Taylor
CODA:
Thomas Earl Brady, Retired farmer, Charles County
James Raley, Farmer, St. Mary’s County
James Walter Neal, Retired farmer and laboratory technician, St. Mary’s County
