By Our Hands Alone

TIRED HANDS, TIRED FEET, MARCH ON

Struggling to survive in the first half of the 20th century, most rural southern families almost always had more work to do than time or energy. Families performed tasks on the farm by hand or with help from their animals. Family members, from the youngest to the oldest, divided this mountain of work; no one escaped doing their share. Everyone's work day began before the sun rose and lasted well into the evening with only the aid of firelight or an oil lamp. Yet, even with all this backbreaking labor many rural families could barely make ends meet. Low cotton prices, persistent drought, depleted soil, and in the early 1920s, the boll weevil invasion made it virtually impossible for most rural farmers to prosper.