Cotton Belt, United States
Item
![Lange, D., photographer. (1938) The Black Wax area of Texas is the outstanding cotton producing section of the western cotton belt. Near Georgetown, Texas. Williamson County Georgetown United States Texas, 1938. June. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress) https://www.loc.gov/item/2017770656/.](https://collections.libraries.indiana.edu/iulibraries/files/original/3f00555280e1fadc71bba485549b9aac2d56ab72.jpg)
Title
Cotton Belt, United States
Description
In the Cotton Belt, The area of the southeastern United States where cotton was grown, stretching from Maryland to eastern Texas, the Agricultural Adjustment Association (AAA) pursued plans under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act to raise the prices of farm products by paying farmers to produce less.
This was disastrous for sharecroppers as landowners simply evicted them from the land, stating that their services were no longer needed. The great majority of sharecroppers were black, but this affected white sharecroppers also.
The AAA also encouraged a shift to mechanization which would require large tracts of flat land and significant capital outlay for investment in machinery. While all poor farmers were affected, poor black farmers did not have access to the sources of credit that poor white farmers did, and the credit which they did have access to was at far less favorable terms.
This was disastrous for sharecroppers as landowners simply evicted them from the land, stating that their services were no longer needed. The great majority of sharecroppers were black, but this affected white sharecroppers also.
The AAA also encouraged a shift to mechanization which would require large tracts of flat land and significant capital outlay for investment in machinery. While all poor farmers were affected, poor black farmers did not have access to the sources of credit that poor white farmers did, and the credit which they did have access to was at far less favorable terms.