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Article: Bolls and chains: Cotton made America, but the country paid a high price for its cash crop.
- Article from:
- The Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX)
- Article date:
- January 12, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 The Dallas Morning News. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Jerome Weeks
``Big Cotton: How a Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations and Put America on the Map'' by Stephen Yafa; Viking ($25.95)
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In his memoir, ``Honky Tonk Hero,'' which is coming out in March, songwriter Billy Joe Shaver recalls growing up poor near Corsicana, Texas. Soon after he was born, his mother went back to picking cotton _ with him on her back. For his meals, his grandmother strained bean soup through a rag.
It's a much harsher picture of sharecropping than is found in Shaver's nostalgic song, "Jesus Was Our Savior and Cotton Was Our King." But both memoir and song highlight a fact that, even ...