BECOMING SHOPPERS: NC Food Consumption and Production
Live-at-Home Campaign
The Governor Starts the "Live-at-Home" Program
"What is there that we cannot produce at home? Is there any evil enchantment on North Carolina's rich acres that would prevent the growth of corn, wheat, potatoes, beans, apples, hay...? The only evil enchantment I know is that of the so-called 'money crops.' Deserting the green oasis of diversified farming, our people have followed the mirage of huge profits from cotton and tobacco into a trackless desert of uncertainty and gloom... [I]n a tragic number of instances, actual undernourishment and want have resulted."
North Carolina Governor O. Max Gardner, 1929
How can farmers go hungry?
In the quote above, the Governor of North Carolina says that "money crops" are an "evil enchantment." Also known as cash crops, "money crops" are agricultural products that are grown in order to be sold—rather than to be used at home by the people who actually grow them. Cash crop farmers usually grow just one thing, and most in North Carolina grew cotton or tobacco—neither of which you can eat. Even farmers who grew edible things like corn as a cash crop couldn't survive on corn alone. They had to sell their crops for cash, and then go to the grocery store to buy their food with the cash. Thus, these crops are called cash crops.
How can cash crops be "evil" in a time of economic depression?
During the Great Depression, people were so poor everywhere that cash crop farmers could not find anyone to buy their crops. If no one bought their crops, then the farmers earned no money and could not buy food themselves. When the Great Depression began, rural North Carolina families were already in a deep agricultural depression, and rural families were already having trouble putting food on the table. The Great Depression made this situation even more desperate. Although many more North Carolinians were growing their own food during the Great Depression than do today, it still was not enough. State officials were desperate to convince North Carolinians to grow more food instead of cotton and tobacco.
Living "At Home"
In 1929, the Governor and the Extension Service teamed together to begin the "Live-at-Home" program to encourage North Carolina's farmers to replace non-edible cash crops like cotton and tobacco with edible crops like grains, corn, fruits, and vegetables. The campaign also encouraged families to buy products made within North Carolina.
The program encouraged the following activities for every farm family:
- The growing of an all year round garden. Monthly suggestion and live at home dinners for the community.
- Canning enough fruits and vegetables to total 57 pints of vegetables and 45 pints of fruit for each individual member of the family.
- Production of a poultry flock of at least 30 hens.
- Securing at least one milk cow per family.
Four years into the program, extension agents reported that over 30,000 farm homes were growing gardens that not only supplied food for the family table, but also produced a surplus for market. Even more common were chickens, which were raised on the homes of about 22,000 women and girls involved with the extension service (which was about half of the people involved).
Picture of a Kitchen in Pamlico County, North Carolina, Before a 4-H Kitchen Improvement Project, 1938
This is a coal-burning stove, which most middle-class families would have considered terribly out of date by the late 1930s. To use this stove, a woman would have to carry coal into the kitchen and load the oven. The heat from the oven would have made the entire kitchen so hot that many families avoided oven-cooked food throughout the summers.
Picture of a Kitchen in Pamlico County, North Carolina, Before a 4-H Kitchen Improvement Project, 1938
This picture comes from the same kitchen as that pictured to the left. Look closely at all the pots, pans, jars, and other cooking wares on the table. This family would have been relatively well-off compared to most rural North Carolinians during the Great Depression.
4-H Kitchen Improvement Project in Pamlico County, North Carolina, 1930
Girls from the 4-H club (which was run through the Extension Service) put together the "ideal kitchen" in this kitchen improvement project. This is the same kitchen pictured in the two photographs above.
4-H Kitchen Improvement Project in Pamlico County, North Carolina, 1930
Importantly, the kitchen included modern electric appliances like this refrigerator. Refrigerators could cut food costs considerably because food could be kept for longer periods of time.
Live at Home Program, 1932
This 1932 report describes the history, mission, and successes fo the Live at Home program started by Governor Gardner three years earlier.
Canning Fruits and Vegetables, 1930
A major component of the Live at Home program was canning. Without refrigerators or freezers, most families' only means of preserving food for the winter was through canning.