The Proof Is in the Dough: Rural Southern Women, Extension, and Making Money

Beasley’s book is an excellent examination of how Alabama’s and Florida’s rural women took advantage of Cooperative Extension Service programs to improve their economic situations in 1914–29. A much-needed contribution to the field, Beasley’s knowledgeable work recreates the nature of homespun and small-scale economics in the southern countryside, indicating where gender, race, and economics collided in the rural South. Archival sources and oral histories are cleverly woven to provide an intricate portrait of white and Black women and make the case that these agricultural and home-economics education programs improved lives. Though the book occasionally drudges into detail, it is a classic, readable, and informative account, supplemented by photographs and valuable primary source documents.