{"product_id":"harder-than-hardscrabble-oral-recollections-of-the-farming-life-from-the-edge-of-the-texas-hill-country-clifton-and-shirley-caldwell-texas-heritage-series-9780292702387","title":"Harder than Hardscrabble: Oral Recollections of the Farming Life from the Edge of the Texas Hill Country (Clifton and Shirley Caldwell Texas Heritage Series)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWinner  San Antonio Conservation Society Citation  2005 Runner-up  Carr P. Collins Award  Best Book of Nonfiction  Texas Institute of Letters  2005 Until the U.S. Army claimed 300-plus square miles of hardscrabble land to build Fort Hood in 1942  small communities like Antelope  Pidcoke  Stampede  and Okay scratched out a living by growing cotton and ranching goats on the less fertile edges of the Texas Hill Country. While a few farmers took jobs with construction crews at Fort Hood to remain in the area  almost the entire populationand with it  an entire segment of rural culturedisappeared into the rest of the state. In Harder than Hardscrabble  oral historian Thad Sitton collects the colorful and frequently touching stories of the pre-Fort Hood residents to give a firsthand view of Texas farming life before World War II. Accessible to the general reader and historian alike  the stories recount in vivid detail the hardships and satisfactions of daily life in the Texas countryside. They describe agricultural practices and livestock handling as well as life beyond work: traveling peddlers  visits to towns  country schools  medical practices  and fox hunting. The anecdotes capture a fast-disappearing rural societya world very different from todays urban Texas.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45665851572277,"sku":"ByrdShop_0292702388","price":24.65,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780292702387.jpg?v=1782410376","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/harder-than-hardscrabble-oral-recollections-of-the-farming-life-from-the-edge-of-the-texas-hill-country-clifton-and-shirley-caldwell-texas-heritage-series-9780292702387","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}