In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story

by Jerry Apps

Overview

The year is 1955. Andy Meyer, a young farmer, manages the pickle factory in Link Lake, a rural town where the farms are small, the conversation is meandering, and the feeling is distinctly Midwestern. Workers sort, weigh, and dump cucumbers into huge vats where the pickles cure, providing a livelihood to local farmers. But the H. H. Harlow Pickle Company has appeared in town, using heavy-handed tactics to force family farmers to either farm the Harlow way or lose their biggest customer—and, possibly, their land. Andy, himself the owner of a half-acre pickle patch, works part-time for the Harlow Company, a conflict that places him between the family farm and the big corporation. As he sees how Harlow begins to change the rural community and the lives of its people, Andy must make personal, ethical, and life-changing decisions.   Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association
   

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299223038
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	09/01/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	342 KB

About the Author

Jerry Apps, born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, is professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of more than fifteen books, many of them on rural history and country life. His nonfiction books include Every Farm Tells a Story, Country Wisdom, When Chores Were Done, Humor from the Country, Country Ways and Country Days, One-Room Country Schools, Cheese, Breweries of Wisconsin,and Ringlingville USA. He is also the author of the historical novel The Travels of Increase Joseph. He received the 2007 Major Achievement Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments 000 <LINE SPACE> 1. Pickle Patch 000 2. Birthday Party 000 3. Pickle Factory 000 4. First Cukes 000 5. Grist Mill 000 6. Pickle Factory Crew 000 7. Isaac and Jake 000 8. Migrant Pickers 000 9. Unloading 000 10. Long Days 000 11. Pickle Days 000 12. Cucumbers Keep Coming 000 13. School Closing 000 14. Salt Bin 000 15. George Roberts 000 16. Ames County Fair 000 17. Disaster 000 18. Love Between the Pickle Vats 000 19. Missing Workers 000 20. Breaking News 000 21. Auction 000 22. Jake Stewart 000 23. Closing Down 000 24. What Next? 000 25. The Family Farm 000 26. Decision Time 000 27. Another Mystery 000 28. Remembering Jake 000 29. Funeral 000 30. H. H. Harlow 000 31. Mystery Solved 000 32. Barn Dance 000 <LINE SPACE> Author's Note 000

Editorial Reviews

"In a Pickle is a many-layered pleasure delivered by a master craftsman who is also, like Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn, a passionate student of the people's history. As Apps engages us in the coming-of-age saga of the pickle factory manager Andy Meyer, this is at once a lesson in rural Wisconsin sociology, a quietly scathing indictment of factory farming, and a great read."--John Galligan, author of The Nail Knot and The Blood Knot

"In a Pickle tells this poignant story of change, family, and heartache in a nostalgic, yet unforgettable way."--Oscar Mireles, editor of I Didn't Know There Were Latinos in Wisconsin

"In 1955, life on the nation's traditional small family farms was on a collision course with industrialization and technology. Small cheese factories were closing, combines were replacing the threshing crew, and workhorses were put out to pasture. It also meant that farm families were facing the traumas of the future. Jerry Apps chronicles this dilemma of change through the lives of central Wisconsin farmers who existed by the sweat of their brows and the muscles in their arms. . . . In a Pickle is a story you'll read with relish and remember forever."--John Oncken, syndicated agriculture columnist and radio commentator

From the Publisher