Prairie Patrimony: Family, Farming, and Community in the Midwest

Drawing on a decade-long ethnographic study of seven Illinois farming communities, Salamon demonstrates how family land transfers serve as the mechanism fro recreating the social relations fundamental to midwestern ethnic identities. She shows how, along with the land, families pass on a cultural patrimony that shapes practices of farm management, succession, and inheritance and that ultimately determines how land tenure and the personality of rural communities evolve.