Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  Sidewalk and Suitcase Farmers

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

SIDEWALK AND SUITCASE FARMERS.

The term "sidewalk farmers" refers to individuals who live in urban areas and drive to the country to care for their crops and livestock. In 1935 the federal census of agriculture recorded 213,325 Oklahoma farms, but by 1980 there were only 72,000. In the 1997 census, due to a change from the Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC) to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), aligning Canada, Mexico, and United States enumeration categories, the number of farms in Oklahoma increased to 74,214. However, 41,154 of these owners claimed their primary income came from something other than farming. There are thousands of these part-time agriculturalists in the state, and they spend much of their weekend taking care of the family farm.

Less numerous are "suitcase farmers," who reside great distances from their land but tend it a few weeks annually at planting and harvesting time. This type of hobby farming lends itself to wheat, one of Oklahoma's most popular crops. Sidewalk and suitcase farms help many of their owners rekindle a sense of rural identity while enjoying the benefits of waged incomes in urban environments. This often allows families to continue their long relationships with the ancestral farm, which may have been in the family for generations. The fact that city dwellers retained strong agricultural roots was recorded in the census of 1920, when farm population made up half of the state's population.

Larry O'Dell

Bibliography

Gilbert C. Fite, American Agriculture and Farm Policy Since 1900 (New York: Macmillan, 1964).

Ralph E. Olson, "Agriculture in Oklahoma," in Geography of Oklahoma, ed. John W. Morris (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1977).

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1890–1997).


Browse By Topic

Farming


Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Larry O'Dell, “Sidewalk and Suitcase Farmers,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=SI002.

Published January 15, 2010

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.