Cornell Woodall Cox

Promise of Better Days Cornell Woodall Cox

A child of the protracted Great Depression, Cornell Cox chronicles the hardships of cotton and flue-cured tobacco farming during the 20th Century. Meanwhile many Eastern North Carolina families were increasingly forced to become sharecroppers living on pitiful margins. In the face of dismal poverty, the moral resistance to tobacco shared by Cox's Quaker ancestors gave way to tobacco production. Regardless of morality, tobacco's "promise of a better life" made North Carolina the top producer state. His family's farm life mirrors the history of a "special culture" prevalent in the rural South during much of the 20th Century. Many photographs in the book complement Cox's story of bright-leaf production and auction marketing - followed by the evolution of "new ways" in agricultural mechanization. Cox completes the journey with an intriguing, very personal autobiography. Early years on the farm, his father's work-ethic teaching, experiences in the FFA, and a serious study of religious faith profoundly influenced who he became.