Lesson Plan
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Alabama Tenant Farmers and Sharecroppers, 1865 to Present

For Teachers 11th - 12th Standards
The tenant farming and sharecropping systems that developed in the South after the Civil War, the reasons for their development, and the eventual decline of these systems are the focus of this two-day plan.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Mexican-American Life in Texas

For Teachers 6th
Sixth graders examine the development of cotton farms in Texas and the use of Mexican-Americans as a labor force. They examine pictures of life on cotton farms and draw pictures of themselves performing one of their own daily chores. ...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Kensington Mansion: Plantation, Sharecroppers, Tenants

For Teachers 11th
Eleventh graders investigate the significance of the Kensington Mansion. In this South Carolina history lesson, 11th graders take field trips to the mansion and research primary and secondary sources about plantations, sharecropping, and...
Lesson Plan
Federal Reserve Bank

Cotton in My Sack

For Teachers 4th - 6th Standards
As part of a study of saving choices and opportunity costs, class members listen to a reading of Lois Lenski's Cotton in My Sack, and then evaluate the spending choices made by the Hutley family.  
Article
University of Illinois

University of Illinois: Modern American Poetry: About Sharecropping

For Students 9th - 10th
Three articles about the effects of sharecropping, a farming system that became prevalent after the Civil War for blacks and whites.
Handout
Khan Academy

Khan Academy: Ap Us History: 1865 1898: After the Civil War: The New South

For Students 9th - 10th
After the Civil War, there was some impetus to modernize the South's economy to make it more industrialized and less agrarian. It never gained traction while sharecropping and tenant farming did, ensuring the persistence of rural...
Article
Siteseen

Siteseen: American Historama: Sharecropping

For Students 9th - 10th
Features numerous facts about the history and events of sharecropping, a system of working land owned by others for a share of the yield.
Website
Digital History

Digital History: The African American as Sharecropper [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
After reading about the system of sharecropping or tenant farming for the African American in the South, look at poverty statistics for African Americans vs. whites between 1960 and 1990. Is there a corelation between the sharecropping...