5 points
Due by Wednesday, August 29, 2012.
The boll weevil, Anthonomus grandis Boheman, is often regarded as America’s most celebrated agricultural pest. It is a small beetle, about ¼ inch long, with wings, a pronounced snout and a very big appetite for cotton. Native to Mexico and Central America, it entered the United States in 1892 near Brownsville, Texas and spread throughout the deep South at a rate of 40-160 miles a year. By 1922 it had swept up the Atlantic seaboard and infested virtually the entire Cotton Belt.
The boll weevil infestation had far-reaching impacts on the economy, sociology, demographics, and culture of the South. This assignment will allow you to experience some of those impacts through a series of six vignettes inspired by articles published in 2007 by the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper. After viewing all six vignettes, take a short quiz about the topic in order to earn your homework points. A link to that quiz is at the very bottom of this page.
