Biography

Arthur Franklin Raper grew up in Davidson County, North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

. He received an M.A. in Sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 from Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

 in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

. In 1925, he started a PhD at Chapel Hill, under the direction of Howard W. Odum

Howard W. Odum

Howard Washington Odum was an American sociologist.-Biography:...

, and completed it in 1931. He is best known for his research on lynching, sharecropping, and rural development.

In 1926, he worked for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation

Commission on Interracial Cooperation

The Commission on Interracial Cooperation was formed in the U.S. South in 1919 in the aftermath of violent race riots that occurred the previous year in several southern cities. The organization worked to oppose lynching, mob violence, and peonage and to educate white southerners concerning the...

 with Will W. Alexander

Will W. Alexander

Will W. Alexander was chief executive officer of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation as well as the first president of Dillard University. Alexander originally had no desire to become a college president; he was deeply committed to the CIC. However, he was persuaded to become acting...

 in Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

. He later taught at Agnes Scott College

Agnes Scott College

Agnes Scott College is a private undergraduate college in the United States. Agnes Scott's campus lies in downtown Decatur, Georgia, nestled inside the perimeter of the bustling metro-Atlanta area....

 in Decatur, Georgia

Decatur, Georgia

Decatur is a city in, and county seat of, DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. With a population of 19,335 in the 2010 census, the city is sometimes assumed to be larger since multiple zip codes in unincorporated DeKalb County bear the Decatur name...

. In 1939, he resigned after a furor over taking his students to visit Tuskegee University

Tuskegee University

Tuskegee University is a private, historically black university located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund...

. He studied and wrote about sharecropping

Sharecropping

Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...

 in Macon County

Macon County, Georgia

Macon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2000 census, the population was 14,074. The 2007 Census Estimate shows a population of 13,542. The county seat is Oglethorpe.-History:...

 and Greene County

Greene County, Georgia

Greene County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. It was created on February 3, 1786. As of 2000, the population is 14,406. The 2007 Census Estimate shows a population of 15,662. The county seat is Greensboro...

. He exposed sharecropping as exploitative. His papers are in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Library; four of his books were reviewed by the New York Times (the reviews can be found in their archives).

External Links

Arthur Franklin Raper Papers, Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill Library

Arthur F. Raper, The New Georgia Encyclopedia

"Wanted: The Nation's Future of the South," by Rupert B. Vance: Virginia Quarterly Review, Autumn 1943 (contains review of Raper's Tenants of the Almighty)

Further Reading

Southern Modernist: Arthur Raper from the New Deal to the Cold War, by Louis Mazzari (Louisiana State University Press, 2006)

The War Within: From Victorian to Modernist Thought in the South, 1919-1945, by Daniel Joseph Singal (University of North Carolina Press, 1982)

Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960, by Jack Temple Kirby (Louisiana State University Press, 1987)

Speak Now Against The Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South by John Egerton (University of North Carolina Press, 1994)

"Arthur Raper," by Clifford M. Kuhn, in Encyclopedia of the Great Depression, edited by Robert S. Mcllvaine (Thomson-Gale, 2004)