Rural Gentrification and Livestock Raising: Texas as a Test Case, 1940–1995

Abstract

One characteristic of an affluent society is that wealthy individuals often seek a place in the country to spend weekends and summer vacations. In the United States second homes in rural areas first became popular in the Gilded Age when elites in the northeast tried to ape English patterns of leisured country living. Americans, however, had to contend with hot and humid summers. As a result, access to water became a vital ingredient in any choice of a country retreat. An alternative motivation for migration to the countryside in the late nineteenth century came when elites desired to take part in field sports, especially foxhunting. In New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and of course, Virginia, where reasonably mild winters permitted activities to continue with some frequency throughout the winter, foxhunting became part of the yearly ritual of small numbers of urban based elites. Horse ownership went hand in hand with livestock raising. By the twenties cattle breeding had become another hobby pursuit of the gentry in northeastern states; herds of Angus or other breeds grazed in paddocks on either side of a long driveway which led up to a large country home.