When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s

by Pamela Riney-Kehrberg

Tucked into the files of Iowa State University’s Cooperative Extension Service is a small, innocuous looking pamphlet with the title Working through the Farmer-Lender Crisis . Cooperative Extension Service intended this publication to improve bankers’ empathy and communication skills, especially when facing farmers showing “Suicide Warning Signs.” After all, they were working with individuals experiencing extreme economic distress, and each banker needed to learn to “be a good listener.” What was important, too, was what was left unsaid. Iowa State published this pamphlet in April of 1986. Just four months earlier, farmer Dale Burr of Lone Tree, Iowa, had killed his wife, and then walked into the Hills Bank and Trust company and shot a banker to death in the lobby before taking shots at neighbors, killing one of them, and then killing himself. The unwritten subtext of this little pamphlet was “beware.” If bankers failed to adapt to changing circumstances, the next desperate farmer might be shooting. This was Iowa in the 1980s. The state was at the epicenter of a nationwide agricultural collapse unmatched since the Great Depression. In When a Dream Dies , Pamela Riney-Kehrberg examines the lives of ordinary Iowa farmers during this period, as the Midwest experienced the worst of the crisis. While farms failed and banks foreclosed, rural and small-town Iowans watched and suffered, struggling to find effective ways to cope with the crisis. If families and communities were to endure, they would have to think about themselves, their farms, and their futures in new ways. For many Iowan families, this meant restructuring their lives or moving away from agriculture completely. This book helps to explain how this disaster changed children, families, communities, and the development of the nation’s heartland in the late twentieth century. Agricultural crises are not just events that affect farms. When a Dream Dies explores the Farm Crisis of the 1980s from the perspective of the two-thirds of the state’s agricultural population seriously affected by a farm debt crisis that rapidly spiraled out of their control. Riney-Kehrberg treats the Farm Crisis as a family event while examining the impact of the crisis on mental health and food insecurity and discussing the long-term implications of the crisis for the shape and function of agriculture.

Genres: History

304 pages, Hardcover

Published September 22, 2022

Reviews

[Cori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book about the farm crisis and how it impacted farm families in Iowa. Riney-Kehrberg is a great writer and she has easy, relaxed style that is wonderful to read. I have two complaints. First, the book lacks a thorough and consistent analysis. She tells us about the crisis but does provide much of an argument about the crisis. Second she uses a chronological approach and walks us through the crisis year by year which shows how the crisis unfolded over the decade. But I think a thematic approach might have worked better. The book tends to get redundant at times and a thematic approach might have provided a more consistent argument. These are small criticisms though to a book that is wonderfully written, interesting, and engaging.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did this book take so long to read? Because every word gutted me. Pamela’s care to compile countless stories, newspapers, data, and every scrape of information about the Farm Crisis is inspiring. Knowing this history is rarely told, she took such thought to write a through, honest history. I never understood how disheartening it is to read about your own community’s trauma until I read this book. Hearing the words your community, your towns, your heritage is dying leaves a person with very little hope in their soul. Until the government and urban Americans realize they should care about who grows their food, rural communities will be stuck suffering. Farms have struggles since the government decided to promote large farms and demand homogeneous operation. The current farm system is sucking the soul dry, killing family farms, and leaving rural communities destitute. Rural communities must continue…. I don’t wanna live in a city where the trees are sparse, the people are mean, and gas is expensive. Gosh darn it! I’m so sad!

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would be 5 stars, but the book was very a little too wooden, stiff and repetitive. Hopefully more research will be done on this topic and lead to more accessible works for the public.