Abstract
This article acts as a recuperation of the little-known agricultural writings of E. M. Barraud, who in 1939 took up work on a Cambridgeshire farm as a member of the Women's Land Army and recorded her experiences of over five years on the land in two memoirs:Set my hand upon the plough (1946) andTail corn (1948). Barraud was a gifted writer, and the books offer a glimpse of what it meant to beat '[her] typewriter into a ploughshare for the duration'. They record the hardships and rewards of agricultural life as well as its unexpected friendships. But her writing has further social and environmental significance. She explored the positive implications of wartime land work for women while also criticizing working conditions in the Land Army. Meanwhile, she noted the ecological impacts of changing farming practices, especially on farmland birds. Her story also contributes to the growing field of queer rural history. Barraud lived with a female partner and was known to friends as 'John'. Later in her career she wrote scientific papers that demonstrate her fascination with non-binary behaviour in certain species. The article tentatively situates Barraud's work within the georgic and nature writing genres, and argues that it merits further investigation from a range of disciplinary perspectives.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 87-107 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | The Agricultural History Review |
| Volume | 71 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 5 Jun 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:* This article was written during my Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship and I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the Leverhulme Trust for the funding. An early version of it was given at the BAHS conference (Spring 2022). I am extremely grateful to the two peer reviewers of the article whose astute responses enabled me to refine my argument while also drawing my attention to ways in which Barraud’s work may be approached in further research. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to my Bristol University colleague, Andrew Bennett, who first alerted me to the work of E. M. Barraud, allowed me access to his family’s collection of Barraud’s photographs and read an early draft of this article. His comments were very helpful in my revisions, as was the opportunity to cite his observations (drawn from our correspondence) in the piece itself. Any remaining shortcomings and errors are very much my own.
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