Second Hoeing

Hope Williams Sykes
Introduction by Timothy J. Kloberdanz

309 pages

Paperback

December 1982

978-0-8032-9129-4

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About the Book

"Papa’ll work her till she drops in the field!" The backbreaking labor of German-Russian immigrants in the sugarbeet fields of Colorado is described with acute perception in Hope Sykes's Second Hoeing. First published in 1935, the novel was greeted in all quarters as an impressive and authoritative evocation of these recent immigrants and their struggle to realize the promise of their chosen country.

Author Bio

Hope Williams Sykes (1901-73) devoted the greater part of her writing career to the portrayal of German-Russian immigrants. Second Hoeing is her first novel. Timothy J. Kloberdanz is author of The Volga Germans in Old Russia and in Western North America.

Praise

"We are soon held by the vividness of the picture she draws and in a little while we find ourselves caring really intensely what becomes of them all."—Saturday Review of Literature

"Second Hoeing takes on the stature of a powerful proletarian drama of the American soil, with children the main protagonists upon whom the bitter impact of economic struggle is spent."—New York Times

"An honest, firmly wrought story."—Current History