History of Peanuts Post Civil War

Author: Hannah Herrmann

Welcome to my Welcome to my website! Here, I explore the growth of Suffolk’s peanut industry between 1865 and 1920 and how this period shaped the region in powerful, and often complicated, ways. Suffolk’s rapid economic rise was fueled by new technology and major investments, but it was also built on the labor of Black and poor white workers who were held in place by racialized sharecropping systems.

This project looks beyond numbers and production records to tell a fuller story. The peanut industry of this era was both innovative and inequitable, technologically forward, yet socially regressive. At the same time, I highlight the often-overlooked agency of Black entrepreneurs, inventors, and patent holders whose contributions challenged the limits imposed on them.

I’m not sure why it put each source in twice, but they won’t delete properly.

  • Benjamin Hicks, Machine for Stemming and Cleaning Peanuts or Green Peas, U.S. Patent 688,519, filed November 1, 1900, and issued December 10, 1901.

    Edna Greene Medford, “Land and Labor: The Quest for Black Economic Independence on Virginia’s Lower Peninsula, 1865–1880,” History Department Faculty Publications 52 (1992).

    Marcus R. Pollard, “The Suffolk Peanut Company,” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (Virginia Department of Historic Resources, May 25, 2016).

    “Local and Regional News Summary,” The Daily News, January 25, 1907.

    “Report on Agricultural Conditions and Peanut Crop,” The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA), September 17, 1915, accessed via Virginia Chronicle.

    Unknown, Peanut Farmers, Suffolk, Virginia, photographic print, late 19th to early 20th century, Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Richmond, VA.

    Anna Zeide, “‘The Dignity of Invention’: Race, Intellectual Property, and Peanut Agriculture, 1900–1920,” Agricultural History 99, no. 2 (2025): 162–86.

  • Benjamin Hicks, Machine for Stemming and Cleaning Peanuts or Green Peas, U.S. Patent 688,519, filed November 1, 1900, and issued December 10, 1901.

    Edna Greene Medford, “Land and Labor: The Quest for Black Economic Independence on Virginia’s Lower Peninsula, 1865–1880,” History Department Faculty Publications 52 (1992).

    Marcus R. Pollard, “The Suffolk Peanut Company,” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (Virginia Department of Historic Resources, May 25, 2016).

    “Local and Regional News Summary,” The Daily News, January 25, 1907.

    “Report on Agricultural Conditions and Peanut Crop,” The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA), September 17, 1915, accessed via Virginia Chronicle.

    Unknown, Peanut Farmers, Suffolk, Virginia, photographic print, late 19th to early 20th century, Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Richmond, VA.

    Anna Zeide, “‘The Dignity of Invention’: Race, Intellectual Property, and Peanut Agriculture, 1900–1920,” Agricultural History 99, no. 2 (2025): 162–86.