Jamie Brandon wrote:
 
> Skip's point about swept yards not falling along racial lines is a good
> point. . . swept yards are also not a just a rural community practice. .
> . yards were being swept in the Pinch district of downtown Memphis, TN
> as late as the turn of the century.
 
Just to add another iota of anecdotal evidence, my father recalls that
his boyhood neighbors kept a swept dirt yard.  This was on a small farm
9 miles from downtown Atlanta in the 1930s (it's all city and suburbs
now).  I don't know if class played a role in this feature or not, but
the people next door were poor working class, while my grandparents had
middle-class aspirations.  (e.g., my grandfather worked as a railway
mail clerk and farmed on the side; also, my grandmother refused to cook
possum as it was "poor folk's food." <g>)
 
The rationale of leaving no refuge for snakes or vermin makes sense but
I would be wary of accepting a logical explanation for something that
might well have a cultural basis.  Westmacott notes that both blacks and
whites had swept dirt yards, but his observations end there.  It would
be interesting to find out if this is an Africanism or if it is native
to the American south (thesis topic anyone?).
 
I believe that the awareness of the hook-worm's life cycle and manner of
infestation post-dates dirt yards.  My father also used to run around
bare-foot until the (federal?) health and hygiene campaigns of the
'30s--from then on he was made to wear shoes.  My brothers and I were
also raised to always be shod (ostensibly because of hookworm) and to
this day I only take my shoes off for bath, bed, or the beach.   :)
 
Marty Perdue
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