| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Cotton's Renaissance: A Study in Market Innovation. By Timothy Curtis Jacobson and George David Smith. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xvi, 346 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-521-80827-8.)

This book is the story of Cotton Incorporated, a trade organization founded in 1972 in order to prevent further substitution of artificial fibers for cotton. In 1961 cotton had supplied 65 percent of the fiber used in U.S. textile mills, but in 1973 it supplied only 33 percent. Cotton had been replaced by rayon, nylon, polyester, and acrylic—with wool retaining its 10 percent share of the textile market. The effectiveness of Cotton Incorporated is easily measured. In 2000 cotton usage increased to 55 percent of the fiber used in fashion fabrics.

The long slide in cotton usage after 1961 finally prompted several organizations of cotton farmers to take coordinated action. Cotton farmers had taken for granted that the market for fashion fabrics was theirs. In 1972, that was no longer true. The threat to cotton farmers in 1972 is condensed in the question asked on the dusk jacket: Why Grow Cotton Anyway?

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