Hunting in the Mid-20th Century

Hunting has been a way for Southerners (and Americans in general) to earn money, to supply food for the table, and to recreate, or have fun, for centuries. During the early 1960s, hunting was a common activity in the South, across racial and socioeconomic lines. Both Black and white, rich and poor, urban and rural men (and boys) hunted for food as well as sport. During the mid-twentieth century (or mid-1900s), some places in Alabama even sold hunting licenses on the weekends so that working men would have a chance to buy them during hours they were not at work (this was well before people could purchase hunting licenses online). For many men, hunting was an important social sport, a chance to get together with friends and trek out in search of prey. While women and girls have always hunted too, it’s not until recently that women made up a sizable minority of hunters.

Though a number of Alabamans hunted without licenses, which were not required by the state for youth under the age of 16 or by anyone hunting on their own land, the Alabama Department of Conservation, which oversees hunting and fishing regulations, sold 600,000 hunting licenses in 1960. That means that about 18 percent of the state’s residents who were over the age of 16 legally hunted in the mid-twentieth century, and that’s not counting people who hunted on their own lands. That figure is almost twice the number of hunting licenses per population as were issued by the state in 2018.

Like every aspect of life in the South in the middle of the twentieth century, hunting was shaped by race and class. Consider, for example, the rule that one doesn’t need a license to hunt on one’s own land. Obviously, only people with significant financial resources own enough property to be able to hunt on their own land. In fact, the first comprehensive (or complete) game and fish laws in the South were created in the early 1900s with the intent of curtailing the movement of Black men. In 1907, the first game and fish commissioner in Alabama, for example, argued wrongly that Black men who hunted did not work as hard on the tenant farms on which they lived (this affected white landowners, whose profit was determined, in part, by tenant farmers’ crop yield). The Alabama commissioner thought the game and fish regulations would keep Black men in place on their farms. In this way, the game and fish laws helped to bring Jim Crow laws, which organized Black and white life in the cities, to the countryside. But these laws never completely stopped Black men from hunting and fishing.

Socioeconomic class affected the kinds of prey that men hunted. Elite, white men favored the kinds of hunting that often required a support staff of horse men and dog trainers. Dove, quail, and fox hunting were especially popular for elites. These men hunted for leisure and social enjoyment; they did not necessarily eat the prey they killed, though sometimes they did. Working-class and poor men, however, often hunted for sustenance, and they targeted animals like squirrel, racoon, and possum. Racoon and possum can be hunted at night, after the day’s work has ended. For working class men in the city, hunting was also a chance to leave the hustle, noise, and pollution of urban life. In the 1960s, in fact, Birmingham was known for its sooty air thanks to the booming steel and coal industry. Mr. Robert might have breathed with relief once he and Toddy were finally deep in the woods.

In his pride of his coon dog Toddy, Mr. Robert represents an important tradition among some Black men in the South–the raising and training of hunting dogs. In the early twentieth century, Black men often worked for wealthy white hunters as dog trainers and handlers. In South Georgia, for example, a group of Black men became famous for their training of bird dogs, so much so that they formed an association that still lives on today, the Georgia-Florida Shooting Dog Handlers Club. Today, young Black men are continuing to pass on the knowledge and specialized skills associated with this work among members of their own community and not necessarily in the service of wealthy elite.

About the Author

Julia Brock is an assistant professor of history at the University of Alabama and editor of Leisure, Plantations, and the Making of a New South: The Sporting Plantations of the South Carolina Lowcountry and Red Hills Region, 1900–1940.