Second Hoeing

The backbreaking labor of German-Russian immigrants in the sugar beet fields of Colorado is described with acute perception in Hope Sykes’s Second Hoeing. First published in 1936, 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.

Hope Williams Sykes (1901-1973) devoted the greater part of her writing career to the portrayal of the German-Russian immigrants. Second Hoeing is her first novel.

Comments about the book:

"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

"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