Partly Protected: Origins and Growth of Colonial Zimbabwe's Textile Industry,

Colonised by Rhodes’ British South Africa Company in the 1890s, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was initially expected to be a wealthy source of minerals. However, when mineral discoveries proved disappointing, the country’s white settlers increasingly turned to agriculture. From the turn of the century until the Second World War, mining and agriculture, in fact, comprised the mainstay of the Southern Rhodesian economy. The pre-war jingle was not entirely inaccurate in proclaiming: