Opening Windows onto Hidden Lives: Women, Country Life, and Early Rural Sociological Research

Reprint 5: The Advantages of Farm Life

reprint 5 the Advantages of Farm Life: A study by Correspondence and interviews with eight thousand Farm Women: digest of an Unpublished Manuscript (1924) emily Hoag sawtelle reason for study The Country Life Commission appointed by President Roosevelt found many unfavorable conditions prevalent in the open country, and gave them wide publicity in its report. This report was not an indictment of country life, but a candid statement of some of the handicaps to the development of the innate power of rural social institutions. The Commission felt that the country was not making progress as fast as the cities and towns and made some pointed recommendations looking toward improvement. The findings of the Commission stimulated much further discussion and research in which, rather naturally, attention was centered on the evils to be removed and their sources. A rather gloomy picture was painted and put before the people and the impression it made persists in the minds of city people and writers on rural topics. As late as 1914 the Secretary of Agriculture, the Honorable D. F. Houston, received more than two thousand letters, in response to a questionnaire regarding the needs of farm people, which brought to light many undesirable phases of life on the farms. These letters were published as Reports of the Office of the Secretary Nos. 103, 104, 105, and 106. This gave direction to further work in agricultural and home economics extension, credit, roads, schools, and other measures and were therefore decidedly helpful. But with the movement for improvement of conditions well under way, protests against calamity stories began to appear and farm This is a reprint of Sawtelle’s study on farm women, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, March 1924. Sawtelle was Associate Economist, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture. This copy was provided by the National Agriculture Library at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Sawtelle 1924). 150 rePrintS of SeLeCted PubLiCationS people now resent characterization and cartooning as ignorant objects of misguided pity. The every day life of the bulk of the people of this country is not news. So there would be no point to any statement of country life at its best if there had not been previously so generally entertained a conception of country life that is woefully one-sided. With the popular conception in mind and a conviction that it was misrepresentative, the author set out to visit farm women in their homes and to report in their own words their attitude toward farm life. Others were reached by letters, some of which were written in refutation of a misrepresentation of farm life which appeared in the press.1 Views of hundreds of these farm women on many phases of farm life are here presented. These women are strong, resourceful, capable and leading personalities in their communities. Living full and active lives they see the best side, and choose to consider the handicaps and the undersirable features of temporary and minor importance and to emphasize the possibilities of farm life. the work side Satisfactions in Good Farming The true country woman finds pleasure in her occupation because, first of all, she likes the basic material with which she has to work. She loves the land. The sight of the broad acres of the farm causes her daily pride and satisfaction, and she glories in the fact that she and her husband are workers in the soil. “It is almost sinful,” confesses a West Virginia woman, “how I love these old acres here, how I lay store by each inch of the land, how I cherish and enjoy each flower, each tree, each blade of grass or grain it grows, how I believe there is no spot in the universe so dear.” 1. Acknowledgment is made to the Phelps Publishing Company, Springfield, Mass., for the courtesy of lending to this Bureau volunteer letters written by farm women in reply to the article, “The Woman God Forgot,” published in the September, 1920, issue of “Farm and Home.” Recognition is hereby given of the rare favor rendered by the Webb Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minn., of allowing us the invaluable opportunity of reading and analyzing 7,000 letters of farm women in reply to the question appearing in the January, 1922, issue of “The Farmer’s Wife,” “Do you want your daughter to marry a farmer?” the advantageS of farm Life 151 Tonic...