INFORMATION TO USERS

This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely afreet reproduction.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book.

Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.

UMI University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 3 0 0 North! Z e e b R oad, Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 -1 3 4 6 U SA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600

Order Number 9305779

Good life in the country: Rural households and the American pie, 1900-1930

Lcirson, Sarah Sue, Ph.D.

The American University, 1992

Copyright ©1992 by Larson, Sarah Sue. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

GOOD LIFE IN THE COUNTRY: RURAL HOUSEHOLDS

AND THE AMERICAN PIE, 1900 - 1930

by

Sarah Sue Larson

submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

History

Signatures of Committee:

Chair:

Dean off the College

Date

1992

The American University 1350

Washington, D.C. 20016

TEE mmiom UNIVERSITY LIBRARY © COPYRIGHT by

SARAH SUE LARSON

1992

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GOOD LIFE IN THE COUNTRY: RURAL HOUSEHOLDS

AND THE AMERICAN PIE, 1900 - 1930

BY

Sarah Sue Larson

ABSTRACT

This dissertation focusses on the dialogue within the rural community and between the country and the city about the "good life," about how the rural community fit into a modern, consumption-oriented, industrial-based economy. Sentiments of farm families usually were expressed by rural women—literate women.

Previous histories have looked to the messages going into the rural community from reformers and advertisers. This study looks, instead, at the desires and demands emanating from farm families, often in letters to federal agencies. As another source. Country Life reformers and national advertisers were making a concerted effort to tap into rural opinion, distributing surveys and sponsoring essay contests in farm journals. These efforts were aimed toward "progressive" rural families; not necessarily those who were currently affluent and influential, but those who were so placed by education and initiative as to benefit from reform efforts and become affluent and influential.

-ii- In the words of rural women about quality of life, in their buying patterns, are shades of nuances that add depth and perspective to our understanding both of rural life and of Progressive era reform. The piece of the debate over rural life controlled and directed by "progressive" farm women suggests that there was no homogeneity of opinion within the rural community. Families were neither fully resistant nor fully accepting of the changes of the twentieth century.

Though they were clearly intrigued by the accoutrements of industrialism, rural women differed as to how crucial such acquisitions were to living the good life. They picked and chose what they bought and what they expressed a desire to buy. Likewise, they embraced certain Progressive reforms and ignored others.

The promises of Progressivism came packaged in the household technologies and entertainments of a new era; debate over the good life hinged directly on the comforts of the industrial age. Every modern convenience acquired was, in a sense, a promise kept. Letters and essays and surveys stemming from the rural community suggest that enough conveniences were flowing into enough farm houses as to make the promises of Progressivism seem both valid and possible.

-Ill- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Foremost, I wish to thank Alan Kraut, my advisor and friend. Dr.

Kraut's intuitive understanding of the immigrants who people his own scholarship, his generous assumption of the myriad responsibilities of the historical profession, and his high expectations of his students has inspired and sustained me throughout my graduate career. Dr. Kraut understands that women who choose to combine babies with comprehensives bring their own sort of intense commitment and perspective to history. He has never failed to argue our case in the halls of academia and he has never accepted any less than our best work. It has been an honor to be his student.

Without Melissa Kirkpatrick, this dissertation would never have been written. Over the years, we have argued in symposia together, picked-up each other's children at day care, started a business, shared books and moments of inspiration, car-pooled to libraries and archives, commented on each other's outlines. Dr. Kirkpatrick provided insightful suggestions on this project during the research, read the entire manuscript, and wrestled the tables into the proper font. She has suffered through my dark nights of the soul (which usually come mid-aftemoon) and I am more grateful than I can express.

-IV- I also deeply appreciate the contributions made by Pete Daniel, of the

Smithsonian, and Peter Kuznick, of American University, both of whom

served on my dissertation committee. Each took the time to give the

manuscript a rigorous and critical reading, providing the suggestions that

directed its revision.

One gains particular insight and encouragement from hearing of the

work of others. Thus, I send thanks to Lu Ann Jones, who generously

discussed her own research, guided me to tlie books of other scholars, and

made me feel a little less isolated in my forays into rural social history.

Likewise, I gained much from talking with Katherine Jellison and from Pat

Evans, who may well be the most skilled researcher I ever m et

I wish also to thank Vivian Wiser for warning me not to get too

immersed in USD A Extension records and Wayne Rasmussen for explaining

agriculture records, sharing agency lore, and making me feel unfailingly welcome at Agriculture History Society luncheons. Douglas Helms of the

Soil Conservation Service took time to brief me on agricultural history and make pertinent suggestions on the research design; Charles McGovern of the

Smithsonian did likewise on advertising history. I am particularly glad he

directed me toward the J. Walter Thompson archives. John Flecknor, also of

the Smithsonian, gave me a valuable overview of advertising archives across the nation.

All historians are indebted to staff at research institutions, graduate

-V- students with no travel money perhaps the most slavishly. Christin Lutz of

Interlibrary Loan at American University proved to be absolutely gifted in tracking down ancient articles from popular magazines and agricultural journals. Elaine Engst and Nancy Dean, Department of Manuscripts and

University Archives at Cornell University, transformed what could have been a frustratingly brief visit into many folders of useful photocopies. Ellen

Gartrell, advertising specialist with the J. Walter Thompson Archives, Special

Collections Department at Duke University, went even further, arranging to have microfilm marketing surveys photocopied for a researcher who couldn't even come to her library.

Lisa Mangiafico and Cynthia Swanson, Women's History and Resource

Center at the General Federation of Women's Clubs headquarters, were gracious and helpful and interested; Jimmy Rush, Civil Reference Branch at the National Archives, spent the better part of an afternoon tracking down a particular document—and found it; Jean M. Dee, Population Division at the

Bureau of the Census, saved the schedule at a critical juncture by filling a reference request with unbelievable speed. All of these people know their records well and are fascinated by the research possibilities. This dissertation was enriched—and enlivened—by their assistance.

I want also to thank Nancy and Cal Larson for piquing my curiosity in history and proofreading this manuscript, Susan Mook for her advice on the intricacies of library and special collection research, and John Mook for his

-VI- memories of a Progressive era childhood in rural Indiana.

My husband Jonathan Mook provided moral and financial support

over the course of my graduate career, served as a sounding board during

the long period I was researching this project, read the manuscript critically,

and helped me prepare for my defense. Living up to Jon's expectations was

a great impetus over the years. He assumed I could do whatever I chose—

finish my degree, raise kids, do consulting research, edit books, run a youth

group, continue my civic work—whatever. He did, however, point out that it was not necessary to do everything simultaneously.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge my children: Ben, Nate, and Galen

Mook. They clutter my house and animate my days. Life with the boys may not be serene, but, then, not all scholars were meant to labor in quiet contemplation. Some of us actually do better against the backdrop of trumpet practice, fevered descriptions of magnificent hook shots, and time out for a little lap.

-Vil- PREFACE

When I was in college, in between late-night discussions of philosophy

(Was it even possible for a student at a small university in Appleton,

Wisconsin to properly be considered a nihilist?) and days spent watching the

Vietnam War wind down, I visited my grandparents' farm.

Whereas my Escanaba, Michigan grandmother had at some point abandoned her huge old Victorian house with the mysterious attic and the broad, mahogany stair rails for a modern place with a lawn sloping down to

Little Bay de Noc, my Weyawega grandparents lived in the house originally built by great-grandfather Hans Peter when he first immigrated to America in

1871. As a city child living at the base of the Rockies, I had been fascinated by the barn on our summer visits to the farm. Not only were there musty, sweet smelling corners and hay wagons to leap into from the loft (my grandmother told my mother that, sometimes, it's best just to draw the shades and not inquire too closely into the afternoon's activities), there was the structure itself, hand-hewed beams notched together without a single nail.

And I liked best trailing around after my Grandpa Fred, peering over the rim of the milk separator, munching on Lifesavers whenever my folks weren't looking.

-vni- As a college student, though, I became fascinated with the work of the farm house. Things I had taken for granted as a child — the fact that my grandmother's hair was always beautifully permed, that her nails were not only long, but neatly polished, that she smelled of lilac talc — loomed large once I could appreciate the tremendous amount of work she did in the kitchen, in the laundry, in the home garden, in the pen where the new calves were kept. I had always thought it interesting that my grandparents, who had access to more animals than I had ever dreamed, would allow no pets in the house. As a teenager, I noticed that my grandmother preferred plastic and silk flowers to real ones, that she preferred to keep the awnings up and the shades pulled at night, in contrast to my parents who didn't have draperies on most of the windows of their house. On the farm, a sharp distinction was drawn between indoors and outdoors, between nature and manmade and this was a distinction that made my grandmother very comfortable.

I still have a jar of hickory nuts that Grandma Corliss and I collected one fall afternoon. Bundled up in layers of sweaters, with scarves tied under our chins, we wandered along the fence line of neighboring farms. We really wanted butternuts, but there were none to be had and I'm not sure I would have even recognized the difference. But we had a grand time, with Corliss telling me tales of persnickety cows who, year after year, loped off to give birth in secret and of all the people who once had lived on the adjoining

-IX- farms and where their people had come from and where their children lived now.

Grandpa Fred had built my grandmother a modern kitchen on the first floor of her house, with a big dining room and closed-in sun porch and piano in the parlor. No one ever went upstairs when I was growing up. Instead,

Grandma Corliss continued to cook the most incredible breads and pastries on a wood burning stove in the basement and pull homemade strawberry preserves out of a gigantic freezer that sat right next to a long chestnut wood table at which she had fed many children and many farm hands when my father was growing up. I would help wash peas, sometimes, dipping them in a stainless steel bowl, and my grandmother would stop to point out a big gash on the table leg made by somebody's tricycle, she couldn't remember whose. There was a shower off the kitchen in the basement where my grandfather would get cleaned up. Then he would sit in an overstuffed rocking chair with a skirt along the bottom, reading farm newspapers and bulletins while my grandmother bustled about finishing supper. By the time

I was in college, my grandparents mostly lived upstairs with the television

(and Lawrence Welk), but my grandmother still cooked in the basement and sent me back to school each time with bread browned evenly and perfectly raised.

Then I got my own kitchen and my own babies and went to graduate school in another part of the country and continued to admire my

-X- grandmother's perfect grooming and the fact that she wore that pretty, ladylike watch my grandfather had given her, long after she could easily read the numbers. But, mostly, in graduate school, I began to realize that no one seemed to be telling my grandmother's story.

The tale of industrializing America was told through the life of my other grandmother, who descended from small-scale midwestem timber barons, married a Harvard-educated son of Irish immigrants at the

Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago, started life with one set of Wedgewood china just for breakfast, lost everything in the crash, and managed to get her four children through the Great Depression armed primarily with a Masters

Degree in French. Tall and elegant, this grandmother was a true Upper

Peninsula aristocrat; she always wore a hat and gloves to town and left behind a stunning hand-beaded, drop-waisted, ankle-length crimson evening gown from the early days of her marriage in the 1920s.

But my Grandma Corliss has, sitting on her piano, a tinted photograph of herself, perhaps taken that very same year: hair-bobbed, fur-trimmed lambs-wool coat, slightly saucy glance through probably blackened eyelashes, every bit as modern as my Michigan grandmother. Where, I wondered, was

Grandma Corliss in the history books? From what I was reading, about 1880 most everybody moved to the city, where they modernized at a terrific rate.

Those left behind in the countryside ended up in Let Us Now Praise Famous

Men.

-XI- But my grandmother on the farm is a great saver. As a child, I had

seen, tucked away into out-buildings surrounding the barn, relics of what I

later came to recognize as the new consumer society. Remember my

grandmother's fascination with manmade things. I knew for a fact that the

advertising industry must have reached at least some distance into the countryside, because I'd seen the fruits of that effort, outmoded now but too precious to discard, crammed into the unneeded spaces of the family homestead.

And so, I went looking in the farm homes of the nation for the footprint of the modern, industrial, consumer-oriented society. What I found was a vigorous debate, among farm families (mostly through the voices of their women), rural reformers, government experts, the advertising industry, newspaper editors, and women's organizations, as to what it meant to live the good life in twentieth century America. I learned that the rural community was not bypassed by modernization, it was fully engaged in its definition.

To tell the story of the cultural negotiations of the rural community, I have chosen to try and capture the different threads of the argument, to introduce the various speakers in their own words, to tell my grandmother's life. In the years that I have been working on this dissertation, many excellent works on rural social history have been published, many scholars have generously taken time to discuss theories and record collections, all of

-XU- which has helped enormously. But mostly, this project has been driven by recollections of my grandmother. There is much to be learned from ladies who know the importance of a good loaf of bread. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iv

PREFACE ...... viii

LIST OF TABLES...... xv

INTRODUCTION...... 1

Chapter

1. MYTHS, REALITIES AND IDENTIFIABLE CONSTITUENCIES . . 11

2. LESSONS FOR LIVING ...... 62

3. WHAT DO WOMEN WANT? ...... 101

4. USDA IN KITCHEN AND PARLOUR ...... 149

5. GOOD LIFE IN THE COUNTRY ...... 192

6. THE PROMISE OF PROGRESSIVISM...... 234

CONCLUSION...... 280

Appendix

1. CIRCULAR OF QUESTIONS, COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION . 292

2. REPORT OF THE GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS TENTH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE ...... 294

3. RURAL AMENITIES ...... 298

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 308

- x iv - LIST OF TABLES

Table

1. Census Divisions by State ...... 43

2. Illiterates in the Population 10 Years and Over, 1900 ...... 46-47

3. Value of all farm property by region...... 48

4. Increase in value of all farm property, 1900 to 1910...... 49

5. Percent Illiteracy 10 Years and Over, 1890-1930 ...... 51

6. Education of Respondants to Farmer's Wife Survey...... 175

7. Economic Status of Respondants to Farmer's Wife Survey ...... 177

8. The Business Side of the Farm Woman's Life ...... 179

9. Assessment of Rural Life as Reported By Emily Hoag...... 182

10. Gross Domestic Product in 1929 Prices (in billions)...... 238

11. Average Annual Compensation Per Full-Time Employees, Selected Industries, 1919-1929 ...... 239

12. Farm Occupations, 1920 and 1930 (in thousands)...... 241

13. Percent Use of Modem Amenities on Farms in 1920, Selected States. . 257

14. Value of Agricultural Products, by State, 1920 ...... 259-260

15. Percent of All Farm Land Operated by Tenants, 1920 ...... 261

16a. 1920 census-based figures on auto and telephone use (Alabama-Louisiana) ...... 298

-XV- 16b.—1920 census-based figures on water and lighting on farms (Alabama-Louisiana) ...... 299

16c.—1920 census-based figures on auto and telephone use (Maine-North Dakota) ...... 300

16d.—1920 census-based figures on water and lighting on farms (Maine-North Dakota) ...... 301

16e.—1920 census-based figures on auto and telephone use (Ohio-Wyoming) ...... 302

16f.—1920 census-based figures on water and lighting on farms (Ohio-Wyoming) ...... 303

17. Bathrooms in farm homes, 1920 ...... 304

18. Farm homes heated by furnaces, 1920 ...... 305

19. Farms having gasoline engines, 1920 ...... 306

20. Farms having manure spreaders, 1920 ...... 307

-XVI- INTRODUCTION

Martha Van Rensselaer, director of the New York College of Home

Economics, heard from farm woman Elizabeth L. Arthur in 1912: "Your recent

interesting bulletin on reading in the farm home received and contents

noted....You ask what I read. I start the day early in the morning, with

reading the Bible; a wise plan, as you undoubtedly know. As opportunity

comes during the day, I make my selection of reading from the following

sources, which are constantly present in out home." Eager to answer the questions in this rural survey, Elizabeth Arthur then went on to list the titles

of twenty national circulation magazines and two newspapers (four other magazines having recently been canceled "as we did not have time to quite do justice to everything"). In addition to passing on books and magazines to less fortunate neighbors, the Arthur women read aloud at the dinner table to

Father, who rarely had time to read for himself. "No one can afford to live his life without jknowledge of the manner in which other lives are throbbed out..if there is any line of work, any study, which has not its connection with, or lesson for, farm life, I have yet to meet it."

Having answered the questions on reading to her own satisfaction,

Elizabeth Arthur made note of a recent bulletin on home decoration and for

-1 - -2 - three tightiy written pages proceeded to tell Van Rensselaer exactly how the

Arthur farmhouse was furnished, even down to the pale-green sidewall bordered with pink roses. This farm woman was not listing her possessions for mere caprice, she was staking her claim to the twentieth century. "Permit me to say that in our some what large acquaintance among farmers of Lewis

County, all, or nearly all; who own their own farms, and some tenants, have just as many comforts, and are quite as well-read as we." Arthur found it galling that national magazines should portray farm life as "doleful."

Of course we have to work hard—but no harder than any others of the laboring class, and we have many more privileges and blessings. Washing machine, sewing machine, carpet-sweeper, wheel-hoe and telephone have been with us so long that we take no more tho't of using them than of making use of toothbrush or bathroom. We plan to purchase a vacuum cleaner, as have many of our friends, as a matter of domestic economy.^

Both intellectually and materially, Elizabeth Arthur clearly saw her family as being squarely within the cultural mainstream: "Altho farmers, I think such good things are digested and assimilated as they well deserve."^

This dissertation focusses on the dialogue within the rural community and between the country and the city about the "good life," about how the rural community fit into a modern, consumption-oriented, industrial-based

^Elizabeth L. Arthur, "The Wayside," Lowville, New York to Martha Van Rensselaer, Ithaca, New York, 18 March 1912, Home Economics Records, 23/2/749/, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York.

% id. - 3- economy. Other historians have looked at this same cultural negotiation, but from a slightly different perspective. Some have focussed on the incursions into the rural community by outsiders, documenting the sometimes foolish and sometimes disastrous reform efforts of Progressives too distant from farm life to anticipate the ramifications of proposed change and too arrogant to understand the significance of rural resistance.^ Others have concentrated on internal social and economic networks developed within the rural community, pointing out how inclusion in such networks served rural families as both a buffer against change and a mechanism for accommodation whereas exclusion left families, and particularly women, vulnerable to being buffeted from all sides.^

By taking as its point of departure the conversation between small town and farm families. Progressive reformers, magazine editors, government

^See David B. Danbom, The Resisted Revolution: Urban America and the Industrialization of Agriculture, 1900-1930 (Ames: The Iowa State University Press, 1979); David E. Whisnant, All That is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region, The Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983); and Mary Neth, Preserving the Family Farm: Farm Families and Communities in the Midwest, 1900-1940" (PhD. diss.. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1987).

^See Mary Neth, "Preserving the Family Farm"; Nancy Grey Osterud, Bonds of Community: The Lives of Farm Women in Nmeteentii Centurv New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991); Donald B. Marti, Women of the Grange: Mutuality and Sisterhood in Rural America, 1866-1920, Contributions in Women's Studies, Number 124 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991); and Deborah Fink, Agrarian Women: Wives and Mothers in Rural Nebraska, 1880-1940, Studies in Rural Culture, ed. Jack Temple Kirby (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992). - 4- officials, and national advertisers over what constituted good life in the country in an urban, industrial nation, this dissertation focusses less on the internal workings of the rural community and more on the exchange of information and opinion between that community and the rest of the nation.

This was a conversation characterized by two factors. First, though the letters to the editor and statements to various agencies purportedly reflected the opinions of rural families, they were expressed in the voices of rural women. Men engaged in the dialogue—as agency heads and prominent reformers and agricultural journalists—this is overwhelmingly a history of articulate country women. Secondly, this is a history almost exclusively of literate women.

To find oneself in the company of women should come as no surprise. Most of the recent work on rural life has highlighted women, particularly that examining the significance of internal communiiy networks.

This is perfectly consist with studies of urban women and their municipal housekeeping efforts in the early decades of the twentieth century. Arising out of nineteenth century theories cordoning off matters of domesticity and child rearing as the particular providence of women, there was during the

Progressive Era an expansion of female reform into public issues impinging on quality of life.® And, indeed, the significance of reading and general

®See Robyn Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1991); Sandra Schackel, Social Housekeepers; Women Shaping Public Policv in New Mexico, 1920-1940 - 5- literacy has not been overlooked by these historians. Many, many women's reform efforts grew out of literary clubs, as ladies in their parlors moved from discussing Virgil to the eight-hour day.®

This dissertation takes the notion of networks of women and literacy and gives them a slightly different twist. For many of the rural women who speak through this study, formal association with other women was out of the question. Too isolated geographically, too encumbered by the labors of household and farm business, these were women who might rarely go to town, who might never venture beyond the boundaries of their own county.

Yet, the record shows that these were also women not constrained by limitations of space and time. Neither excluded from the national debate over a changing American culture nor restricted in their conversation to those in their immediate neighborhoods, the women in this dissertation formed their connections with the larger world through the written word. Elizabeth

Arthur might not travel often—or ever—to Ithaca, New York, but she could

(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992); Marsha Wedell, Elite Women and the Reform Impulse, 1875-1915 (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1991); Glenna Matthews, "lust a Housewife:" The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America (New York, Oxford University Press, 1987); and Dolores Hayden, The Grand Domestic Revolution: A Historv of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1981).

®See Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American Historv (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991) and Mary Jean Houde, Reaching Out: A Storv of the General Federation of Women's Clubs (Chicago: Mobium Press, 1989). -6 -

read College of Home Economics bulletins and send off her letter to Martha

Van Rensselaer. For Elizabeth Arthur, entree into the cultural negotiations of

the twentieth century came not through literary society, but through her own

literacy and desire to engage the world in conversation.

It is the contention of this dissertation that literacy remained central

to rural women's access to the public forum well into the twentieth century,

serving as a primary form of political expression in the years before suffrage.’'

Armed with education, linked to the farthest outpoint through Rural Free

Delivery, women on farms and in small towns were able to engage in the

national debate over what constituted good life in America, good life in the

country. What's more, they were invited to speak up. Progressive reformers,

especially those in the federal government, made a concerted effort to tap

into rural opinion, distributing surveys and endorsing letter writing contests

in the agricultural press on issues like, "Would You Want Your Daughter to

Marry a Farmer?" Rural uplift was primarily a matter of magazine articles,

bulletins, and circulars—all offering special topic education and moral suasion,

all dependant on rural literacy to be effective. The efforts of reformers were

aimed toward "progressive" rural families; not necessarily those who were currently affluent and influential, but those who were so placed by education

’'Paula Baker, in The Moral Frameworks of Public Life: Gender, Politics, and the State in Rural New York, 1870-1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), explores alternative forms of civic activism employed by rural women unable to mediate their public policy concerns through the ballot box. - 7 - and initiative as to benefit from reform efforts and become affluent and influential.

The same might be said of the efforts of national advertisers. Quite literally inventing itself as it moved into the early decades of the twentieth century, the advertising industry targeted both families with appreciable disposable income and those who might be expected to someday have significant purchasing power. Historians have concentrated on advertising's reach into city households, only glancing quickly at the rural buyer.® By contrast, this dissertation looks directly to the national magazines and the advertising industry as providing the context within which the debate over quality of rural life took place.

By focussing on the conversation within the rural community and between city and country over what should constitute good life in America, by highlighting the voices of articulate rural women, by emphasizing literacy as a mechanism for extending women's networks, by setting the debate over modernity within the context of national advertising, this dissertation seeks to add new elements to our understanding of rural life in the early decades of

®See James D. Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American SocietV/1865-1920, Contributions in Economics and Economic History, Number 110 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990); Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989); Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); and Daniel Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising (New York: Basic Books, 1983). -8 - the twentieth century. But it also does so within a particular theoretical construct

Much that is valid has been written about the manipulative efforts of the federal government and large-scale agri-business to impose an industrial agriculture on the countryside, of urban manufacturers and national advertising to reshuffle household habits and spending patterns to promote consumption, of progressive reformers to tie certain behaviors to particular products in an attempt to promote cultural change.^ Within the context of this sort of inquiry, the overarching question then becomes, "How did rural people resist the incursions of modern, industrial America and keep their communities intact?"

Work for this dissertation began with the suspicion that rural households found many modern technologies and entertainments attractive and consistent with a coherent rural culture. Further, it was assumed that, no matter how enthralling the blandishments, rural consumers did not suspend their critical faculties when confronted with modern advertising or the prompting of Progressive reformers.^® Finally, the research was

’See David Danbom, Resisted Revolution; Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York: Basic Books, 1983); Richard W ightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears, eds.. The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American Flistory, 1880-1980 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983); and Mary Neth, "Preserving the Family Farm."

^“There is precedent for both of these assumptions. Katherine Kay Jellison, "Entitled to Power: Farm Women and Technology, 1913-1963" (Ph.D. -9- undergirded with a fundamental belief that most people, within the rubric of their own understanding of the situation, make decisions with the best of intentions, though their actions may have regrettable unanticipated results.

If this dissertation is about a conversation, its conclusions hinge on choices, stemming from the absolute conviction that rural families had both the leeway and the inclination to size up social transformation on their own terms. For this study the question was, "How did rural families assess the changes of modem, industrial America and on what terms did they choose to participate in the consumer culture?"

Ultimately, the conversation between rural women, reformers, editors, bureaucrats, and advertisers suggests that the twentieth century came as neither a surprise nor a shock to the countryside. The literate women in this study do not so much take issue with the basic precepts of a consumer- oriented culture, as adapt those precepts to their own ends. Although there was vigorous disagreement as to whether modem conveniences were critical for maintaining acceptable standards of living, this was an argument over timing. At issue was not whether household technologies, improved communications and transportation should be acquired, but when. Likewise,

diss.. The University of Iowa, 1991), makes the point that farm women found field and household equipment attractive, although they did not buy into the notion that acquisition of same should encourage them to restrict their activities to stereotypical "homemaker" tasks. Likewise, James D. Norris, in Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, argues that advertising merely exploits well-ingrained American characteristics, it does not have the power to instill new values or override old. -lo­ in their strong defense of farm life, rural families, largely in the words of their women, reflect a general agreement that fuU participation in American society should be measured by standard of living. Far from rejecting that yardstick, rural families were merely arguing that country living was equal, if not superior, to anything the city had to offer. Country women appear to have been less threatened by the changes modern technologies triggered in their household patterns, than by urban perceptions of rural backwardness and ineptitude.

Well-read, opinionated, with "many comforts" or without, the women in this study serve to enlarge our understanding of the social and economic transformations of consumption-oriented industrialism. Without these voices, such change could be interpreted as a matter of top-down imposition, engineered by the captains of industry, the technocrats of reform. To overlook the self- determination of rural women would be "doleful," indeed. CHAPTER ONE

MYTHS, REALITIES AND IDENTIFIABLE CONSTITUENCIES

When people write to know when we shall be back in the city, I answer I will stay in the country all my life, if possible. I cannot explain it to you—you simply don't Imow what we get, and you don't know what the real world is. Yours is a world of folks and stores; ours is a world of God and nature.^

If there was one thing people seemed to agree upon in 1900, it was the superiority of country living. Across the spectrum of the new national magazines, from the ten-cent monthlies to the tonier thirty-five-cent journals, everyone was writing about the perils of urban life and outlining appropriate rural solutions.^ This is not to suggest that people were actually moving to the countryside. Already by the 1880 census, half of all American workers labored in manufacturing, mining, trade, transportation, or services.®

Unprecedented rates of immigration and industrialization continued to tip the

^"Women and Country Life," The Independent, 53 (7 February 1901): 341.

’^Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1900-1904 lists fifty-six articles under the heading "Country Life," most with titles like "Countty, the Natural Birthplace of Talent," "From the Horrors of City Life," "Health in Town and Country," "Possibilities of Country Life," and "Re-flow from Town to Country." Some are more clearly romantic: "Grandmother's Garden," "Harvest of the Hedgerows," "Nine Acres of Eden," "Winter, Dogs, and Books."

®Margo J. Anderson, The American Census: A Social Historv (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 84.

-1 1 - -1 2 -

American population into the cities. Warned by Frederick Jackson Turner in

1893 that the western frontier would no longer serve as a social safety valve,

Americans learned from the 1900 census that the nation was not only spread coast to coast, but peopled by foreigners who were joining the native-born to cluster in dynamically growing industrial regions.^ By 1920, census figures would show an overall population growth rate of about 14 million over the previous decade. The urban population would grow by 19 million and the rural population decline by 5 million.®

All of this caused great consternation. Commentators wondered how an ever decreasing number of farmers could even begin to feed a burgeoning urban population. But there was something much more fundamental at stake as well. Rural America stood at the center of the national ethos of participatory democracy and republican morality. Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning in 1902, pointed out that most of the "Great Presidents" had been reared in the country.® The farmer, holding tight to traditional

American ideals, provided, in the words of historian Earle D. Ross, "an essential bulwark against dangerous social and political innovations."^

Because of his surroundings and the nature of his work, the farmer retained:

% id., 86.

®Ibid., 134.

®Earle D. Ross, "Roosevelt and Agriculture," Journal of American Historv 14 (December 1927): 288.

"Ibid., 297. -13-

the qualities which we like to think of as distinctly American in considering our early history. The man who tills his own farm, whether on the prairie or in the woodland, the man who grows what we eat and the raw material which is worked up into what we wear, still exists more nearly under the conditions which obtained when the "embattled farmers" of '76 made this country a nation than is true of any other of our people.®

Towns around which rural communities radiated were drawn under

this cloak of democratic morality, even in the historical imagination. Robert

Weibe, looking for contrast to the new cities, considered small towns to be

"Usually homogeneous, usually Protestant, enjoy[ing] an inner stability that

the coming and going of members seldom shook."’ As the nation became

more urban, memories of the countryside became more poignant. "From a

distance the towns exemplified a levelled democracy, sustaining neither an

aristocracy of name nor an aristocracy of occupation."^® Closer scrutiny, of

course, revealed a social structure much more complex and stratified.^^ But,

at the turn of the century, the nation was in thrall to nostalgia and

disinclined to criticize the past for fear of unleashing the future.

By contrast, cities were veritable dens of iniquity, fascinating but ultimately repellent. Theodore Dreiser epitomized American sentiment when

®Theodore Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers New York: Hom eward Bound Edition, 1910), 5:1373; as quoted in Ross, "Roosevelt and Agriculture," 298.

’Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill & Wang, 1967), 2.

'«Ibid., 2-3.

“Ibid., 3. -14- he sent Sister Carrie off to seek her fortune in the city. Boundlessly enthusiastic at first, she ultimately was destroyed by the experience.^" As historian Alan Trachtenberg pointed out, urban areas became in the public imagination, places of mystery and menace, of intriguing prosperity but also places of "poverty, crime, threat of insurrection, political corruption, and the physical dangers (adding a mechanical, automatic element to the fear of apocalypse) of exploding gas mains and inflammable electrical wires. The response, on the part of reformers, such as Frederick Law Olmstead, was to import to the city the social cohesion of the countryside by replicating its physical form in parks and residential enclaves.^^ But other reformers suggested departing the city altogether.

Edward Bok, influential and opinionated editor of the Ladies' Home

Tournai, devoted a closely set page of his July 1900 issue to the notion that moving to the country would be the salvation of the American business man.

Only there would he be able to protect his health from the "wear and tear to which he is necessarily submitted...away from the actual scene of his daily grind." Those men foolish enough to beheve city living was essential to their careers undermined their own productivity and mistreated their families. "It

^"Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (New York: Norton Publishing, Company, 1970).

^®Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture & Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill & Wang, 1982), 104.

i^Ibid., 107-110. -15- is a safe assertion that the majority of women—I am speaking now of normal women—if given their own free choice, would live in the country year round."

But, the "selfishness of men is keeping penned up in close, unventilated city quarters, hundreds of women and children living in the polluted atmosphere of the crowded centres, who would gladly move into the country, and get the unpoisoned, sweet, pure air which the space and sunshine of the suburbs would give them."^®

Bok, of course, was really only talking about those patches of countryside ringing major cities, from which American men of business could take a train to work and in which American mothers could rear their children, commune with Nature, and breathe—elegantly. Nowhere does he mention cows. But many writers were urging their readers to return to the agricultural economy, itself. Even with the hindsight of almost one hundred years, even knowing full well the hardships of farming, it is difficult not to be beguiled by the words of those such as E. P. Powell, who detailed "A

Summer's Day in the Country:"

Waked at just three o'clock. I could hear in the far off east a single bird song—the advanced and advancing note of the Choral wave, that started one hour ago at the Atlantic, and is on its way to the Pacific. It is away down in the valley, and moving very slowly toward me. One bird joins in after another. It is the robin's song; high jubilant and overlooking. At four o'clock I was out of bed, and was clothing myself with the delicate drapery of fresh morning air and grape perfume—for just now the grapes that ran over my verandas and porches are full of

^®Edward Bok, "The American Man and the Country," The Ladies' Home Tournai 17 (July 1900): 14. -1 6 -

bloom. The work hours have come both for sun and for man, but we will see if we can keep a Uttle poetry riming with the hoe and the plow....It is a beautiful sight to see the swaths lie, even, true, and steady. Over the fence our neighbor's Tim, a short, stumpy fellow with a face like a full moon, sings out, "The top o' the morning to you. Sir!" And to him I throw back, "TTie cream of the day to you, my boy!"^®

Bird song and flowers, good, honest manual labor (with tools sharpened on a

gasoline-driven emery stone), and neighborly camaraderie, what more could

m an ask?

Even more intriguing, agriculture was being pushed forward, at least

in some quarters, as an appropriate occupation for single women. The editor

of a metropolitan daily reported that he received at least once a month a letter from a woman, "generally a teacher in some city school," asking whether farming might be a logical alternative. "The reply to such a letter is always difficult. In general we may say that a woman with health and grit makes a good farmer—often better than a man." Being good managers, neat and clean, and naturally inquisitive, women, according to the Independent, had all the natural traits to make a success of the endeavor. "To run a farm nowadays leaves out three-fourths of what was included as hard work one hundred years ago. The work that is left is mostly within the compass of woman."^"

^®E. P. Powell, "A Summer's Day in the Country," The Independent 55 (16 July 1903): 1666-1668.

Women and Country Life," The Independent 55 (16 July 1903): 339-340. -17- Sigmficantiy, farming was "within the compass of woman" as much

because of scientific change as her own superior characteristics. Men and

women alike were freed from the drudgery of the past by technological

innovations and agricultural progress. A. C. True, director of the Office of

Experiment Stations, United States Department of Agriculture, looked with great optimism at the "every-day life of the farmers' family." Agricultural education was provoking an "intellectual awakening of the masses" at the very time when "the means are being afforded for greatly improving the material and social features of their environment."^® Key to the whole process was the amelioration of rural isolation. Railroads, construction of country roads, rural free mail delivery, cheap rural telephone service, trolley lines running into nearby cities, and consolidation of rural public schools all served to pull the farm family into the broad life of the nation. Labor-saving machinery, such as the tractor and the sewing machine, and the availability of industrial goods formerly made at home, all gave the farmer and his family "more time for brain work and for social enjoyment."^’ True ended his article with a veritable clarion call to the future:

In a great variety of ways the man of the country is falHng in line with the man of the city....Though somewhat late in joining the procession of mankind marching toward a new social order in which cooperative effort is to take the place of an excessive individualism, the farmer is

^®A. C. True, "Progress of Rural Improvement," The Chautauquan 37 (August 1903): 496.

I’Ibid., 498. -18- arriving, and his influence will be felt in the final and happier adjustment of human life to its environment"®

Intriguingly, sandwiched between True's final two sentences was a shadow on the future—one left totally unexplained. Having just commended the farmer for joining step with the man of the city. True continued, "Those sociologists who have been relying on the conservatism and simplicity of the great masses of the rural population to balance the progressiveness of the cities will have to take a new reckoning.""^ If not the farmer, then who would curb the excesses of the modern era?

But this was an interesting period for editorial optimism. Sure that they were in the midst of great change, equally sure that they were in the grasp of great science, essayists at the turn of the century seemed to write with guarded enthusiasm. What could be more backhanded than Clarence

H. Matson's 1902 tribute to rural life? After proudly announcing that, in the

East, the well-to-do were beginning to leave the city for the country and, in the West, the forces that lured country boys off the farm were losing their power, he went on to discuss the isolation and loneliness of farm life.

The majority of the inmates of the insane asylums in some Western States are women; a large per cent of them farmers' wives, sent to the insane hospitals, according to medical experts, by the melancholy

"«Ibid.

"ilbid. -19- induced by isolation.""

Children, overworked and separated from their fellows, habitually left the

farm to seek their fortunes in the city. "But now all this is changing."

Matson embraced the same laundry-list of progress as A. C. True: rural free

delivery, labor-saving machinery, telephones, school consolidation, and, his

own addition, traveling libraries. Conceding that there would always be a

certain flow from the country to the city ("the city needs the vitality and

strength of the country boy"), Matson announced that the rush of population

from the farm was over."®

There were those who saw the shadow over the countryside as

looming somewhat larger than Matson and True."^ Responding to a series of

editorials in the Independent extolling the virtues of the country home, a

""Clarence H. Matson, "Improved Conditions in the American Farmer's Life," Review of Reviews 26 (September 1902): 329. An 1862 annual report from the Commission of Agriculture had first suggested that farm women were particularly vulnerable to mental illness. Though there is no statistical evidence that this was the case, reformers during the Populist and Progressive eras continued to speak of high levels of female insanity and blame it on the drudgery of farm labor. See Donald B. Marti, Women of the Grange: Mutuality and Sisterhood in Rural America, 1866-1920, Contributions in Women's Studies, No. 124 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 78-79.

"®Ibid., 331.

Again referring to those fifty-six articles under "Country Life" in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1900-1904, those written by rural reformers took a more serious tone. K. L. Butterfield wrote a series on the need to federate rural social forces to address problems in the countryside. G. T. Nesmith looked at the rural community and church reform. And, under the category "Farm Life," writers were examining "poverty on the farm," "rural regeneration," and "social problems of the farmer." -2 0 -

Kansas woman wondered in 1902 whether staff had considered all the ramifications:

Do you know what that means to a woman? It takes her away from the public conveniences of the city, such as gas and electricity, and public water supply; and places her where the chances are she will be compelled to use, and to clean, kerosene lamps; and for water rely on cisterns that give out in a dry time, and on weUs that rarely go thirty feet down into the earth....As for the telephone, it is getting around pretty fast, I allow; but it does not yet enter one-tenth of the country houses. So you see, making the best of it, you invite us women to something like pioneering."®

The Independent responded with an exercise in back-pedalling adroit even for that great age of the bicycle. Of course, editorial staff was not suggesting women move back to the countryside until they could be assured of deep wells (shallow wells should be banned by law) and good cisterns with pipes running into the kitchen. Gas and electricity should be rapidly extended to country folk, as should the trolley. "As for the telephone, it will be a stupid community that does not establish lines within the next five years." No, all those reservations on the part of the Kansas woman could be dealt with. The real problem, one that had the Independent stumped, was "help." "We are persistently excluding the Chinese, who at present time constitute the only available menials of the world. We might as well refuse to admit their teas.""®

Still, the editors maintained, "After all possible abatements and after

"®"The Country Home to Women," Independent 54 (22 May 1902): 1258.

"®Ibid., 1259. -2 1 -

discounting difficulties, there is no question but the country is the real home

of a human being—at least of a family.""" The solution, reminiscent of True's

intellectually awakened farmers, was to create a "stronger womanhood, a

grander motherhood." In contrast to urban women who were merely being

kept by their husbands and did no serious work, rural women needed to be

scientifically educated. In this, staff was merely endorsing the rest of the comments from the lady from Kansas: "Nothing can be accomplished in the way of creating this new age of yours until you have got a new woman."

She must understand the business of agriculture and "be an economist of the first class...she must understand tools, and not be afraid to use them...she must understand electricity, and be able to take charge of the dynamo.""®

Literally and figuratively, rural families were to take charge of the dynamo and ride it into the modern era.

The problem was, of course, that reality lagged quite a pace behind the new, technologically embellished agrarian myth. Many rural families would have been more than delighted to take charge of the dynamo and any number of other innovations—if they could only have laid their hands upon them.

It was this reality that President Theodore Roosevelt was hoping to address when, in 1908, he assembled his Coimtry Life Commission to study

""Ibid., 1260.

"®Ibid., 1259. -2 2 -

the problems of rural life (and gave them under a year to do so). Chaired by

the distinguished Liberty Hyde Bailey, the commission pulled together an

impressive group of agricultural experts and rural reformers. Their Report,

sent to the Senate in 1909, was written by Bailey (dean of the College of

Agriculture, Cornell University and internationally known horticulturalist)

and signed by Henry Wallace (Presbyterian minister, editor of Wallace's

Farmer, and influential agricultural spokesman in the Midwest), Kenyon L.

Butterfield (rural sociologist and president of the Massachusetts College of

Agriculture), Walter H. Page (expert on rural education, health, and sanitation and editor of the North Carolina progressive journal. World's

Work), Gifford Pinchot (Chief United States Forester, close friend to President

Roosevelt and the driving force behind the creation of the U.S. Forest

Service), Charles S. Barrett (president of the predominantly southern Farmer's

Cooperative and Educational Union of America), and WiUiam A. Beard

(editor of the Great West Magazine and proponent of irrigation in the

Sacramento Valley)."’

In his introduction of the Report to the Senate, Theodore Roosevelt noted that, on the basis of thirty public hearings and 120,000 returned

"’For more information on the individual members, see Melissa Kirkpatrick, "Re-Parishing the Countryside: Progressivism and Religious Interests in Rural Life Reform, 1908-1934" (Ph.D. diss., American University, 1991) and William L. Bowers, "Farmers and Reformers in an Urban Age: The Country Life Movement and the 'Rural Problem,' 1900-1920" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Iowa, 1968). -23- questioimaires, it looked as though "the general level of country life is high compared with any preceding time or with any other land."®® He then added,

"There is discontent in the country, and in places discouragement" Farming did not yield either "the profit or the satisfaction" that it might, largely because it failed "to satisfy the higher social and intellectual aspirations of country people." Farmers, with the assistance of government, needed to give as much attention to their own "betterment" as did the citizens of towns.®^

Such self-improvement should take three directions: better farming, better business, and better living on the farm. Since the U.S. Department of

Agriculture was already handling the better farming part of that prescription,

Roosevelt asked the Commission on Country Life to take up the other two aspects. And he had no doubt, whatsoever, that such an inquiry was well within the scope of the federal government, which should "use its influence and the machinery of publicity which it can control for calling public attention to the needs and the facts." Moreover, the "strengthening of country life" was tantamount to the "strengthening of the nation."

I warn my countrymen that the great recent progress made in city life is not a full measure of our civilization; for our civilization rests at bottom on the wholesomeness, the attractiveness, and the completeness, as well as the prosperity, of life in the country....Upon the development of country life reste ultimately our ability, by methods of farming requiring

®®For a listing of questions prepared by the Commission, see Appendix One.

®"Congress, Senate, Report of the Countrv Life Commission, 60th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Doc. No. 705, 9 February, 1909, 3-5. -24- the highest intelligence, to continue to feed and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city with fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that can endure the terrific strains of modern life; we need the development of men in the open country, who will be in the future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the nation in time of war, and its guiding and controlling spirit in time of peace.®"

So, what was wrong with country life? Profits were not commensurate with labor expended and risk; social conditions were, in many communities, deplorable.®® In the words of Liberty Hyde Bailey, "All these difficulties are the results of the unequal development of our contemporary civilization." A "complete and fundamental change in our whole economic system within the past century" had led to a rapid and complete adjustment in some occupations and little change in others. Urban areas were positioned to reap the benefits of the modern, industrial economy and rural areas were not. Farmers, working on a small scale, outside of cooperatives, were unable to achieve economies of scale, were unprepared to overcome the "inequalities and discriminations" caused by a transformation of manufacturing and commerce.

®"Ibid, 8-9. Statements such as these have prompted some scholars to interpret the Commission, and the subsequent Country Life Movement, as being primarily interested in retooling the countryside to benefit the cities (sort of a latter-day mercantilism, with agricultural communities playing the role of the 13 colonies). This study is more inclined to take Roosevelt at face value and to believe that his interest in rural life stemmed from a sincere conviction that the roots of American democracy were, indeed, sunk deep into the countryside. There would be, then, no contradiction in suggesting that what was good for the countryside was good for the nation.

®®Ibid., 14ff. -25- The immediate result was a drain of material and human resources, as community leaders, joined by the best and the brightest of the next generation, pulled up stakes and left for the cities. It was not "advisable," of course, for everyone to remain on the farm; machine-reliant, scientific agriculture was reducing the need for farm laborers. But it was disastrous for large numbers of land-owning farmers to abandon their land: "All this tends to sterilize the open country and to lower its social status." Even worse, drift toward the cities stripped the countryside of its natural leaders, making even less likely the estabHshment of economic and political parity.

"The city exploits the country; the country does not exploit the city."

We need young people of quality, energy, capacity, aspiration, and conviction, who will live in the open country as permanent residents on farms, or as teachers, or in other useful fields, and who, while developing their own business or affairs to the greatest perfection, will still have unselfish interest in the welfare of their communities.®^

Broadly, the Commission offered three recommendations for the

"reconstruction" of country life: a) an exhaustive study of the conditions of farm business and farm life, b) nationwide extension work, to take the techniques of scientific agriculture and domestic science directly into the rural community, and c) a campaign for rural progress, to draw the interests of education, organization, and religion into one national movement. More specifically, the Commission set out to remedy a list of deficiencies that made it impossible for the farm family to prosper: land speculation; monopolies of

®4fbid. -2 6 - streams and forests; restraint of trade by middle men and freight companies and bankers; poor roads and communication; soil depletion; agricultural labor shortages, though the emphasis was on the field and not the home; poor health and sanitation; and the deplorable working conditions of many farm women.

Perfectly consistent with progressive era faith in rational planning, professional expertise, and the inherent morality of individuals, the

Commission drew up a companion list of "general corrective forces that should be set in motion," correctives that, in their mechanics, closely resembled the agendas of urban progressive reformers. First, there was to be a series of national country life surveys. Rural schools and curricula at land grant colleges should be substantially revamped. The government should work with local communities to establish production and marketing cooperatives, as well as neighborhood-based social and civic organizations.

The rural church should, through consolidation of effort, move to the fore as a social and moral center, with the country pastor being better educated and more willing to serve as a prominent community leader. And every effort should be made to identify and nurture local leadership outside the clergy, making rural life more comfortable and rewarding so as to keep the cream of the crop down on the farm.

Central to this ambitious program were farmer organizations—most particularly the Grange—and the USD A. The cooperative bent of the -27- Commission was clear in Bailey's commendation of organizations that took the broadest possible view of their mandate.

A few great farmers' organizations have included in their declarations of purpose the whole field of social, educational, and economic work. Of such, of national scope, are Patrons of Husbandry and the Farmers' Union. These and similar large societies are effective in proportion as they maintain local branches that work toward specific ends in their communities.®®

The Commission urged that state laws be passed to give farmers' organizations as much protection under the law as currently existed for corporations and banks.

Bailey, likewise, praised the USDA for working with agricultural colleges to establish extension programs that sought to "reach the people in their homes and on their own ground." Not limited to explaining farming techniques, extension work included local agricultural surveys, programs in schools, demonstration farms, boys' and girls' clubs, nature study, reading clubs, library extension, farmers' institutes, traveling schools, and coordination with rural men's and women's clubs. Such USDA efforts should be encouraged. Or, as Theodore Roosevelt put it

[I]t is of the first importance that the United States Department of Agriculture, through which as prime agent the ideas the commission stands for must reach the people, should become without delay in fact a Department of Country Life, fitted to deal not only with crops, but also with all the larger aspects of life in the open country.®®

®®Ibid.

®®Ibid., 6. -28- Congress and the USDA took exception to Roosevelt's plans. Only too happy to block what it considered yet another example of executive over­ reaching, Congress ignored Roosevelt's request that $25,000 be appropriated by Congress to circulate the Report and shortly thereafter passed an amendment outlawing any future appropriations to continue the work of the

Country Life Commission.®" That the Report saw the light of day at all was thanks to the intercession of Senator Jonathan P. DoUiver of Iowa, who arranged to have about 2,000 copied printed as a Senate document.®®

Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, offended that the Country Life

Commission had operated independent of his agency and apparently well aware that there were efforts afoot to have him replaced by a secretary more amenable to economic and social change, did his best to squelch the report.®"

He ordered Bailey to deliver the questionnaires to the USDA, where they languished throughout the Taft administration to be ultimately ordered burned by President Woodrow Wilson's secretary of agriculture, D. F.

Houston. In the short-term, it was quite a victory for those who considered

"social uplift" to be totally outside the purview of government.

The Report, however, had an interesting shelf life. Two years after

Congress refused to endorse the document, it was picked up by the Spokane

®"Clayton S. EUsworth, "Theodore Rossevelt's Country Life Commission," Agricultural History 34 (October 1960): 170.

®®Ibid.

®"EUsworth, "Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission," 169-170. -29- Chamber of Commerce for distribution throughout the Northwest and also

was published by a commercial firm in New York City. Years later, in 1944,

it was once again printed, this time by the University of North Carolina

Press.®* More significantly, the Reports authors and supporters regrouped

immediately after the Congressional rebuff, encouraged not a little by ex-

President Roosevelt, who reportedly was much chagrined that his project had

been disregarded and ridiculed.®’ Historian Earle D. Ross outlined the

influence of Roosevelts efforts, when he wrote in 1927,

Inauspicious as was its start, and incomplete and superficial as much of its investigation was bound to be, the interest that the Commission's work and Roosevelt's discussion of it aroused served, in the opinion of competent observers, to initiate the modern country-life movement, with its progressing constructive investigations and studies and its more systematic and efficient organization.^®

The activities of agricultural experts, rural sociologists, religious leaders, and

other rural progressives coalesced in the country life movement, which began

systematically to implement the recommendations of Roosevelt's Country Life

Commission.^

®*Ibid., 171.

®’Ross, "Roosevelt and Agriculture," 309.

^Ibid.

“A truly detailed discussion of the Country Life Movement is outside the scope of this project. For more information, see David B. Danbom, The Resisted Revolution: Urban America and the Industrialization of Agriculture, 1900-1930 (Ames: The Iowa State University Press, 1979), esp. 51-120; William L. Bower, The Countrv Life Movement in America, 1900-1920 (Port Washington, NY: National University Publications, 1974); and Mary Neth, "Preserving the Family Farm: Farm Families and Communities in tiie -so­ it was no accident that rural reformers came to refer to their efforts as

the "country life" movement At stake was a way of life; repeatedly in

speeches and articles, rural progressives insisted that, although raising the

standard of living was critical, the "really important thing" was the "ideal" of

country life/^ Henry C. Wallace argued that farm leaders, "must set the

minds of the farmers on fire with the desire for a rural civilization carrying

significant economic satisfaction, beauty, and culture to offset completely the

lure of the city."^ The task for these "men of vision," was to promote a

"well-rounded, self-sustaining national life in which there shall be a fair

balance between industry and agriculture and in which our agriculture shall

not be sacrificed for the building of the cities."^

The cities themselves were viewed by rural Progressives less with

unsophistication than with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Gone were the

nineteenth-century strictures against meccas of vice and decadence.

Reformers feared not that they would lose their children to the fleshpots of

the city, but that the best of the next generation would abandon the land for

the paved roads, electrical appliances, bakery bread, mass transit, and

Midwest, 1900-1940" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1987), 126-232.

^^Henry Cantwell Wallace, Our Debt and Duty to the Farmer (New York: The Century Co., 1925), 230.

^Ibid., 231.

^Ibid., 232. -31- dramatic theaters of the city. Thus, an absolutely essential feature of rural

progressivism was "the development of rural conveniences which make

country life more enjoyable."^ That the cities would grow at a faster clip

than the countryside was a foregone conclusion; increased productivity

"released populations" that previously had been critical to the rural

economy/^ Country life reformers were primarily concerned that such

growth not come at the expense of agriculture. "Country populations have a

right in their own stead to enjoy all that life offers, even if they do not

contemplate leaving the soil for the city.^^

Richard McCormick, writing of urban reformers, suggested that

progressives had a "deep ambivalence" about industrialism and its

consequences, but that they "fundamentally accepted an industrial society

and sought mainly to control and ameliorate it."^® By embracing change,

these progressives hoped to mitigate its worst effects. Added to this

ambivalence about the modern, industrial economy, McCormick found two

other common threads running through all progressive reform: a

fundamental belief in progress and a conviction that, through rational

^H. V. Norman, "Rural Conveniences," Annals of the American Academv of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 163.

^®John M. Gillette, "Conditions and Needs of Country Life," Annals of the American Academv of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 5.

m id ., 11.

Arthur S. Link and Richard L. McCormick, Progressivism (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1983), 114-115. -32- plamüng, men of good faith could "intervene in social and economic affairs" and impose order.^^ The latter tenet was inextricably bound to the former; one achieved progress through intelligent intervention. Tapping into the new fields of social science—statistics, economics, sociology—Americans would come to understand the underlying principles of social order and make adjustments to the benefit of everyone. There was, of course, a "powerful irony" in the progressive agenda: "reforms which gained support from a people angry with oppressive aspects of industrialism also assisted the same people to accommodate to it."®°

Within that same progressive rubric, rural reformers planned to use the techniques of scientific administration and social rationalization to revitalize and reassert the supremacy of rural civilization. By surveying agricultural communities, country life reformers could scientifically identify need and devise solutions. By improving the curricula of country schools and land grant colleges, by expanding extension work, reformers could ensure that people in the open country were fully trained to implement changes. By granting farmers' cooperatives protection under law and encouraging the formation of civic and social organizations, reformers could rationally coordinate the efforts of those trained men and women to significantly improve the caliber of rural life.

"’Ibid., 21-22.

®"Ibid., 21. -33-

The March 1912 issue of the Annals of the American Academy of

Political and Social Science, entitled, simply, "Country Life," encapsulated

rural progressive thought. Articles written by professors of sociology, political economy, agriculture and education, directors of experiment stations, prison associations and civic leagues, representatives of government agencies, national church organizations and agricultural journals were grouped into three categories making clear the need for change: "The Rural Problem,"

"Rural Industrial Problems," and "Rural Social Problems."

The articles also make clear the supremacy of country life, even under siege. As Myron T. Scudder, professor of Science of Education at Rutgers

College, insisted:

The fuUy developed rural mind, the product of its environment, is more original, more versatile, more accurate, more philosophical, more practical, more persevering than the urban mind; it is a larger, freer mind and dominates tremendously.... [Yet, despite this dominance] Isolation, hard work, long hours and small returns have increased discontent especially among the young, while the call of the city has been increasingly seductive....The uppermost sentiment nearly everywhere seems to be: "Anything but this! How can I get away?"®^

Some essayists, such as John M. Gillette, professor of sociology at the

University of North Dakota, seemed to feel that rural life was not intrinsically flawed. "We have evolved certain ideals of life with the growth of cities and civilization, have brought them to bear on country life with the result that the latter has been found backward in some aspects as measured by those

®"Myron T. Scudder, "Rural Recreation, A Socializing Factor," Annals of the American Academv of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 176. -34- ideals. However, once criticisms were raised, they had to be addressed.

Luckily, in the words of Edward T. Hartman, secretary of the

Massachusetts Civic League, "This is an era of hopeful progress."^ Through

"inter-play of thought" between country, village, and city, through a better home life, diversified church activities, improved education, and supervised play and recreation, a sane, constructive, social program could be developed.®" And the goal of such a program? According to Kenyon L.

Butterfield, president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College:

The American rural problem is to maintain upon the land a class of people who represent the best American ideals—in their industrial success, in their political influence, in their intelligence and moral character, and in their general social and class power.®®

Butterfield located the impetus for reform squarely in the schools:

"the teacher of rural sociology should also be to some degree a propagandist."

Most particularly, land grant colleges should assume "responsible leadership in stimulating a constructive development of the rural community." Thus, the scope of the college should reach beyond the classroom to include conferences on rural progress, plans for community development, and state-

®%illette, "Conditions and Needs of Country Life," 4.

®®Edward T. Hartman, "Village Problems and Characteristics," Annals of the American Academv of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 236.

®"Ibid., 234-236.

®®Kenyon L. Butterfield, "Rural Sociology as a College Discipline," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 15. -35- wide federation of rural social forces.®® Above all, curricula should do more

than merely train graduates in the techniques of agriculture; issues of rural

life must be encompassed. As F. B. Mumford, dean and director of the

College of Agriculture, University of Missouri, explained, schools must train

men and women to be competent citizens. "There is no justification for any

form of education which does not give to its possessor a greater efficiency.

Any type of education that diminishes to any extent whatsoever the ability of a student to perform the practical duties of citizenship is a menace to the state. "®^

Equally critical was the improvement of existing social organizations, such as farmers' cooperatives. The potential was great, but existing structures fell far short of doing their share in the revitalization of the countryside. E.

K. Eyerly, associate professor of rural sociology at the Massachusetts

Agricultural College, listed chapter and verse the failures of American cooperatives, which were sorely in need of "wise leadership and organization." Yet, there was every indication that efforts to organize farmers on a national scale into efficiently run cooperatives would have enormous benefits. "While the economic motive has been dominant in the organization of these societies and has been fully justified by the generally satisfactory

®®Ibid., 14, 18.

®^F. B. Mumford, "Education for Agriculture," Armais of the American Academv of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 19. -36- money returns, yet possibly more important has been the co-operative influence upon the farmer as a man and a citizen."®®

Churches, also, needed a major overhaul, primarily through consolidation and improved education of pastors. Usually the only community institution outside the school, the rural church was often oddly inadequate to local needs. According to George Wells of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, steps need be taken quickly lest the church "lose her place and leadership in the social advance of modern civilization as a whole."®’

A beginning has been made in the application of the scientific method to the study of rural religious conditions and problems. It may be stated as a rule that the rural problem approaches solution, from one standpoint at least, only in so far as use is made of the scientific method.®^

In their scramble to apply scientific principle to the "rural problem," progressives sometimes stretched to amusing lengths. Sociologist John

Gillette outlined his theory of "dynamogenesis." Strictly defined, the term pertained to the "production of increased nervous energy; dynamization of nerve-force."®^ In the hands of Gillette, however, the word became a truth:

®®E. K. Eyerly, "Co-Operative Movements Among Farmers," Annals of the American Academv of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 67.

®’George Frederick Wells, "The Rural Church," Annals of the American Academv of Political and Social Science 40 (March 1912): 131.

®’Ibid., 133.

®"The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. " dynamogenesis. " -37-

"Every idea seeks to realize itself in action."®^ Therefore, the pressing need in rural reform was not to halt urban migration or improve production or devise a more equitable marketing system or put agriculture on a more businesslike footing. Rather, the real need was to change the viewpoint of people who lived in the countryside. Because ideas always lead to action, rural problems stemmed from inadequate vision; "whatever is backward in country life is due to its outlook, and we can not hope for very great improvement until the outlook of rural inhabitants relative to the place and significance of farm life is transformed." With sufficient dynamogenesis, agriculturalists would realize that they constituted a great social class, able, through the ballot, to "protect itself from the exploitation of other classes of a predatory nature" (politicians, trusts, railways, middlemen). What was needed was for the farmer to change the manner in which he lived (to make his days more comfortable, interesting, and satisfying) and change the manner in which he socialized (to lay aside his extreme individualism and think in terms of group efforts).®® Gillette's dynamogensis, in short, was the very embodiment of the Progressive irony that promoted change in the name of preserving tradition.®"

In his Report to the Senate on behalf of the Country Life Commission,

®^John Gillette, "Conditions and Needs of Country Life," 6.

®®Ibid., 5-8 passim.

®"David Danbom, in Resisted Revolution, explores this irony and the unenthusiastic response of the rural community to reform exhortations. -38- Liberty Hyde Bailey contrasted pockets of unprecedented agricultural

prosperity with the "drift to poverty and degradation" in other regions. In

sorting out the situation, he divided the rural community by class.

There are two great classes of farmers—those who make farming a real and active constructive business, as much as the successful manufacturer or merchant makes his effort a business; and those who merely passively live on the land, often because they can not do anything else, and by dint of hard work and the strictest economy manage to subsist.®®

By Bailey's analysis, the two classes had strikingly different problems. In the former group, the farmer struggled with the disadvantages of operating as a

"separate man" against the combined antagonisms of railway trusts, corporate middle men, and a disinterested banking establishment. In the latter group were farmers "powerless against trade in general" and also "more or less helpless" in managing the logistics of farming.®®

The Commission proposed that reformers identify members of that first class and ameliorate their immediate problems through cooperatives, protective legislation, educational extension, and the provision of adequate utilities, transportation, and communication. That segment of the rural community would then turn around and, through leadership and example, minister to the needs of the "more or less helpless" class. "Everything resolves itself at the end into a question of personality. Society or government can not do much for country life unless there is voluntary

®®Ibid.

®®Country Life Commission, Report, 39. -39- response in the personal ideals of those who live in the country.®’' The task

that lay before rural progressives was one of identifying local leadership to

solve the problems of "an uncorrelated and unadjusted society."®®

The farming country is by no means devoid of leaders, and is not lost or incapable of helping itself, but it has been relatively overlooked by persons who are seeking great fields of usefulness. It will be well for us as a people if we recognize the opportunity for usefulness in the open country and consider that there is a call for service.®’

Despite his distinguishing between the "two great classes of farmers,"

Liberty Hyde Bailey was actually quite reluctant to discuss rural life in such hierarchical terms. Suggesting that America showed no sign of "the cohesion that is so marked among the different classes of farm folk in older countries,"

Bailey added, "nor is it desirable that a stratified society should be developed in this country." He congratulated his fellows that, "We have here no remnants of a feudal system, fortunately no system of entail, and no clearly drawn distinction between agricultural and other classes." The geographical mobility of the American farmer mitigated against the growth of class consciousness; that and his natural independence. "Even when permanently settled, the farmer does not easily combine with others for financial or social betterment." Self-reliant, strongly individualistic, the American farmer was

®%id., 63.

®®Ibid., 63-64.

®’Ibid., 65. -40- able to prosper by dint of his own effort/®

Not only was Bailey reluctant to consider that farmers might in any

sense—economic, social, regional, functional—constitute a discernable class, he

was quick to deny that financial success was an indication of either personal

worthiness or community influence. To the contrary, "high ideals may be quite independent of income." In fact, preoccupation with "the money purpose" distracted rural people from truly examining the strengths and weaknesses of their communities. "The complacent contentment in many rural neighborhoods is itself the very evidence of social incapacity or decay."^

If rural families were indistinguishable by class and worthy citizens could not be discovered by "property and standing," how did the country life reformers hope to identify and cultivate local leadership? When Teddy

Roosevelt's commissioners went to take the pulse of the nation's farmers, they automatically targeted a literate audience. Questionnaires were printed in major farm publications (reaching a group not only capable of reading, but one able to pay subscription fees); more questionnaires were sent to ministers, teachers, rural postal workers (tapping people already entrenched in leadership positions); hearings were held around the nation (attracting those affluent enough to get themselves dressed presentably and transported to the meeting, confident enough to speak publicly before officials

^“Liberty Hyde Bailey, Report, 49.

^Ibid., 63-64. -41- representing the President, himself). Not surprisingly, the Commission found itself strongly in sympathy with testimony received. Though they never announced their intentions in so many words, rural reformers clearly had in mind a literate constituency. Given this fact, it followed that the debate about good life in the countryside was neither fully representative of the agricultural community, nor evenly spread across the nation.

In 1900, there were 45,835 thousand Americans living in rural territory, compared to 30,160 thousand in urban territory.’'^ Within this rural territory, the farm population was clustered in the North Central (11,094 thousand) and Southern states (14,226 thousand). The Northeast lagged behind with 3,364 thousand people, and the West (the mountains of the far

Midwest to the Pacific Coast) had merely 1,192 thousand.’^ The Bureau of the Census did not keep personal income information for this early period, but one can extrapolate family finances—to a limited extent—by looking at the average value of farms by region in 1900. Interestingly, there was a major disparity between population and farm value. Farms in the North Central states, the second most populous area, averaged $4,354. But those in the

South, the most crowded rural section, were worth only $1,251. The

Northeast weighed in at $2,905 and the West, by far the most sparsely settled.

’'^U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 1 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1975), 11.

^Ibid., 458. -42- had an average of $5,329 per farm/" The average gross farm income for the country as a whole was $656 and ranged from $1,189 for the Western division; $815 for the North Central; $730 for the North Atlantic; $461 for the

South Central; and $419 for the South Atlantic region.^ [See Table 1 for a list of census divisions by state.]

By 1900, agriculture was already deep in the throes of what historians

Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude have referred to as America's Great

Transformation; "the complex and often conflicted development of commercial and industrial capitalism in the countryside."’^® The ramifications of such a transformation differed by region. In New England, the effects of out-migration between 1840 and 1900 had caused the local economy to slow down; farmers and villagers were changing both the way they did business and the manner in which they ran their communities.^ The economic repercussions in the Georgia Upcountry after the Civil War altered labor

7"Ibid., 463.

’'®U.S. Census Office, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Agriculture, Part 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902), cxxiv.

’'®Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude, eds.. The Countrvside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 15.

^Hal S. Barron, quoted in R. Douglas Hurt, "Northern Agriculture after the Civil War," in Agriculture and National Development: Views on the Nineteenth Centurv, The Henry A. Wallace Series on Agricultural History and Rural Studies, ed. Lou Ferleger (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1990), 68. -43-

Table 1. Census Divisions by State.

New England

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut

Middle Atlantic

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania

East North Central

Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin

West North Central

Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas

South Atlantic

Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida

East South Central

Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi

West South Central

Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas

M ountain

Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada

Pacific

Washington, Oregon, California.

Source: Based on U.S. Census Office, 1910, Population, Part II, 1213. -44- relations, pushing yeoman families into greater participation in the cotton market and changing the terms of that participation/®

If New England was slowing down and stabilizing, the South, even taking into account changes in the relation of farmer to market, was stagnating. Lee Alston has suggested that because the South lacked the educational and capital base to take advantage of economic transformations, the region was lagging behind. "As a result of racism, low educational expenditures, inappropriate technology, and little out-migration, the South at the end of the post-bellum period remained an isolated low-wage region within the U.S. economy."^’

By contrast, the Midwest was booming. Liberal land policies, aggressive settlement programs by the railroads, a labor force based on kinship ties, and an influx of agriculturally skilled foreign immigrants transformed the Midwest in the years after the Civil War from a partially settled frontier region into the breadbasket of the nation.®® In the sparsely settled far West, farmers were inventing an altogether new agriculture, one

’^®Steven Hahn, "The 'Unmaking' of the Southern Yeomanry: The Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1860-1890," in The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation, 195.

^’Lee J. Alston, "Issues in Postbellum Southern Agriculture," in Agriculture and National Development Views on the Nineteenth Century, 222 .

®®Dorothy Schwieder, "Agricultural Issues in the Middle West, 1865-1910," in Agriculture and National Development: Views on the Nineteenth Centurv, 97-102. -45- heavily dependent upon the railroad and new technologies, such as irrigation.®^

Economic differences by region were reflected in rates of literacy (see

Table 2). Among native whites in 1900, lowest levels of illiteracy were found in areas of New England long settled and in the rapidly growing midwestern states (illiteracy was also very low in the Pacific region, where there were comparatively few people). So, for instance, the West North Central states, which in 1900 represented 28.5 of total national farm value (the highest level), had an illiteracy rate of 2.3 for men; the East South Central states, representing only 5.9 percent of total national farm value, had an illiteracy level of 12.7 for men; and New England, the lowest farm value of the settled divisions at 3.1, still had an illiteracy rate of only 1.5 percent for men (see

Table 3). The former two regions were ones of growth, the latter one of stagnation. West North Central was to see the value of farm property increase 132.5 percent over the next ten years. East South Central 82.5 percent, and New England only 35.6 percent (See Table 4).

Statistics on illiteracy take on even great resonance, of course, when one considers levels among immigrants and African-Americans. In New

England, where foreign-born illiterates far outnumbered native born in 1900, the level was 15.4 percent illiterate of all immigrant men (in contrast to 1.5

®" Way ne D. Rasmussen, "Introduction," in Agriculture and National Development Views on the Nineteenth Centurv, xix. -46- Table 2. Illiterates in the Population 10 Years and Over, 1900

Division and Class Number Percent

Male Female Male Female

US Total 3,011,224 3,168,845 10.1 11.2 New England Native White 22,773 17,526 1.5 1.1 Foreign-bom 105,925 119,063 15.4 16.9 Negro 2,469 3,212 10.4 12.7

M iddle A tlantic Native white 74,545 77,208 1.7 1.8 Foreign-bom 246,547 262,869 14.6 17.1 Negro 18,141 20,453 13.6 14.8

East North C entral Native white 115,351 109,907 2.4 2.3 Foreign-bom 121,309 142,368 8.7 12.0 Negro 19,498 19,782 17.4 19.7

West North C entral Native white 72,716 65,698 2.3 2.3 Foreign-bom 49,817 70,482 5.8 10.8 N egro 23,271 25,363 23.6 27.1

Source: Based on US Census Office, 1910, Population, Part U, 1213. Note that foreign-born includes only whites. -47- Table 2. (continued.) Illiterates in the Population 10 Years and Over, 1900

Division and Class Number Percent

Male Female Male Female

South Atlantic Native white 265,231 276,299 11.2 11.7 Foreign-bom 12,894 13,543 11.4 14.8 Negro 599,160 651,119 46.0 48.1

East South C entral Native White 230,356 235,972 12.7 13.4 Foreign-bom 4,262 4,991 8.5 13.0 Negro 429,984 457,854 48.1 50.4

West South C entral Native white 147,551 141,088 9.0 9.4 Foreign-bom 34,786 34,300 23.8 31.8 Negro 277,165 302,324 46.0 50.1

M ountain Native white 20,759 28,757 4.0 7.1 Foreign-bom 16,894 13,045 9.5 12.3 Negro 967 873 11.9 15.9

Pacific

Native white 6,235 5,639 0.8 0.9 Foreign-bom 19,182 14,838 6.6 8.4 Negro 777 782 11.4 14.4 -48-

Table 3. Value of all farm property by region.

Percent of National Total

Division or 1890 1900 1910 Section

New England 3.6 3.1 2.1 Middle Atlantic 14.8 11.3 7.2 E. North Central 29.5 27.8 24.7 West N. Central 23.4 28.5 33.0 South Atlantic 8.3 7.1 7.2 E. South Central 6.6 5.9 5.3 West S. Central 5.2 7.9 9.4 Mountain 2.2 2.9 4.3 Pacific 6.3 5.4 6.8

The North 71.4 70.7 67.0 The South 20.0 20.9 21.9 The West 8.5 8.4 11.1

East of the 62.9 55.2 46.5 Mississippi West of the 37.1 44.8 53.5 Mississippi

Source: Based on U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1910, Agriculture, Vol. 5, 63. -49-

Table 4. Increase in value of all farm property, 1900 to 1910.

Division 1900 1910 Percent Increase

US Total $20,439,901,164 $40,991,449,090 100.5

New England 639,645,900 867,240,457 35.6 Middle Atlantic 2,310,886,728 2,959,589,022 28.1 East N. Central 5,793,925,367 10,119,128,066 78.0 West N. Central 5,820,994,481 13,535,309,511 132.5 South Atlantic 1,454,031,316 2,951,200,773 103.0 East S. Central 1,195,868,790 2,182,771,779 82.5 West S. Central 1,619,954,613 3,838,154,337 136.9 Mountain 601,264,180 1,757,573,368 192.3 Pacific 1,113,329,789 2,780,481,777 149.7

Source: Based on US Census Office, 1910, Agriculture, Vol. 5, 78. -50- percent of native born men). Though there were relatively few negro male

illiterates in number, that figure still represented 10.4 percent of the total negro male population. The West North Central states, by comparison, had only 5.8 percent illiterate immigrant men, balanced by 23.6 negro men. East

South Central had a lower illiteracy level among foreign-born than native- born white m en (8.5 to 12.7), but the number of immigrants was quite small.

This was a far cry from the illiteracy of negro men; almost twice as many in number as native-born white men and comprising some 48.1 percent of the total African-American male population (see Table 2). Clearly, ethnicity and nativity had as significant an impact on regional literacy rates as economic prosperity and growth.

But one other factor had a measurable influence—that of gender—a factor that takes on particular importance to this study of the cultural negotiations between city and country at the turn of the century. In the

Midwest and New England regions, female illiteracy among native whites was lower than that of male; in all other regions except the Mountain states, illiteracy of females was almost level with that of men (see Table 2). Even more significantly, illiteracy fell at a swifter level for native-born white women than for their male counterparts; from 1910 on, females had a lower illiteracy level (see Table 5). -51- Table 5. Percent Illiteracy 10 Years and Over, 1890-1930

By Census Year Male Female

1890 Native white 5.8 6.6 Foreign-bom whites 11.3 15.2 Negro 54.4 59.8 Other races 40.2 70.8 1900 Native white 4.6 4.7 Foreign-bom whites 11.3 14.7 Negro 43.1 45.8 Other races 37.5 59.8 1910 Native white 3.1 2.9 Foreign-bom white 11.5 13.9 Negro 30.1 30.7 Other races 25.0 46.2 1920 Native white 2.2 1.8 Foreign-bom white 11.7 14.8 Negro 23.5 22.3 Other races 22.1 31.8 1930 Native white 1.7 1.2 Foreign-bom white 8.1 11.9 Negro 17.6 15.1 Other races 21.9 29.1

Source: Based on US Census Office, 1930, Population, Volume U, 1223. Figures for 1890 do not includes persons on Indian reservations or in Indian Territory. -52- Out of all this welter of numbers, a handful of circumstances becomes

clear. Native-born whites could read and write better than immigrants and

non-whites. Women of the former group could read and write on a par

with, or better than, their men.®’^ The Midwest and New England, the Mid-

Atlantic region, housed a greater number of literate people as well as a

greater number of those so circumstanced as to be able to afford

subscriptions to magazines and newspapers. This, then, was the constituency

to whom Country Life reformers addressed themselves.

Of course, country life reformers spoke most avidly to each other.

This was an era in which the ramifications of country living were hashed

over in popular magazines and professional journals, in which people met at

®^The importance of literacy to women is one long acknowledged by historians, but with primary emphasis being on the colonial and post- Revolutionary periods, in which ability to read or write has been interpreted as an indication of power and autonomy within the society. See Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: The Free Press, 1989); Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); and Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionarv Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1980). With the exception of historians studying African- American women, interest in the nineteenth century shifts from ability to read and write to the publishing and marketing of women's novels. The question becomes one not of staking a claim through literacy, but of a particular form of literature and what it reveals about the quality of women's days. See Janet Duitsman Cornelius, "When I Can Read My Title Clear": Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991); also see Mary Kelley, Private Woman, Public Stage: Literary Domesticity in Nineteenth Centurv America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984) and Kathleen Mary Geissler "The Social Meaning of Women's Literacy in Nineteenth-Century America" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Southern California, 1986). -53- church conferences and government conferences and university conferences

to debate the future direction of society. Farmers and reformers from across

the nation sent letters to Liberty Hyde Bailey, dealing not with scientific

agriculture or doings on the commodity futures market, but with the socio­

political boundaries of life in the open country.®® True to Progressive

ideology, rural reformers believed in the common good will and good sense

of mankind. To solve problems, it was necessary only to accurately define

them and devise appropriate adjustments; the sheer logic of proposed

solutions would be enough to win public endorsement Rural progressives,

thus, wrote to each other with furious frequency, tinkering with their social

plans.

But reformers also spoke to each other because they, themselves,

constituted a goodly portion of the rural elite. In 1971, William Bowers

published a study of biographical data for a sample population of the country

life movement and found that most reformers were from "an emerging

professional rural leadership."

Among the first to diagnose and offer remedies for country-life problems were rural leaders such as the staffs of land-grant colleges, bureaucrats in the Department of Agriculture, members of the new twentieth-century farming organizations, and editors and publishers of

*®See the Liberty Hyde Bailey Papers, 21/2/541, Boxes 3 and 4, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. -54- prominent farm journals.®"

They were joined by businessmen who had a financial stake in the

countryside—bankers, merchants, farm implement manufacturers, mail-order

houses, railroads—and those Bowers thought to have more "altruistic"

motives-teachers, ministers, social workers, charitable organizations, civic

betterment leagues.

Of the eighty-four reformers Bowers studied in depth, he found

ninety percent of them to have come from farms and small towns, thirty-

eight percent to have born or reared in the Midwest, and only four of them not to have been college educated (two of whom were, nevertheless, admitted to the bar). Most of the sample were mainline Protestants, forty percent of whom belonged to social scientific or scientific agriculture societies. Most had been born during the Populist era and were reared in economically comfortable households, "suggesting that their parents, if farmers, were not the downtrodden types identified with the agrarian revolt of that period."®®

Nonetheless, country life Progressives were continuing a discussion on the caliber if rural life begun during the period of agrarian revolt, immediately after the Civil War, one that had variously been a political and a

®"William L. Bowers, "Country-Life Reform, 1900-1920: A Neglected Aspect of Progressive Era History," Agricultural History 45 (1971): 212.

«®Ibid., 213-214. -55-

moral crusade.®® Granted, the conversation in the early decades of the

twentieth century was reflected the impact of social science and theories of

rational planning borrowed from assembly line industry. In devising

programs that relied on scientific agriculture and domestic science, rural

Progressives were mirroring the manufacturing sector. Newly minted

technocrats were busy drawing up time-motion studies, reorganizing factories

so that the latest in modern technologies could be used by a labor force

trained to work in an intelligent and efficient manner. Likewise, in turning

the job over to government agencies, country life progressives echoed private

sector dependence upon managers solving problems with administrative

solutions. This was an era of fine tuning, of tinkering and adjusting, not one

of revolution or major alterations in the social paradigm.®^

But despite the technocratic overtones of the discussion about good life in the country, the debate remained highly political. Theodore Roosevelt raised the issue of the farmer within a partisan context; the refusal of

®®See Paula Baker, The Moral Frameworks of Public Life: Gender, Politics, and the State in Rural New York, 1870-1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Lowell K. Dyson, Farmers' Organizations, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Institutions, vol. 10 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986); Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A Short Historv of the Agrarian Revolt in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); and Maryjo Wagner, "Farms, Families, and Reform: Women in the Farmers' Alliance and Populist Party" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Oregon, 1986).

®%chard McCormick, Progressivism, 21, 117. -56- Congress to appropriate money to print the Country Life Commission report stemmed at least in part from a term-long power struggle between the legislative and the executive branches. Reportedly, it was William Howard

Taft's failure to continue the commission that led to the rift between the two presidents and Roosevelt's run for office under the banner of the Bull Moose

Party.®® Likewise, Agriculture Secretary James Wilson's opposition to the work of the commission was perfectly consistent with the on-going political maneuverings of an agency head out to protect himself and his programs from outside criticism.®^

But all of these are examples of politics as usual. What really distinguishes the dialogue about country life was not so much to whom

Progressives were addressing themselves but who was answering back. In the early decades of the twentieth century, farm families were vigorously engaged in redefining what it meant to live the "good life" in the American countryside. In their letters to editors of agricultural journals and national magazines, in their testimony before government commissions, in their responses to surveys distributed by private groups and the USD A, in their letters to various federal agencies, people in the country were actively reassessing their relationship to an urban, industrial economy and

®®Earle D. Ross, "Roosevelt and Agriculture," Journal of American Historv 14 (December 1927): 309.

®^Ellsworth, "Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission," 169. -57- reconsidering their expectations of themselves and their nation.

There is an intriguing aspect to the discussion of rural life in the early

decades of the century. While the most visible and prominent of rural

reformers were men and most of the articles in farm journals and popular

magazines prompting reader response were written by men, letters to the

editor (or at least those chosen for publication) were often written by women.

Likewise, correspondence pertaining to quality of life sent from farm

communities to the Children's Bureau and the Department of Agriculture and the various land grant colleges was usually signed by women. In a few cases, it is made clear that the wife is writing because the husband is illiterate. But most of the letters come from households with educated adults; often mention is made of the numerous publications read regularly by husband and wife. Moreover, the use of language is usually articulate and grammatically correct, the handwriting exquisite.

This preponderance of women probably reflects a traditional division of labor on the farm; men handled the farm business, women the farm home and all matters pertaining thereto. Obviously, this was a division adhered to by reformers and government officials. Surveys about the farm home were directed to farmers' wives, conferences on rural life brought together that same constituency. It is equally obvious, from reading questionnaires and meeting reports that experts were working on the assumption that these rural women were speaking not for themselves as individuals, but as -58- representatives of their households. By the same token, most advertising that did not specifically promote large equipment, varieties of feed grain, or strains of livestock, was directed toward women. Thus, the debate over acculturation to the twentieth century, the wrangling over what constituted good life in the country, with all its national policy implications, was a discussion that cut across gender lines. This, truly, was one issue in the national forum influenced by both women and men.

The burden of the discussion emanating from the farm home was being carried by people who didn't even have the vote. In their letters, in their survey responses, women were directing their efforts less toward partisan politics than to the government bureaucracy and public opinion.

Rural women had, of course, been active in agrarian reform at the end of the nineteenth century, supporting third parties such as the Farmers' Alliance and the Populists, actively furthering the goals of the Grange.®® But, when the efforts of these organizations were frustrated, rural women were barred from shifting their energies to the major political parties. Alternative methods of influencing public policy developed. Noting that "A tradition of women's activism grew up alongside the aggressive masculinity of electoral politics,"

®®See Lu Ann Jones, "'The Task That Is Ours': White North Carolina Farm Women and Agrarian Reform, 1886-1914" (M.A. thesis. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1983): Maryjo Wagner, "Farms, Families, and Reform: Women in the Farmers' Alliance and Populist Party," (Ph.D. diss.. University of Oregon, 1986); and Donald B. Marti, Women of the Grange: Mutuality and Sisterhood in Rural America, 1866-1920, Contributions in Women's Studies, Number 124 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991). -59- historian Paula Baker has argued, "White activist women...used the idea of domesticity as a wedge to gain political influence usually accessible only to men."®^

White, activist, and literate women. When Elizabeth Arthur mailed off her reading list to Martha Van Rennselaer, she was doing more than dutifully filling out a rural survey, she was engaging in conversation. There is no suggestion that the two ladies had ever met. Yet Elizabeth Arthur referred to her correspondent in comfortably intimate terms ("My dear

Madam, please do not worry about receiving another such long epistle from me; you and I are both too busy women to stand it"). She saw a list of printed questions in a home economics bulletin and responded as though she were sitting face to face with Van Rensselaer, feet tucked under the kitchen table, chatting over coffee. The true significance of Elizabeth Arthur's letter is not in what she read, but in what she wrote. ®^

Archives for the early decades of the twentieth century are filled with letters from farm women-casual and newsy, opinionated and well considered—all addressed to individuals at institutions such as the Children's

®^Paula Baker, The Moral Frameworks of Public Life: Gender, Politics, and the State in Rural New York, 1870-1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), xiv-xv.

®^Elizabeth L. Arthur, "The Wayside," Lowville, New York to Martha Van Rensselaer, Ithaca, New York, 18 March 1912, Home Economics Records, 23/2/749/, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York. - 60 - Bureau, colleges of home economics, the Department of Agriculture and to the editors of a raft of national magazines. Literacy did more than enable rural women to keep pace with the changes of an industrializing America; it was a mechanism by which they put their own mark on the early twentieth century, a tool with which they bound themselves and their families to the national community.

Thus, the debate over what constituted good life in the countryside, the cultural negotiations about the nature of the relationship between the rural community and an urban nation, took on a particular political favor based upon who was speaking and who was listening. By carrying on the conversation so heavily through the medium of print, reformers engaged mostly the literate: native-born, white, comfortably circumstanced, regionally clustered in New England, midway down the Atlantic seaboard and across the prosperous Midwest. By directing their inquiry into matters of rural life and standard of living, reformers found themselves corresponding with women, who, though they spoke for their households, might be expected to have a slightly different agenda than their men. And by holding up the mirror of the city, reformers were inviting the rural community to evaluate and justify itself in largely urban terms, terms newly defined and promulgated by national magazines and the brash, young advertising industry. It was by no mere circumstance that the well-read Elizabeth Arthur justified the quality of her life in terms of washing machine, sewing machine. - 61 - carpet-sweeper, wheel-hoe, telephone, toothbrush, bathroom, and vacuum cleaner.®®

®®Ibid. CHAPTER TWO

LESSONS FOR LIVING

America was, in the Progressive era, still predominately agricultural and small town. But it was agricultural and small town within the context of rapid economic and social change. Nationwide, rural free delivery had put mailboxes within reach of marketers; Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogs were scattered across the countryside with their tantalizing drawings of the bits and pieces of modern manufacturing. In winnowing out their educated, articulate, and activist constituency from among the greater rural population, country life reformers were appealing to a market share already identified by the new, national advertising industry. Responses to the Country Life

Commission, transcripts of hearing testimony, and letters to the editors of agricultural journals, leave little doubt that rural people were well aware of the blandishments being offered by industrialism in the way of technologies and creature comforts. This literate constituency was well aware of the potential of the dynamo and equally aware that how one defined oneself as an American seemed to be gradually shifting from belief structures and partisan party affiliations to standard of living.

William R. Lighten ran an article in a 1904 Harper's Weekly on the

- 62 - -63- wonders of agricultural technology. Larding his work with words like

"revolutionary" and "potential saving" and "industrial security," Lighten

traced out the advantages of labor performed by huge machinery, "smudging

the sky with black clouds of smoke, making ready the world's food." He also

somewhat whimsically noted that "one may be pardoned for wondering

whether the rural wight will not soon be doing his very kissing by steam-

power, so thoroughly persuaded is he becoming of its greater efficiency."^

Running along the length of the page to the left of Lighton's article is

a series of advertisements. On top, taking two-thirds of the column length, is

a lady in broad-brimmed hat and ruffled parasol, inviting the public to take

the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway to the World's Fair at St. Louis.

Head tilted slightly to one side, she stands elegantly before monumental

architecture, complete with water fountain and American flag, as she

suggests stopovers at Niagara Falls and other points of interest (not to exceed ten days in either direction). Readers are urged to send away for a guide to the Fair, including a colored map of the grounds, a guide to hotels and boarding houses, and a book of trains—all for four cents postage to cover costs.

Immediately below this venturesome miss, who surely must have stopped enroute at Lake Chautauqua and Put-in-Bay, is a moustachioed gent

^William R. Lighten, "A Revolution in Farming," Harper's Weekly 48 (17 September 1904): 1440. -64- offering "positive relief" for prickly heat, chafing, and sunburn with Mermen's

Borated Talcum Toilet Powder. "Removes all odor of perspiration. Delightful

after Shaving," Mermen's Powder was sold everywhere or sent directly upon

receipt of twenty-five cents.

Just below Mermen's, Perm Mutual Life of Philadelphia rather drably reminds folks that "the life insurance dollar is the most effective one," if invested with Perm. And Cortez Cigars, in a tiny space with four sorts of type, proclaims that they were made at Key West "For Men of Brains."^

American magazines at the turn of the century were not merely informing the reading public about scientific and technological change or bullying them into moving back to the country; these publications were dispensing lessons on living. Advertisements promoted products, but, more importantly, they promoted particular behaviors and values. Americans should want to view the neoclassical buildings at the World's Fair and should expect to get there on "pleasant and prompt journeys." They should be physically comfortable and odor free, plan ahead prudently to protect their old age, and demonstrate their intelligence by puffing on exotic cigars.

Influenced by the work rhythms of industrial production, the countryside was also being transformed by a radical alteration in national marketing and distribution. Innovations in packaging made it possible for manufacturers to cast their products on the metaphorical waters of the

^Advertisements, Harper's Weekly 48 (17 September 1904): 1440. -65- railroad, knowing that goods would arrive preserved and intact.® Packaged

goods were labeled goods; for the first time manufacturers had as their

primary market the actual consumer, rather than the distributor or retailer.

One no longer bought crackers from a barrel, one bought Uneeda Biscuits in

an In-er-Seal box. To insure that the consumer asked for Uneeda brand specifically, manufacturers invested great sums in advertising.^ A connection was forged between the private world of the home and the public world of the corporation by manufacturers intent on creating and controlling market demand.® To suggest that manufacturers insinuated themselves only into urban households is to ignore the basic demographics.

Farm families and those in small towns didn't need outsiders to point out the exigencies of daily life, to explain the benefits of running water, indoor plumbing, electric lights, a radio, a telephone, an automobile. Long before John Gillette explained his theoiy of dynamogenesis, rural men and women were taking issue with what they saw as changes in the political and economic structure of the nation that made it increasing difficult for those in

®See Robert Opie's gorgeous Packaging Source Book: A Visual Guide to a Century of Packaging Design (Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1989).

^Daniel Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising (New York: Basic Books), 48-51.

®Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 26-27. -66- agriculture to partake of American prosperity,® Women, especially, didn't

need trained experts to point out the deficiencies of rural life. Farm women had found their lives little improved by scientific agriculture and the technologies of an industrial age. As historian Dorothy Schwieder said,

"Disillusionment involved a whole set of concerns including limited education for children, lack of conveniences in the farm home, lack of opportunities for socializing, and the unrelenting routine of hard physical work from sun-up to sun-down."^

Reformers did not import change into the countryside; they were preceded by the Ladies' Home Tournai, the Saturday Evening Post, and a plethora of farm journals, all directing folks where to "write for more information." The trick for rural families was not figuring out how to run their households in a newly industrialized America; the trick was finding the wherewithal to participate fully in the consumer market. Ultimately, the problem was not one of economic and social change intruding into the countryside; it was one of change passing right by. In early twentieth- century America, farm families could see, for the first time, signs of a significant and permanent gap between their incomes and those of their city

®See Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) and Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

^Dorothy Schwieder, "Agricultural Issues in the Middle West, 1865-1910," in Agriculture and National Development: Views on the Nineteenth Century, The Henry A. Wallace Series on Agricultural History and Rural Studies, ed. Lou Ferleger (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1990), 113. - 67- counterparts. Without disposable income, how could the countryside keep pace with modernization?

Advertisements, of course, served to gild the urban mirror in which the countryside sought to find its reflection. Starting out as mere announcements of available goods and services®, ads had evolved by the mid­ nineteenth centuiy into blandishments promising either amazement or excessive reliability. Phineas T. Barnum crops up in most histories as enlivening the business considerably:

Barnum started as a patent medicine salesman, shouting the benefits of his concoctions by the use of wild, typographic displays to attract attention. He filled these ads with agonizing testimonials describing the painful symptoms his medicines would cure, and followed all of the above with dignified endorsements from crowned heads and members of the U.S. Senate attesting to the effectiveness of his cures.®

Barnum, of course, followed his medical broadsides with years of circus handbills and posters heralding the smallest dwarf ever exhibited or the beautiful miniature lady. Miss Lizzie Read. John Battersby, the living skeleton, was brightly advertised, as was Hannah Battersby, his wife, who

®Frank Presbrey, in his classic and charming (and filiopietistic) history of the trade, traces the first advertisements to 136 B. C. and the Rosetta stone, which "advertised Ptolemy as the true Son of the Sun, the Father of the Moon, and the Keeper of the Happiness of Men." More prosaically, Presbrey also notes that Babylonian tradesmen sent people wandering through the streets calling out news of goods and services. The Historv and Development of Advertising (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1929), 2-3.

®Charles Goodrum and Helen Dalrymple, Advertising in America: the First 200 Years (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), 20. -68- weighed 720 pounds.^® Though Barnum was restricted from advertising so

lavishly in newspapers, due to space restrictions set on aU advertisers by the

publishers, themselves,^^ he stiU managed to alert commercial America to the

great possibilities of publicity. His great success encouraged others to

advertise just as lavishly.

A perhaps quixotic sense of justice had led newspaper publishers to

originally limit the size of advertisements. James Gordon Bennett of the New

York Herald stated repeatedly in mid-century that affluent clients should not

be allowed to overshadow the ads of the small seller; the industry restricted

all sales to one-half inch, one column wide.^® By the end of the nineteenth

centuiy, general policy, if not editorial scruples, had loosened somewhat.

Still, even in 1880, the New York Times confined space or display advertising

to the last page of an eight-page paper.^^ Small businesses continued to hawk their wares in the line or classified ads as they had in the 1860s and 70s, in

^®James Play stead Wood, The Story of Advertising (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1958), 155.

^^Goodrum and Dalrymple, Advertising in America, 20.

^^Presbrey, The Historv and Development of Advertising, 225.

% oodrum and Dalrymple, Advertising in America, 20.

^^Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill & Wang, 1982), 135-136. Trachtenberg locates the birth of modern advertising roughly in 1880. The new, giant department stores, "dispensing images along with goods," required a clientele trained in habitual consumption; this became the task of magazines and the big city press. -69-

terms little changed from those decades.

A review of the New York Times in the 1880s reveals a gradual

march to those prescriptive messages in Harper's Weekly designed to send

everyone off to the World's Fair, neat and clean in ten days time. In 1880,

display ads in the Times differed little from classified except in size and

typeface.^® Macy & Company dry goods store claimed a large stock of suits

and cloaks, millinery, fabric, dress goods, hosiery, boys' clothing, shoes,

books, china, glass, and pottery at good prices. B. Altman announced a sale of women's and children's underclothing. W. J. & Sloane offered carpets at greatly reduced prices. J. J. Dobson suggested that their carpets were elegant, durable, and economical, while Alex Hays & Company had French marble clocks bought at a bankruptcy sale. The only ad for a brand name product was Wei de Meyer's catarrh cure. The ads included no art, no adjectives, no unusual type, no movement of copy off dead center.

Art work had become an elaborate part of ads by 1884.^® Roger Peet

& Company provided a comic illustration of a somewhat rotund "Pleased

Customer" who was admiring himself, spiffed up in a new suit, before a large mirror. Display advertisements in 1886 divided broadly into two groups.^’'

Some were placed by national manufacturers, beginning their quest for

^®Advertisements in New York Times, 8 November 1880.

^®Advertisements, New York Times, 8 November 1884.

^^Advertisements, New York Times, 8 November 1886. -70- customer loyalty to brand name products. Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce provided a testimonial from a "Medical Man," and Bakers' Coca proclaimed that it was "good for invalids as well as the healthy." Retailers, by contrast, seemed more anxious to discuss the process of doing business with the public, rather than any particular item or brand. Bloomingdale

Brothers and R. H. Macy remained wedded to the old-fashioned, large-type listing of individual items; but Nicoll the Tailor—his trade name written with verve across the top of the ad—stressed quality tailoring service. Delury, the

"English Tailor and Habitmaker," also emphasized the process of making clothing, with a chatty description of new stock in which the reader was addressed as though he were a regular customer being brought up to date.

Kasel & Kasel (shirtmakers, hosiers, and glovers) devoted its tiny space to listing what the business did, rather than what it sold; George Flint abandoned its practice of merely listing furniture for sale to describe the virtues of good workmanship; and Sheppard Knapp explained that it was able to offer carpets at great discounts because it had bought out the manufacturer's warehouse.

What is apparent in 1900 is the extent to which advertising instructed people on how to live.^® William Vogel & Son, men's clothing specialists, pointed out the possibilities of "Black—always good taste, appropriate on all occasions, becoming to everybody—a good staunch, refined friend that one

Advertisements, New York Times, 8 November 1900. -71- can always fall back on is Black." Rogers Peet & Company instructed men to wear the "all pervading soft gray hat" to bridge the gap between summer and winter. "But it's only a bridge, mind you; the solid ground is a derby."

White Hentz & Company suggested, "When you do drink, drink Thimble

[whiskey]." And the Compressed Gas Capsule Company explained:

The Pleasures of home are the most important, and yet the simplest and most easily achieved of any that come into our lives. A quiet home evening can gain additional pleasure from the manufacture and enjoyment of an innocuous sparkling beverage.^®

On one level, the consuming public merely was being given specifics on where to shop, how to dress, and what to drink. But, on another level, the audience was being presented with appropriate behaviors. By the turn of the century, Americans knew that the department store was an entertainment as well as a place to buy items, that one should dress with an eye to fashion and the reactions of others, and that thought should be given to gracious living as guaranteed by the acquisition of brand name products.^ This was the modern era as depicted by advertising, a modernity strikingly urban in nature. So, how was the message translated and transmitted into the countryside? Much of the answer lies in the rise of national magazines and

i®Ibid.

^°For a fascinating discussion of the department store as a medium of consumer education and class conflict, see Susan Porter Benson, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986, 1988). -72-

mail order houses.

The development of a national media was propelled in equal measure

by technological innovation and government intervention. Improvements in

printing—among them the roller press and use of linotype—lowered the price

of magazines, broadening circulation and, thereby, attracting the attention of

advertisers.^^ Sophisticated printing technologies, such as lithography, had

been pioneered in Europe early in the century, but political and economic

unrest there served to benefit publishers in the United States. Adoption of

many new techniques and machines in America could be attributed less to

the deliberate importation of European methods than to the random

immigration of European artisans.^^ Most critical to mass circulation

publications, however, was the development in the 1880s at Cornell

University of a comparatively inexpensive photoengraving technique called

the halftone. Whereas a page-size wood engraving might cost three hundred

dollars, a halftone would run twenty dollars.^

Equally as critical as the halftone to the rise of national media was

another technology—the railroad. Alan Trachtenberg has written about how

^^James Playstead Wood, Magazines in the United States (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1971), 96.

^For a fascinating—and gorgeous—history of turn-of-the-century printing, see Robert Jay, The Trade Card in Nineteenth-Centurv America (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987).

^Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1885-1905 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 5. -73- the railroad redefined space and time in America, linking communities

physically to "create new spaces, new regions of comprehension and

economic value," and synchronizing clocks across the continent into four

standard time zones, "railroad time."^^ This reshuffling of time and space, in

turn, greatly altered the printing and distribution of newspapers,

transforming the way in which information was transmitted across the

nation.

First came the "patent inside," developed in England in the 1850s but

introduced in America during the Civil War. With printers assistants off to

battle, small weeklies outside Milwaukee contracted with the Evening

Wisconsin for help. This Milwaukee paper printed the inside of a four-page

paper with material from its own columns, then put these "patent insides" on

the train to outlying communities, where the outside pages were filled with

local news and advertisements. Soon, patent inside publishing was adopted

by entrepreneurs, who courted national as well as regional advertising and

established printing plants at large railroad centers across the country.^

Capitalizing on the ever-broadening reach of the railroads, by the end of the century publishers had inaugurated newsstand dissemination of national magazines printed on the east coast and shipped inland for sale.

The print shop and the railway station, alone, however, can not

^tyrachtenberg. The Incorporation of America, 59-60.

^Presbrey, The Historv and Development of Advertising, 273-274. -74- account for the proliferation of national publications. Credit must be shared with the Federal Congress, which, in 1885, reduced postal rates to one cent per pound for all second-class mail. This cheap postage made mail subscriptions only slightly more expensive than newsstand prices.

Importantly, the experimental introduction of rural free delivery in 1897, and its rapid expansion early in the twentieth century, made it possible for people who had never before received direct mail service to take advantage of those low subscription rates. Publishers responded to this new market by introducing "quality" low-cost magazines, designed to compete with newspapers in content and immediacy, targeted to appeal to middle- and working-class families.^® Suddenly, thanks in large measure to the federal government, the Ladies' Home Tournai was finding its way into mail boxes across the nation.^^

Manufacturers of name-brand products, anxious to develop buyer loyalty, seized upon magazines as a logical forum. Though literary and professional journals resisted for a time, they eventually succumbed; the

November 1899 issue of the prestigious Harper's Magazine carried 135 pages of advertising to 163 pages of editorial.^® But if existing magazines were reluctant to serve as a vehicle for national advertising, the reverse was true

“ Mott, A Historv of American Magazines, 3-10.

^^Ibid., 545. In 1900, the circulation of the Ladies' Home Tournai was 800,000; by 1903, it had reach one million.

“Wood, The Story of Advertising, 195-200. -75- for the new mass circulation magazines jump-started by the postal service.

Begun, pure and simply, as business ventures, these publications depended

for their lifeblood not on subscriptions, but on advertising. They were

directed at the prospering middle classes and at the newly literate, who were uninterested in the literary monthlies.^ Preeminent among these new magazines was Ladies' Home Tournai, begun in 1883; Cosmopolitan, 1886;

Munsey's, 1889; and McClure's, 1893.®° In 1892, advertising in the Journal amounted to $250,000; by 1897, it stood at $500,000.®^ By 1915, gross national advertising in all general and farm magazines came to $28,133,000. This figure would more than double in the next three years.®^

So, what did all these advertising dollars buy? What was the impetus for all those column inches? It would not be fanciful to suggest that mass advertising in America can be traced back to the sealed tin, the paper bag, the cardboard box. Mechanized production allowed manufacturers to churn out vast quantities of whatever it was they made; advances in packaging enabled them to ship those goods outside the region in which they were produced. After all, there was no sense in baking enormous numbers of crackers if they could not be transported, unbroken and fresh, to the

“ Ibid., 202.

®°Ibid.

®^Mott, A History of American Magazines, 545.

®^Theodore Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), 26. -76- customer.®®

Prepackaging necessitated a new relationship between manufacturer and consumer. Prior to the tin can, goods were shipped in bulk to the retailer, usually through the intermediary of a broker. The customer was forced to rely on the purchasing savvy of the grocer in the quest for quality goods at reasonable prices; usually, the public had absolutely no idea who actually produced the crackers or butter or soap. On the other hand, the customer was able to actually see the goods before the grocer wrapped them up for sale and winnow out molded or damaged items. By contrast, prepackaging removed the product from inspection, promising instead a greater variety of products shipped from far distance and, so the theory went, greater quality control. Uneeda Biscuits were supposed to look the same, taste the same, and be uniformly sanitary, box after cardboard box.

Unfortunately, one had to accept those biscuits on faith, box after box, as the crackers within were efficiently hidden from view. Thus, the shopper had to be trained to buy, not the goods, but the wrapper.®^ Advertisers were advised to consider the label not an advertising medium, but "an integral part of the commodity itself," the product consisting of the container and its

®®Robert Opie, Packaging Source Book (Secaucus NJ: Quarto Publishing, Chartwell Books, 1989), 12-15.

®^Ibid., 19. - 77- contents, not goods packed in containers.®® The stakes were high. Producers

began to sue for patent infringement not only on the goods, themselves, but

also on packaging and trademark.®® At issue was that intangible business

commodity "good will," the seeds of which had been planted and watered

through advertising.

Between 1870 and 1900, American advertising increased tenfold,

spilling out of the constraints of the newspaper columns to splash across the

sides of city buildings and public conveyances as well as farm buildings

lining country roads.®^ Greatest growth was in posters and trade cards, the

latter being more interesting because they were widely disseminated by

traveling salesmen, or drummers, who gave them to merchants throughout

the countryside to give as prizes to their customers. These cards, roughly

three by five inches in most cases, were designed as collectibles and many

bore the mark of European immigrants schooled in the intricate art of lithography. Usually brightly colored on the front, trade cards by 1880 carried details of the advertiser's goods and services on the back in black and white.®® Some were stock cards, meant to be overprinted with various

®®Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 32.

®®Ibid., 46-50.

®^Jay, The Trade Card in Nineteenth Centurv America, 34.

®®Ibid., 34-37. Interestingly, many cards were targeted toward immigrant markets. Such cards would be uniform on the front and then printed in different foreign languages on the back. -78- advertisers' messages, such as one showing three birds floating along a flooded river in a wooden shoe. In the first instance, the scene served as a backdrop for Edmund Whitehead's butcher shop in Massachusetts; in another case, those waterlogged birds highlighted the fact that the St. Paul and Sioux

City Railroad in Minnesota was "bound for the land of promise."®® Other cards were specific to a particular business, with the front illustrating the product, such as the lovely miss, blonde hair tumbling down her back interwoven with flowers, who, somewhat inexplicably, chews on long grass stalks in her undergarments to advertise Dr. Scott's electric corset, electric hair-brush, electric hair curler, and electric tooth-brush.^® Bedecked with various foliage, she offsets the menace of that newfangled technology, electricity, with images of rural health and simplicity. Whatever Dr. Scott's artistic intentions, he definitely planned for his trade card to be distributed to retailers who would, in turn, distribute it to customers who would, hopefully, paste it in a scrapbook and, by dint of the aesthetic attraction, come to think often and fondly of his electrifying products.

Trade cards, like the elaborate newspaper and magazine advertisements that were to follow, were a product of American culture.

Those pitched toward men had a definitely racy undertone. American

Tobacco Company specialized m cards of scantily clad, foreign-looking

®®Ibid., 37.

^Ibid., 47. -79- women. Another business offered a dramatic card depicting a buxom, and also scantily clad, circus rider being helped up after a fall. An equally well- endowed fairy in a knee-length ball dress races up with a bottle, urging the equestrienne to "Use Mustang Liniment and you will be all right in a day or two, so wiU your horse. Other products went for a more wholesome image, with much use of healthy children and elegant—but maternal—ladies.

Above all, trade cards played to existing attitudes of race and class.

Women shown in various stages of undress tended to look foreign; mothers were usually native-stock and well-to-do; fathers wore suits and elegant mustaches and commonly were being waited upon after a hard day out in the world; African-Americans were always working class or poorer and were busy either providing service to those middle-class mothers or doing amusing things like putting their babies in watermelons or wearing cans of tinned beef on their heads; American Indians were noble savages who were used to vouch for the effectiveness of patent medicines, and children were plump and white and innocent.^^

By the end of the century, the themes of trade cards merged with

^^Ibid., 44. This ability to cater to the needs of "human and animal flesh" at one and the same time seems to have crossed brand names. Merchants Gargling Oil, also for use as a liniment, presented an ape, gleefully rubbing his knee with liquid from a labelled bottle, saying, "If I am Darwin's Grandpa, It follows don't you see. That what is good for man and beast. Is doubly good for me."

^%id., 41-92 passim. -80- those of advertising in the newly proliferating national magazines. No longer

were advertisers merely trying to catch the customer's eye and develop brand

name and trademark affiliation. Instead, they were introducing the buying

public to wholly new products, teaching them how to use them, and creating

desire. Eastman Kodak came up with a camera for general use, then spent

hundreds of thousands of dollars to assure Americans that "You press the button and we do the rest."^ Through candid photographs, families could preserve the moments, commemorate the achievements of their children, provide tangible proof that they partook of the good life. Ladies could even buy Kodak cameras in varying colors to coordinate with the fashions of any season. A Kodak camera was not merely for snapshots; it was a tool for being fully American.^

It was no accident that Eastman Kodak color-coordinated its Brownie cameras. Just as the purpose of advertising by the turn of the century had broadened from merely creating customer loyalty for specific brands of existing goods to also creating a need for new products, so, too, did the tone of advertising's appeal change. Successful advertising shifted from being product oriented, touting the virtues and qualities of the product, to being

^Daniel Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 50-52.

^An intriguing overview of Eastman Kodak advertising was included in the exhibit, "Selling the Goods: Origins of American Advertising, 1840-1940," Strong Museum, Rochester, NY, which opened November 1990. -81- consximer oriented, speaking to the individual intimately about desirable

qualities such as status or beauty.^ Not only was the pitch increasingly

personal, it was increasingly aimed (seasonal gray hats in the New York

Times notwithstanding) at women.

Advertising professionals had ambivalent feelings about those women

consumers. Though they recognized that "Woman is the buyer of

everything,"^* early twentieth-century copy writers did not think particularly

highly of their audience. Women, it was thought, were more irrational than

men, more suggestible, more emotional, less interested in details about the

product or technical specifications. While the predominantly male

copywriters might have preferred to hold their marketing discussions with

those of their same gender, they all agreed that women were "easily led" and

took a special interest in promotional copy.^^ "The woman who will not read

advertisements is not a woman.

Women became the keepers of the domestic flame. As advertising

grew more prescriptive, it suggested that the woman of the house was

^James D. Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 1865-1920 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), 60.

^*Nathaniel C. Fowler Jr., Fowler's Publicity (New York: Publicity Publishing Co., 1897), 720, as quoted in Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising, 247.

^^Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising, 247-248.

^®Fowler, Fowler's Publicity, 725, as quoted in Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising, 248. -82- responsible for the behavior of all who lived within its shelter. If soap

manufacturers harped on personal cleanliness as a means of finding

acceptance within the ranks of middle- and upper-class America, it was a

woman's job to make sure that the correct brand of soap sat next to the

pitcher and basin.^® Advertising made clear that a woman would be judged

as a good wife and mother on the basis of just such purchases.** Through judicious shopping, mothers could feed their children nutritious and modern

foods, ensuring their immediate survival and ultimate success. Wives could

secure their marriages by creating a haven to which husbands could return

each evening, a haven presided over by a lady of refinement, soft skin, nice hair, and white teeth. These ladies were being told to satisfy basic human needs through the consumption of the products of modern industry.*^ But, more than that, they were being urged to adopt, and adapt to, the mores of the Progressive Era. Scientific management was not limited to the factory or the city hall; it had a place in the parlor and kitchen. "Efficiency" was a personal attribute and a virtuous one at that.*^ Wives and mothers could

^’Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 51.

*°Ibid., 68. See also Ruth Swartz Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York: Basic Books, 1983) and Susan Strasser, Never Done: A History of American Housework (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982).

*%id., 69.

“ Samuel Haber, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, Midway Reprint, 1973), ix. -83- protect their families from the deleterious effects of the modern era by

running their homes in a rational manner. And, always, scientific rationalism

in the household was dependent on having the foresight to acquire the

accoutrements of a technological society.

As advertisers spread the word that better living was intrinsically tied

to better buying, social commentators—or at least some of them—responded

enthusiastically. Good Housekeeping, in a series on modem merchandising, ran a story on "The Influence of Advertising As an Aid to Proper Home

Furnishing." Author Earnest Ehno Calkins suggested that "Every advertiser who makes a wallpaper, a paint or a varnish, a rug, colonial, mission, or other furniture that is really good, has persistently, even though unintentionally, preached the gospel of good taste."** "Good taste" was no mere matter of esthetics; it carried with it connotations of "good sense."

And it may as well be said right here that no matter how artistic the house, if the arrangements for cooking, laundry and other details of housekeeping are not convenient, appropriate and sanitary, the house is not a good house to live in and will have just as bad an effect upon the taste and morals of the occupants as if the living room were furnished with haircloth upholstery and Brussels carpets with large red roses on them.*^

Advertising was not only educational, it was democratic. Mass product led to production of better products at cheaper prices, or so Calkins figured.

**Eamest Elmo Calkins, "The Influence of Advertising As an Aid to Proper House Furnishing," Good Housekeeping 48 (May 1909): 643.

*^Ibid., 643-644. -84-

Advertising then "gradually introduced" those products into homes "even of

the humblest sort," until "today the day laborer has convenience, comfort and

attractiveness in his home that were wanting in palaces of kings one hundred

and fifty years ago." The "desire for these things, as well as their

distribution" could be attributed to advertising.** The whole of society would be uplifted through advertising.**

Printer's Ink, the advertising industry's first trade journal, noted in

1903 that the circulations of city newspapers were on the rise in rural neighborhoods.*^ This, coupled with the sprightly growth of national magazines out of major east coast cities, meant that rural families were indeed getting their quota of lessons for living. In 1900, sixty percent of the population was still rural, though that number would drop to forty-nine

**Ibid., 645.

**Of course, not everyone held such a sanguine view. A writer in the Nation suggested that the "historian of the distant future who shall attempt to reconstruct the archaic civilization of America in the twentieth century will...resort to the advertising section of our magazines." There, he would learn that Americans were, first and foremost, preoccupied with beauty—why else all the ads for paints and varnishes? Moreover, the America woman, contrary to "accepted belief," was not a "spoiled creature of idleness and pleasure." "We see them...unmindful of their graciously white fingers, their intricate coiffures, and their exceedingly expensive gowns of silks and lace, engaged in the simple tasks of varnishing the legs of an old piano, restoring a gilt chair to its pristine glitter, or even mirroring their fair faces in the sheen of highly polished oak flooring." "What We Really Are," Nation 84 (4 April 1907): 305.

*^Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising, 38. -85- percent by 1920.*® Still at the turn of the century, rural per-capita income was

on the rise and the farm home looked like a promising market.*’ No one

would ever accuse advertising agencies of having been obtuse; a portion of

every advertising dollar went directly to farm publications.

The advertising industry got its start with independent agents, who

worked on commission for various publishers. Eventually, agents came to

broker space in newspapers, purchasing large blocks of space and reselling it

piecemeal to advertisers.** In each of these roles, the advertising agent

ostensibly served two masters, the publisher and the advertiser, though there

were those who suggested he served only himself. By the 1890s, however,

agents were faced with the threat of occupational obsolescence. Publishers

had become more canny about selling space to advertisers, rather than merely

selling magazines or newspapers to readers. So, they brought the brokering

of space in-house, side-stepping the agent. But at the same time, advertising itself was becoming more elaborate; only the largest advertising clients could

afford to keep copywriters and artists on staff. Agencies evolved from selling space to selling expertise and creativity. By 1900, their allegiance was firmly

*®Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 10.

*’Ibid., 11.

*°Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising, 114-117. -86“ on the side of the advertiser.*^

George P. Rowell, pioneering advertising agent and founder of

Printer's Ink, didn't think much of farm magazines and urged his clients to

concentrate their advertising dollars on urban publications. However, this

advice was somewhat suspect, as it coincided amazingly with his agency's

spheres of influence.*^ Other agencies were not so fastidious. The Frank B.

White Company opened in New York in 1886 as the first advertising house to

specialize in agriculture; it published Agricultural Advertising from 1894 to

1918 out of its Chicago office.**

That the Publishers Information Bureau differentiated between

general magazines and farm publications in tracking gross national

advertising revenue was no mere statistical whim.*^ For, if rural families

across the nation were walking out to roadside mailboxes to retrieve copies

of Youth's Companion, Ladies' Home Journal, and the Saturdav Evening Post,

the same could not be said of their urban counterparts. Few city families were likely to subscribe to the national agricultural periodicals such as the

*^Ibid., 138-139. See also Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Marchand's book is the best analysis of the relationship of advertising agencies to the buying public, besides being beautifully printed and illustrated on almost every page with examples of the craft

*^Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 28-29.

**Mott, A History of American Magazines, 337.

*^Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century, 26. -87- Farm Tournai, Farm and Fireside, or Country Gentleman. Thus, it should

have come as no surprise that general magazine advertising rose from

$25,294,000 in 1915 to $33,405,000 in 1916, while farm magazines only rose

from $2,839,000 to $3,455,000.**

Historians have tended to focus their attention on advertising in

urban publications and to discuss them in terms of urban audiences. This is

to make two miscalculations, one about the publications themselves and one

about the audience. First, farm journals, though fewer in number than

general magazines, were still numerous enough to be significant, especially

during the Progressive Era. Circulation figures for all American magazines

and newspapers are unreliable before 1914, when the Audit Bureau of

Circulations was founded. Before that year, statistics hinged on the veracity

of the editors or the best guesses of a handful of advertising agencies.** A more accurate measure is the numbers of publications in print. Between 1885

and 1905, there were well over a thousand periodicals, "of shorter or longer life," dealing with rural life and industry.*^ To gain some sort of a context for this figure, one estimate put the total number of magazines in 1900 at 3,500; at least fifty of these were national in scope.*® Almost aU of these

**Ibid.

**Mott, A History of American Magazines, 16.

*%id., 337.

*®Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century, 57. -88- publications—agricultural or general—depended upon advertising for their

survival. So, to overlook farm journals in an examination of advertising

history is to miss a substantial number of publications directed toward a

clearly delineated market segment.

Moreover, to discuss advertising mostly in terms of its impact on

urban folks is to miss the point of those Ladies' Home Tournai circulation figures. As noted above, the Tournai, the bellwether of mass market periodicals, really took off under the impetus of second class postage rates and rural free home delivery. Though the Journal did not differentiate its circulation records by "rural" or "urban," mail subscriptions to the countryside clearly were important. Even more importantly, the Journal started as an off­ shoot of the agricultural journal Tribune and Farmer, out of Philadelphia.

Publisher Cyrus Curtis talked his wife into editing a section for ladies, which she did under her maiden name of Louisa Knapp. This supplement, called the Ladies' Home Journal, was so successful that Curtis eventually sold the

Tribune and Farmer to his partner and threw all his efforts into the Journal.*’

The Journal began its meteoric rise to prominence by building on a foundation of rural subscriptions.^* General magazines were going to a rural

*’Mott, A History of American Magazines, 536-537.

^*For a truly intriguing look at the Journal, see Helen Mary Damon- Moore, "Gender and the Rise of Mass-Circulation Magazines: The Ladies' Home Journal and the Saturdav Evening Post, 1883-1910" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1987). -89- market in addition to an urban one.^

Actually, there was a fair amount of overlap between general magazines and farm journals. Some agricultural journals regularly supplemented their women's section with what were essentially reviews of national magazines. The Southern Planter, enormously enthusiastic about an experiment in color printing, proclaimed that "Perhaps the handsomest number of the Century Magazine ever issued is that which bears the date

November 1899," and then, some four inches later, listed all the best stories from Si Nicholas for November, summarizing Forum, New Lippincott,

Appleton's Popular Science Monthlv, Ladies' Home Tournai, Harper's

Magazine, Harper's Illustrated Weeklv, and ending with the suggestion that

"Harper's Bazaar has no peer as a ladies' paper. Clearly, the editors of this agricultural newspaper assumed that their readers would have an interest in and access to all these publications.

Far and away the greatest number of advertisements aimed toward rural families at the turn of the century pertained to matters of health. The

^Rural households were also a mainstay for religious publications. Early numbers of Printer's Ink debated at length whether it was appropriate for advertisers to tap this market, not so much concerned with the ethics of the matter as the possibility that readers would be offended by finding ads in publications of faith and take a dislike to the products advertised. Eventually, advertisers were able to overcome their scruples, but religious periodicals peaked in the 1870s and became increasingly less significant to advertisers after that date.

^"Magazines," Southern Planter, November 1899, 553-554. -90- Maine Farmer: An Agricultural and Family Newspaper filled its "Home

Department" page with excerpts from national magazines ("Saved by a

Caress," "The Typical Old Maid of To-Day," "Nature's Sovereign Remedy") and ads for patent medicines. "OLIVEEN is the darndest thing you ever saw to make Thin People Plump! Your money back if it don't." "A Sick Child can be made healthy, happy, and rosy by giving it True's Elixir." "There is a

Class of People, Who are injured by the use of coffee. Recently there has been placed in all the grocery stores a new preparation called GRAJN-O."

"Trial Size. Mitchell's Cure-All Corn & Bunion Plaster." But most impressive, running fifteen column inches, was "Facts for Women," ostensibly a feature column, but actually a series of testimonials about Lydia E. Pinkham's

Vegetable Compound (good for cases of change of life, bearing-down pains, falling of the uterus, and various other complaints).^

At the turn of the century, the Southern Planter had very little by way of stories or advertising that pertained directly to the rural home or farm women. Most ads dealt with items such as Eureka Harness Oil, Krauser's

Liquid Extract of Smoke, and Seed Potatoes for Fall Planting. There was one article in the November 1899 issue on "How Husbands Can Help Their

Wives," and Gold Dust stated forthrightly (with no illustration) that it was

"The Best Washing Powder. Cleans Everything from Cellar to Garret," but

Advertisements, Maine Farmer, 21 December 1899, 7; and 19 April 1900, 7. -91-

these items were far outnumbered by announcements about "The Duke," an

imported hackney stallion, "'Pasteur' Black Leg Vaccine," and fancy pigs, the

ultimate "union of England and America" (with illustration)/^

By contrast, the Michigan Farmer had a whole section on "The

Household," running just after "Sheep," "Dairy," and "Horses," which

indicated that the farm home was an intrinsic part of the farm business. The

official state paper for the Grange Farmers' Club, the Michigan Farmer was

highly political, with lengthy, detailed reports of Grange meetings, with

references to women as well as men. However, "The Household" section was nonpolitical in tone, mostly offering housekeeping hints, recipes, and tips on poultry raising (predominately a woman's task).”

Unlike the sparse and utilitarian ads in the Southern Planter, those in the Michigan Farmer were elegant, intricately illustrated, and numerous. The

December 1899 issue showed a lady sitting before Gearhart's Improved

Knitter, With Ribbing Attachment, a full drawing of a Fly Shuttle Carpet

Loom on sale at Eureka Weaver's Supply Works, and another drawing of the seven-drawer Michigan Farmer Sewing Machine ("Would Make a Fine

Christmas Present ONLY $18"). There was no overt suggestion that women would buy these machines for commercial purposes.

Advertisements in farm journals seemed always aware of the dual

^^Advertisements, Southern Planter, November 1899, 551-554.

^"Miscellaneous," Michigan Farmer, 3 March 1900, 176. -92- role of rural women, as both partner in the farm business and homemaker.

Thus, the Curtis Publishing Company could invite female readers to double

their incomes by selling the Ladies' Home Tournai and the Saturdav Evening

Post while Fairbanks' Gold Dust Washing Powder (drawing of the box. Gold

Dust Twins prominently displayed) could urge ladies to send for the free

booklet "Golden Rules for Housework."”

Those Golden Rules were not to be taken lightly; it would be a

mistake to dismiss columns on "Household Hints" and "Home Chats with

Farmers' Wives" as just so much filler copy, a sop to female members of the

Grange. The Home Economics movement was in its early stages and rural women, just as vigorously as their urban counterparts, insisted that their work be taken seriously. As a January 1900 issue of the Michigan Farmer pointed out

It is true that in a well-ordered home girls are taught housekeeping—to a certain extent at least—by the mother. Yet there are many homes where the mother herself is in need of instruction, and is far from competent to instruct her children....The day is not far distant when our girls will be trained at school in the domestic art as thoroughly and as regularly as they now are in arithmetic and grammar.^

The Southern Cultivator and Dixie Farmer, published out of Atlanta, Georgia

(Look at Your Label, Renew To-Day!), had virtually no advertising aimed at women or the rural family. However, the paper ran a regular feature. The

” Advertisements, Michigan Farmer, 23 December 1899, 492-493.

^"Teaching the Principles of Good Housekeeping," Michigan Farmer, 13 January 1900, 32. -93- Farm Home, "conducted by Nannie," which interspersed social notes and

reports on women's club meetings with instruction on housekeeping. Nannie

pointed out that dry goods stores customarily sold items at discount prices

between seasons. "If not living too far to get in a day's shopping between

trains, it would pay our farmer sisters to come in and take advantage of this cheap season, or else to get their city friends to purchase for them." In addition to special sales, the "economical and good manager," knows to shop with a list and to refurbish this year's wardrobe by dismantling last year's, turning the skirts, dyeing the tops.

Everyone can not have oriental rugs, but every housekeeper can have a very good imitation one by having her carpet balls woven into a rug instead of a carpet, and these rugs are far more attractive and serviceable than a cheap carpet.”

Every thinking woman could have sufficient "Table linen, toweling, hosiery, handkerchiefs, muslin, cotton trimmings, etc.," every careful seamstress could outfit herself and her children handsomely. Tight budgets and rural isolation were no valid excuse for a raggedy appearance or tacky carpets.” The canny shopper, the skilled needlewomen could outfit her home with all the accoutrements of her city counterpart.

The Massachusetts Ploughman and New England Tournai of

Agriculture was equally thorough in its depiction of appropriate rural life.

” "The Farm Home," Southern Cultivator and Dixie Farmer, 1 March 1902, 22-23.

” Ibid. -94- Published in Boston, the Ploughman announced on its banner that it was

"Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, The Farm, The Garden, The Fireside,

Rural Life, Literature, Useful Arts, News, etc." The December 14, 1901 "Our

Homes" section picked up a couple interesting stories from Harper's Bazaar and Youth's Companion, reprised a lecture by a "London Doctor" on "Why

Women have the 'Blues' ["they don't have enough to occupy their minds and their hands"] and offered, under "Homely Hints for the Kitchen," tips for greater efficiency. While most of the articles were practical in nature, they, nonetheless, pointed the way to greater elegance in living. Among the recipes was one for oyster sandwiches, the needlework feature had row-by- row instructions for knitting doilies, the sewing column, in addition to telling readers how best to dam a torn gown [from the inside], gave details on restoring old lace and admonished women to wash dishcloths after every use

"if they are to be kept nice." But, perhaps most fascinating were the Fashion

Notes. On this women's page, bare of advertising except for one tasteful mention of Eureka Harness Oil, was this statement: "The season of the tea gown is here, and Paris has sent some wonderfully beautiful examples."

Longer than the list of recipes was the description of various "fairylike" or

"bewitching" creations. "Among the opera cloaks to be seen this season will be a beauty of heavy cream satin, embroidered with gold, and have [sic] a deep inserting of Italian filet lace....For afternoon functions a handsome gown is one made of cream cloth trimmed with beaver. (The dressmaker calls it -95-

sable.)"®* Nannie, of the Southern Cultivator, was probably more on point

with her turned skirts and recycled waists, but, clearly, rural women in either

instance were being urged to broaden their aspirations.

Rural families were getting their messages of modernity from yet

another source: mail order journals. These monthly magazines, "which

wrapped pulp fiction around mail order advertising," were a great hit in the

rural market®^ Even those journals that evolved into more respectable

publications kept their roots deep in the countryside. Home Companion,

which advertised itself as "a journal suited to the entire family and read by

all," was sold in 1883 to the publisher of Farm and Fireside. At the time of

the sale, the farm journal had a circulation of 150,000 and a new four story

printing plant. Home Companion had evolved into a handsome small-folio publication by 1897, renamed Woman's Home Companion to distinguish it from the Ladies' Home Journal. (Besides, as the editor of the Companion pointed out, "woman" was a good Anglo-Saxon word, whereas the use of

"lady" was vulgar.) By 1898, the Companion claimed circulation of over

300,000, about half that of the Journal.®^ E. C. Allen, publisher in the 1880s and early 1890s of a group of mail-order magazines reaching over a million homes, claimed that his magazines went "to the great mass of the middle and

®oi'Our Homes" and "Fashion Notes," Massachusetts Ploughman, 14 December 1901, 6.

®^Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising, 37.

®*Mott, A Historv of American Magazines, 764-766. -96- better class country population...who are more easily influenced by

advertising than the like classes in the cities.®*

The countryside was also the natural market for mail order houses,

such as Sears and Montgomery Ward. Distinguishing his advertising from

Uneeda Biscuit or "Say Zu-Zu to the grocery man," Sears executive Louis

Asher explained in 1905 that his marketing was the "simplest and plainest in

the world":

We are a supply house. We deal in necessities. Our constant effort is to furnish these necessities at the lowest possible prices, so that the farmer at a distance can get his goods from us, and get a selection from the proper variety, and the right quality he deserves, and save money through the transaction.®^

Sears went to as much trouble as Uneeda Biscuit to establish customer

confidence and affiliation. Trains were sent through the countryside, so that

rural shoppers could sample the quality of Sears merchandise and satisfy

their apprehensions about buying blindly. Sears ran institutional ads,

determined to establish the stability and size of the company (thereby

reassuring the public that goods would, indeed, be sent upon receipt of

order—and money), and promised a money-back guarantee on all items.®*

Sears placed advertisements in popular newspapers and magazines

®*Pope, The Making of Modem Advertising, 37.

®^Louis Asher, quoted in Boris Emmet and John E. Jeuck, Catalogues and Cotmters: A Historv of Sears, Roebuck and Companv (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 65.

®*Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 15. -97- offering "profit sharing certificates," This was a system by which customers received credits for each mail order purchase, credits they could then cash in on free products. "Start Your Orders To Us At Once....Please tell your neighbors about this. Tell them to dig up their old catalogues, tell them to hunt up their neighbor's catalogues. With this liberal offer extended, we hope every catalogue out will do service."®* While their urban counterparts were being taught how to shop in department stores, rural families were being walked through the steps of catalog shopping.

And, just as New Yorkers were advised on the desirability of monkey skin sets and seltzer water and gray felt hats, rural customers learned the importance of acquisition. For instance, anyone who amassed fifty dollars in profit sharing certificates could get, absolutely free, six wooden kitchen chairs or a "rich, 26-piece set of high grade silverware" or a "handsome mantel clock" or an "overstuffed, full spring, fringe trimmed couch" or an

"elaborately finished banquet lamp" or a "beautiful solid oak, cobbler seat rocker."®^ The message was two-fold. Not only were American families being persuaded to shop early and often from the Sears catalog, they were being told that they should want chairs and silverware and mantel clocks and couches and banquet lamps and rocking chairs. Slanted toward the rural customer, lavishly illustrated mail order catalogs became for many an

®*Emmet and Jeuck, Catalogues and Counters, 76a-76b.

®7Ibid. -98-

isolated farm wife an important cultural document.®® Richard Sears didn't

run newspaper advertisements referring to his "Consumer's Guide" as the

"great w ish book" for nothing.®’

Depending upon which rock they stand, historians are likely to argue

that their boulder shapes the course of the river. Some see advertising as the main force behind the development of a modern, consumer society, teaching people to appreciate and need the output of industrial production.” Others suggest that advertising did not mold values or create desires so much as

"exploit those already well-ingrained characteristics of American society."’^

Some argue that revolutions in printing technology paved the way for modern advertising.’^ Others trace mass marketing to innovations in packaging and preservation of goods or to fundamental changes in merchandising and distribution.’* Some emphasize advertising's competitive

(and anti-competitive) effects on business development, while others focus closely on the way agency professionals and their preconceptions about the

®®Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 15.

®’Emmet and Jeuck, Catalogues and Counters, 59.

’“Presbrey, The Historv and Development of Advertising, 388ff.

’^Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 167.

’^Jay, The Trade Card in Nineteenth-Centurv America, 1.

’*Opie, Packaging Source Book, 12-13; Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 26-28. -99- American public shaped the content of national advertising.’^

But all would agree that, no matter what the driving force and no matter how practical the ultimate end, advertising traded in dreams. Those dreams at the turn of the century depended heavily on notions of efficiency and science, of people being able to shape their own lives through a pattern of informed decisions and appropriate acquisitions. Moreover, those dreams spelled out in detail what it meant to be an American: eager to embrace change, stalwart in defense of traditional democratic values, and entitled to a comfortable and gracious standard of living. Through magazines, newspapers, and the mail order catalogs, dreams of social enfranchisement flowed liberally throughout the land, past the country home as well as the city flat.

But if the river ran equally through city and country, not everyone had an equal chance to go fishing. Rural families were well aware of what they could not afford. They learned their lessons for living, but that didn't mean they could put them into practice. Urban expatriots might foreswear the city for "a world of God and nature,"’* but others in the countryside were less sanguine. Mattie Walton, twenty-nine year old mother of six, four surviving, described her life for the American Country Life Association (in

’^Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising, 11-16; Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, xxii.

’*"Women and Country Life," 341. -100- exquisite handwriting and perfect grammar):

I have never known any farmers such as I have read about with autos, silos, radios, tractors, or very few with telephones. Neither have I ever known any farmers' wives with hot and cold water, electric lights, washing machines, churns, or linoleum covered floors....! have thought about my bright beautiful children having to go without even the necessaries of life until I fear I am getting bitter about it. Surely there is some one who has enough clothing to spare to clothe my children so they might go to school and Sunday School....If someone among you should be kind enough to aid me, to help in raising 4 good citizens for the U.S. I know the Lord will repay you a thousand fold.”

” Mattie Walton, n.p., to the American Country Life Association, New York City, n.d.. Box 8, Kenyon Butterfield papers. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. CHAPTER THREE

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

Alice Cutting Phelps was no fool. She first wrote the Children's Bureau

in October of 1916. Pregnant with her third child and guardian of two others

whose mothers had died in childbirth, Alice Phelps lived in Burntfork,

Wyoming, sixty-five miles from a doctor. Thirty-seven years old, "worried

and filled with perfect horror at the prospects ahead," she wanted pamphlets

from the federal government on infant and maternal care. Alice got her

publications and she got what she wanted even more: direct intervention on

the part of the federal bureaucracy.

Alice wrote to "Dear Miss Lathrop," chief of the newly created

Children's Bureau in Washington on the recommendation of Lillian Wald, a

nationally renowned settlement house worker in New York City. Alice may

have lived on a ranch in an isolated pocket of southwestern Wyoming, but

she knew who was stirring the dust on issues of central concern. Dr. Julia

Lathrop clearly was horrified by Alice Phelps's situation; she sent pamphlets,

a visiting nurse, and a woman doctor from Chicago. But she also found in

Alice an articulate ally in her crusade to improve the lot of women and children in America. Alice sent a series of letters, documenting case histories

-101- -102- of women on neighboring ranches, which Julia Lathrop used in her attempts

to galvanize the governor of Wyoming, the Visiting Nurses Association, the

Red Cross, and the Homes Economics Department of the University of

Wyoming, a land-grant school closely affiliated with the Department of

Agriculture.

If you and all interested could only know what I do from actual experience you would be simply appalled at conditions in these remote places....Last April a family by the name of — came and took up homesteading joining the — ranch on the East. Mrs. — was pregnant and already had three children all less than 11 months apart, they had a tent 12 X 14 and oh! the dirt and heat. On [our] ranch there is a log cabin. I just couldn't begin to think of her lying in that place so my husband moved them all over here and her baby was born Aug. 6 in the night. [The husband] came over for me and I was alone with her. They had no doctor or nurse. She had a 10 lb. boy, and was tom dreadfully....She is very miserable now, merely dragging around, if she could have had care, but they are very poor and besides we were too far to get a doctor inside of 7 hours.^

Between the two of them, Alice Phelps and Julia Lathrop created a

real flurry of letters in 1916-17. John B. Kendrick, governor of the state, read

the histories "with a great deal of interest, not to say with horror....! had no

real conception of the hardships which some of our Wyoming women have

been compelled to undergo."^ He corralled the State Board of Charities and

Reform, the Red Cross Association, and "some of our Club women" in the

^Alice Cutting Phelps, Burntfork, Wyoming to Julia Lathrop, chief. Children's Bureau, Wasldngton, D.C., 1 November 1916, Record Group 102, Box 25, File 4-3-0-3, National Archives. Washington, D.C.

^John B. Kendrick, governor of Wyoming to Julia Lathrop, chief. Children's Bureau, 24 February 1917, Record Group 102, Box 25, File 4-3-0-3, National Archives, Washington, D.C. -103- expectation that efforts could be coordinated through the state hospital

system to reach women who were unable to travel for medical care. With

cooperation between the federal and state level, Kendrick hoped to "succeed

in throwing about the women of our Wyoming Frontier all possible

protection."*

Emeline S. Whitcomb, professor of Home Economics at the University

of Wyoming, responded to Julia Lathrop's plea somewhat impractically,

suggesting that Alice Phelps go to a hospital for the delivery of her baby,

pointing out that it would be cheaper to owe one hundred dollars to a doctor

than "to spend three times that amount...[on] an undertaker." Noting that

"sixty miles is considered a small distance in Wyoming," Professor Whitcomb

seemed to be operating on the assumption that the problem was one merely

of education, that Alice Phelps's real problem was a fear of hospitals. "At any rate, she must make the effort to go to some hospital to bring her child into the world under decent circumstances. She owes that to this little soul and to herself. I feel it is our duty to urge her to do that." Women, such as

Alice Phelps, who "so frequently do not have the right conception of the true worth of a dollar," must be convinced that failing to borrow money for a surgeon was penny wise and pound foolish.^ The answer, clearly, was

*Ibid.

^Emeline S. Whitcomb, professor of economics. University of Wyoming, Laramie to Julia Lathrop, chief. Children's Bureau, Washington, D.C., 4 November 1916, Record Group 102, Box 25, File 4-3-0-3 National Archives, -104- widespread distribution of Children's Bureau publications.

Emeline Whitcomb was severely underestimating Alice Phelps. This was no lady who needed to be convinced of the need for proper medical care. This was a lady who was raising four children on a dirt ranch in

Wyoming, one who didn't have enough money to buy fabric to make clothes for the baby she was carrying.* More to the point, this was a lady who, on her own, had taken the initiative to contact Lillian Wald, to contact Julia

Lathrop. She not only knew what she needed, she knew what she deserved.

Speaking of a woman who lost her child at birth and almost died, herself, from blood poisoning, Alice wrote:

This makes two babies and two mothers in my own neighborhood to die in just one year. A big toll when it is unnecessary. If that woman had been a thoroughbred cow worth 3 or 4 hundred dollars Wyoming's State veterinary would have been rushed out here to save her and the calf, but it doesn't seem worth while to save babies and mothers in general....Our government sends vaccine free of charge for cattle; why don't they do more important things — save us?*

Alice Phelps was not really interested in Governor Kendrick's mantle of protection; she wanted government services. Not only did she know the true worth of the dollar, she knew her own worth.

Washington, D.C.

* Alice Cutting Phelps, Hutton Ranch, Burntfork, Wyoming to Julia Lathrop, chief. Children's Bureau, Washington, D.C. 1 November 1916, Record Group 102, Box 25, File 4-3-0-3, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

* Alice Cutting Phelps, Burntfork, Wyoming to Julia Lathrop, chief. Children's Bureau, Washington, D.C. 13 December 1916, Record Group 102, Box 25, File 4-3-0-3, National Archives, Washington, D.C. -105- Emeline Whitecomb was not alone in her underestimation of women such as Alice Phelps. Even as the Country Life commissioners were struggling to publish and disseminate their report, Charlotte Perkins Gilman was asking, in the pages of Good Housekeeping magazine, "Why Are There

No Women on the President's Commission?"^ Gilman took a rather sardonic view of the whole process.

The female relatives of farmers are being inquired about and looked after by a presidential commission....Some of the farmers have been heard from, rather resenting this commission, and suggesting that they are as well able to look after their own homes, children and female relatives as any other men.®

Gilman suggested that women could actually look after themselves. After all,

"conditions affecting domestic economics in this country, together with the happiness and efficiency of mothers, wives, and daughters, are distinctly the business of women."®

Arguing that rural women were the "hardest worked and least paid of any class we have," Gilman likened the kitchen to sweatshop labor — with no pay. Women, according to Gilman, worked longer and harder than their men, died sooner, and struggled with terrible isolation:

"Even the smothering drag of her restricted industries; even the eternal limitations of her family cares, would not be so damaging if she could

^Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "That Rural Home Inquiry: Why Are There No Women on the President's Commission?" Good Housekeeping 48 (January 1909): 120-122.

®Ibid., 120.

®Ibid. -106- freely and frequently meet others of her kind." [Instead,] "The woman has nothing beyond her house and family except the church; that is why she becomes insane so often, and usually with a religious mania."^°

The solution to the problem was twofold—consolidate farm homes into village compounds, wherein each family would live privately but labor cooperatively, and establish a commission "largely" of women to coordinate with State Federations of Women's Clubs and the National Council of

Women and collect information on the realities of rural living. Informed by statistics—"tables of diet, methods of cooking, conditions of teeth, rates of mortality"—the commission could put together a body of instructional pamphlets for women to use in scientifically reordering their households. In keeping with progressive era theory, Gilman's commission would be one of experts:

experts in domestic architecture and decoration, landscape gardening, household industries, sanitation, hygiene and physical culture, food preparation, aseptic cleaning, education and amusement: nine distinguished authorities....They should have sufficient time for thorough study, be amply supplied with means, and command the intelligent interest of the whole country.

Putting forth what Good Housekeeping later referred to as a "clarion call,"

Gilman sketched out a veritable sylvan utopia.

The people themselves should be as fine a stock as ever Athens saw; tall, strong and beautiful, full of vitality and the trained efficiency of modern civilization. We can make people like that if we choose. By

i°Ibid.

"Ibid. -107-

"we" I mean women. Women are the makers of men.^^

Good Housekeeping responded to Gilman's call to arms by instituting a national survey of its own, in conjunction with four major agricultural journals, reaching an aggregate circulation of 675,000 families." Declaring their survey to be a natural supplement to the work of the Country Life

Commission, editors, through their "National Rural Home Inquiry," sought

"to give the women's side of this problem adequate expression."" But, as they distributed their inquiry, before the first results were even in. Good

Housekeeping was publishing articles affirming both the superiority of country life and the centrality of self improvement groups to the maintenance of that life."

Essayist Charles W. Burkett knew "What the Farm Home Needs," in

February of 1909.^® Burkett, a "country man by feeling, inheritance, and inclination," drew his inspiration from "The good old mother, still living in the country." While it was not clear whether this was his personal mother or

"Ibid., 121.

"These were Farm and Home of Springfield, Massachusetts, and Chicago, the American Agriculturalist of New York, the Orange Tudd Farmer, of Chicago, and the New England Homestead, also of Springfield.

"Katharine Wyman, "Inspiring Examples of Rural Uplift," Good Housekeeping 48 (March 1909): 289.

"Clearly, the road to hell was paved with Good Housekeeping.

^®Charles W. Burkett, "What the Farm Home Needs," Good Housekeeping 48 (February 1909): 148-150. -108-

just a generic version, the lady was unselfish, uncomplaining, steadfastly

honest, sincere, and true and certainly "no narrower in her field than her city

sister." With the advent of the telephone, rural free mail delivery, and good

roads, Burkett argued, country women had as much access to true sociability

as their urban counterparts, with "social standards" drawn from the "busy

working class." "The busy, enthusiastic workers of the country have just as

much time for recreation and for interchange of social duties and

requirements as the working class of cities and towns." If anything, the social

life was better than that of the city, where "social standards" devolved from

the leisure class.

No, Burkett saw nothing inherently flawed in rural life. "The fault is

not of the environment, but of the people themselves....The secret of the whole thing is to give women a better chance." Families who failed to

prosper, did so because the wife was treated like "a drudge and a slave.

The rural woman had evolved to the point where primitive living conditions were no longer even marginally tolerable.

For one thing, she has become a more refined being. The fibers of her nature are more delicate. The disagreeable conveniences of the old-time isolated farm home have become irksome, distasteful, and out of place as a part of the domicile of this very intense, very nervous, and very intellectual creature. What is needed, therefore, is not more wealth or society, or more social activity, but instead a new standard of home

"This was a perspective he shared with the Grange. See Donald B. Marti, Women of the Grange: Mutuality and Sisterhood in Rural America, 1866-1920, Contributions in Women's Studies, No. 124 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 79. -109- living, a new arrangement of home and house things that shall provide for this noble queen with a dignity and appreciableness more in keeping with her nature and demands.^®

Professor Burkett's remarks are interesting on a variety of levels. For one, he evidently subscribed to what might be considered mutually exclusive images of women. The good old mother had a "character as strong and enduring as time itself," but she also was intense, nervous, and intellectual—in all the finest senses of those terms. She lived in the countryside, where there was "more cheer, more real joy and happiness, and more true fellowship" than the city, but still seemed to have been plagued by symptoms of neurasthenia, an emotional and psychic disorder thought to be triggered by early twentieth century urban industrialism. But whatever other intriguing ambiguities of argument Burkett might have presented, he stood firm on his solution: primitive ways of living must be replaced by modern tools and appliances, freeing rural women to improve their own lot."

The villain of the piece, as he was in so many articles written at the time, was the country wife's "lord and master [who] indulges in new tools and machines as fast as they appear."

In too many farm homes the plan has been to provide every outside desirable thing, leaving the needs of the home to the very last....I never see a big, fine-looking barn with a small, ill-kept house and yard that I do not think the man who owns the place is more of a beast than a man; he certainly thinks more of his live stock than of his wife and

"Ibid., 149.

"Ibid., 148-149. -110-

children."

In some cases, the man was less bestial than oblivious, shifting the burden of

responsibility for change onto the wife. Burkett suggested that rural women

determine what improvements were required and then present a workable scheme for obtaining them: "Your husband may mean well, but oh, he is so slow! Just start in, figure up the biU, get the plans made and then spunk up!"

The rural community should bear a hand in equipping women to draw up those improvement plans and enabling them to find the wherewithal. Burkett advocated home economics instruction in country schools, rather than continuing to train girls in subjects that had no direct relevance to their work in life.

I will agree to let the teachers have their way of living up to the old traditions and teaching my daughter about many foolish things, but I do want them to consider some of the more useful things, and inform her about and instruct her in some studies that will help her in a practical way when she has a home of her own.^^

Professor Burkett was not suggesting that females be kept from school because they were not capable of much learning or because education would give them ideas above their station and ruin them as wives and mothers. Rather, he was concerned that girls be educated in such a way as to

"Ibid., 149.

2ilbid., 150. -111- make them as capable and independent as possible—in their life's work."

Instruction in homemaking, presumably, would keep wives from becoming

"drudges and slaves." By the same token, Burkett urged rural women to be active in their churches, join clubs (particularly those affiliated with the

Grange), organize neighborhood recreation programs and playground associations, and, in general, take charge of all aspects of rural life in their communities.

The trick, ultimately, was not to restructure the coimtiyside economically or reshuffle familial relationships, but to persuade men and women to take up the business at hand and use modern training and technology to improve their lot.

After all, the problem is a joint affair, and it will be solved in time. As men grow out of their little conceits, become more mindful of what it is to love and cherish, they will more willingly co-operate and more freely sink their selfish notions; then woman wül be more generously enthroned in her place and the farm will possess the delights now denied to it, but rightly its own, and the country woman's outlook will open up to all of ite beauty and grandeur."

Katharine Wyman, in the March 1909 issue of Good Housekeeping,

"The Grange also saw home economics as the answer to "household drudgery," campaigning strongly for the introduction of domestic science in the agricultural colleges from tiie 1870s onward, coordinating with the 4-H and USDA extension agents to start county-level clubs after 1914. See Marti, Women of the Grange, 81-85,101-102. See also Sally McMurry, Families and Farmhouses in Nineteenth-Centurv America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 214-215, for a discussion of the early home economics work of Martha Van Rensselaer among New York farm women.

"Ibid. -112- continued Burkett's theme in "Inspiring Examples of Rural Uplift." In a series

of vignettes, Wyman pointed to individuals in rural communities who,

through forethought and cooperation, were improving the quality of country

life. A headmaster of a local academy had changed a run-down school, given

to hosting public dances, "which were frequent and demoralizing," into a

community social center that brought together families from widely

separated, "formerly hostile," regions of town. A group of women in

Deerfield, Massachusetts, had opened a Village Room as a center for "social

broadening and uplift," stilling the initial "objections which would be raised

in any cotmtry town." The Mothers' and Daughters' Club of Plainsfield, New

Hampshire had united women from an artists' colony with those in the

surrounding countryside to produce braided rag rugs from scraps to raise

money for their respective households. The club evolved into the Mothers'

and Daughters' Industry, manufacturing a range of textile goods and enabling

women "to earn in their own homes money without which they would

otherwise go without.""

Wyman also looked with approval on a variety of self-education

programs. She noted the Farmers' Wives' Reading Course, a correspondence

class run out of the New York State College of Agriculture. Women

receiving the bulletins formed Farmers' Wives' Clubs to meet every two to four weeks to study together. Wyman cited other classes available to

"W yman, "Inspiring Examples," 289-293. -113- "women who are unable to leave their homes." She endorsed the USDA

Office of Experiment Stations movable school of agriculture, with its series on

domestic science, as well as Farmers' Institutes in various states. Readers

were urged to make use of traveling libraries, sponsored in some regions by

state departments of education. Correspondence courses, institutes, and women's clubs shared a common responsibility, according to Katharine

Wyman. Women needed to be convinced that they had the power and the means to effect massive social change.

If conditions are to be bettered, it is the women of the small town who must better them. It lies with them to get things out of the rut....If the women could only be brought to desire earnestly a broader life, and to realize that such a life lies within their reach, the country town would take on a different meaning for young and old."

More than a thousand women responded to the Good Housekeeping

Farm Home Inquiry, in letters that were excerpted but never systematically tabulated. Still, those excerpts suggest that general uplift may have ranked rather low on the list of rural priorities. Respondents seemed to have been less in need of broadening their outlook than in obtaining access to better or cheaper roads, schools, rail transportation, telephones, and household appliances. Satisfaction with rural life increased in direct proximity to modern conveniences.

Good Housekeeping had hoped that their Farm Home Inquiry would be followed by a national commission, appointed by the president, as was the

"Ibid., 293. -114- Country Life Commission. However, Washington turned a deaf ear. Instead,

the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) took the responses, reported on them by territory at their Tenth Biennial Convention in 1910, and adopted reform measures deemed appropriate by region. In "A New Era for

Farm Women," the editors of Good Housekeeping professed to be quite pleased with this outcome, suggesting that much more could be done with their survey now that it was in private hands."

Even filtered through the preconceptions of various club members, response to the Farm Home Inquiry is significant precisely because

Roosevelt's Country Life Commission did not deliberately solicit the opinions of women, because Congress did not act briskly on the recommendations of that Commission, and because no one in government was willing to pick up the gauntlet cast down by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and set up a national commission to study the country home. Indeed, rural reformers thought they already knew what women wanted. Women had attended Commission hearings held across the country; some had testified. Women had been sympathetically discussed in the Commission Report, their centrality to the future of the family farm highlighted. Only Good Housekeeping and the

GFWC were willing to sift through responses to the Farm Home Inquiry and actually listen to the voices of farm women.

""A New Era for Farm Women: Our Farm Home Inquiry Taken Up by the General Federation of Women's Clubs," Good Housekeeping 49 (July 1909): 40. -US­ As sampled by the editors of Good Housekeeping, survey responses

paint a picture of hard labor, varying degrees of social isolation, lack of

money, and a tangible defensiveness about the attitudes of "city people."

Interestingly, letters extracted by the editors almost all considered rural life

superior to urban—even when the woman's particular tale was not a pleasant

one. For instance, Mrs. C., in a section titled "Slavery in Connecticut,"

reported that her husband kept her bound to the house, with no cash of her

own, and rarely allowed her to attend church.

The most discouraging thing about the farm is having to work so hard with no time to sit in the open air or smell the flowers. That was my experience when I had two babies and eight hired men to cook and make beds for. It was like a view of the promised land with no chance to get there....[Yet, she concluded] "The best thing about the farm is the independence and the comparative seclusion....Farming is the healthiest occupation in the world.

Likewise, Mrs. C. of Illinois also had a husband who "does not like for me to have a good social time. He doesn't believe in it." Though she was restricted to the home, with no vacation and but one picnic outing per year, receiving little cash in return for making butter for sale, tending poultry, and keeping the garden, still Mrs. C. of Illinois endorsed rural life. "I am very willing that my two sons should become farmers, because I have always had the idea that farm life is 'way ahead of city life. I would like veiy much to see my daughters become farmers' wives." In the case of each Mrs. C., the

^^"A New Era for Farm Women," Good Housekeeping 49 (July 1909): 40- 41. -116- problem lay not with the occupation, but the spouse.

For some, the callousness of husbands offset the advantages of the countryside. "California farmers as a rule do not know that they have a wife.

A wife is merely a machine....! have not been on a vacation in ten years. I know women who dare not say their souls are their own, but are living drudges for the bite they eat and the clothes they wear." A "New York Girl" called herself "the stay-at-home kind, and go-without kind, too." Married to a farmer who taught at a university, leaving her alone to run the farm, this ninety-pound, thirty-year-old woman churned twenty-five pounds of butter every other day, milked the cows, cared for the chickens and pigs, and reared two children in a house with no drains to carry the slop water away. "If a man would say thank you once in a while, it would help."

I should enjoy going to town once in a while and spending some money to suit myself. My husband does not think it necessary for me to go. He buys the children's and my clothes and we wear what he gets. He is not the only man of this kind in the neighborhood. The men in general think that women ought never to go away from home. I have been to town three times in ten years and have had four new best dresses and two hats and one coat."

Mrs. S. in Iowa sounded less constrained and more indignant.

Though she did not describe her own husband as a domestic tyrant, she argued,

"If the farm women had labor-saving machinery in proportion to the farm men, there would not be so many discouraged farmers' wives....Our wants are many and various. We want better roads; we

"Ibid., 43. -117- want a parcels post; we want better schools. But what we need more than any of the above is labor-saving machinerv for the farm women.""

Mrs. S. described herself as living in a rich farming section, with lovely

homes—none with a lighting plant or running water, one with a heating plant

but no bathroom, and only one with an oil stove. "Almost every farmer has

all the most up-to-date machinery and tools of all kinds, but no similar provision is made for the women."

It is bitterly hard for a Cultured woman (and there are many, many such among our farm folk) to slave away and find no time to read and study, so that she may keep herself well informed and be a congenial companion for her husband and children.®"

Noting that farm women labored ceaselessly until their tired minds and bodies gave way, Mrs. S. asked, "Is heart's blood cheaper than machinery?

Have our farmers joined the city man's mad chase after the almighty dollar?"®!

By contrast, Mrs. A. H. suggested that the farmer was less stingy than impoverished. "Most of the men whom I know provide all they possibly can for their families....When a man is straining every nerve to pay taxes and the interest on the mortgage he cannot be expected to think very much of other things." Estimating that half the farmers of her acquaintance realized their wives needed a change, Mrs. A. H. attributed this consideration to the tone

"Ibid.

®"Ibid., 42-43.

®!Ibid. -118- set early in the marriage. "Young wives should not efface themselves, but quietly go out and take part in the social life of the neighborhood in a

reasonable way." This respondent saw the greatest flaw in country life as being the unfair position of the farmer in the national economy. "I have encouraged my son to become a farmer, and I hope the time is coming when the profession will carry with it proper compensation.®^

Comparative affluence and a comfortable standard of living changed both farm women's assessments of rural life and their perception of appropriate solutions to problems. "Contented in Ohio," Mrs. R. E. P. had

"no reason whatever to complain." She and her husband were saving to buy their land and had both rural free mail delivery and the telephone. Among her other appliances, Mrs. R. E. P. had a sewing machine, a washing machine, and an incubator. She subscribed to several farm papers, general newspapers, religious papers, and a monthly magazine. She attended church regularly in a nearby town. For this woman, the hardest thing about farm life was the "attitude of city people toward farmers." Though she conceded that farmers' wives who gave "themselves up to complaining of the farmers' lot" were at least partially responsible for this attitude, Mrs. R. E. P. noted,

"We do not care to be classed as a downtrodden, back-woody, know-nothing set We want equal rights with those of other occupations and

®®Ibid., 41. -119- enviroranents. "®®

"A Farmer's Wife, Massachusetts," wrote, "You [city] women who

have been brought up on sewers, ventilation and boiled water, must

remember that we exist on God's fresh air, sunshine, and pure spring water,

and therefore cannot see things as you do." Born and bred and married to

the farm, this woman took great offense at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's

original criticism of rural life and the Country Life Commission.

Mrs. Gilman mentions the poor, hard-worked, down-trodden farmer's wife and her awful end. lliere may be such tragedies, although I do not happen to know of any; but I want to say right here that if a man has any inclination to kill his wife with hard work, he can do it in the city as well as on the farm, with the advantage that in the city it takes less time.®^

Though this Farmer's Wife admitted freely that she had fewer of "this world's goods" than her urban counterparts, she pointed out that she had little need of these items, not being governed by a "set of petty rules," which promised entree into elite social life. And she bristled at the suggestion that rural women were in need of any outside advice or counseling.

We are not all satisfied, but this does not mean that we are discontented. It is the right of every woman everywhere to strive to better herself and her surroundings. This I believe is what the average farmer's wife is doing. I also believe that she and she alone understands her needs and surroundings, and that she is therefore better able to accomplish the desired ends than her sisters in the city.®®

"Ibid., 40.

"Ibid., 42.

®®Ibid., 42. -120- In defending her right to better herself and her surroundings—on her own terms—Farmer's Wife from Massachusetts was providing another clue as to which segment of the rural community was actually participating in this conversation about good life in the country. The Good Housekeeping Farm

Home Inquiry was printed in broad-circulation agricultural newspapers supported by mail subscription; by definition, respondents were a) literate, b) affluent enough to pay subscription fees and return postage, c) sufficiently interested in the issue to take the time to write letters in answer to the questions. Subscribers to journals like the American Agriculturalist, Ohio

Cultivator, and Michigan Farmer were, in the words of historian Sally

McMurry, "Self-styled progressive farm men and women aimed to reform

American agriculture and rural life through the introduction of capitalist method, technological innovation, scientific experimentation, and the reorganization of social and family life."®" The newspapers they read reflected a "progressive" interest in agricultural education and the improvement of rural culture.®^ Printed in journals with such a readership, it was not surprising that the Farm Home Inquiry drew such a large response.

"Progressive" farmers as described by McMurry closely resemble the

Grangers described by historian Donald Marti. Convinced that they could make life better through hard work, education, and self-denial, members of

®"McMurry, Families and Farmhouses, 3.

®%id., 4. -121- the Grange were "self-consciously modern," with little patience for traditional

farmers who hoped that the future would be just like the past. Though all farmers were invited to join the Grange, "only progressive farmers chose to

answer."®®

Ethnicity and race also bounded the ranks of the Grange. These were

Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, progressive farmers. In Mississippi, the Grange was composed of small landowners; there were few plantation owners or tenants, and no African-Americans. Because the Grange was a secret society, it was regarded with suspicion by Catholics and Lutherans as well as some conservative evangelicals. Thus, religion further delineated the boundaries of the organization. Marti makes the point that the membership of the Grange had much in common with that of the white Farmers' Alliances, particularly in their attractiveness to highly articulate women leaders.®® Predominately

Protestant, high school graduates, and comfortably circumstanced, these women felt they had a moral obligation to their children and their communities to work for reform.^" Many Grange women had at one time been teachers and continued to rely on education as a primary means of social change.^!

®®Marti, Women of the Grange, 6.

®®Ibid., 5-8.

^"Maryjo Wagner, "Farms, Families, and Reform: Women in the Farmers' Alliance and Populist Party" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Oregon, 1986), 10, 363.

^^Marti, Women of the Grange, 12,126. -122- In their relative prosperity, their religion, their ethnicity, their reliance on education, their faith in social change, "progressive" farm women had much in common with the members of the General Federation of Women's

Clubs. In her opening remarks to the Tenth Biennial Convention, federation president Eva Perry Moore noted of the Farm Home Inquiry: "The letters are not illiterate; many of the women have been school teachers, and nearly all have had good education. Federation members were well aware of who was pulled within the scope of the inquiry and who was not Ida W.

Dawson, charged with reporting on New Jersey and Delaware, talked of the families scattered through the boggy pine woods of South Jersey, "some twelve hundred people, living for generations in shanties, often seven people in the same room." She spoke of the "back-woods people" of North Jersey,

"with an even lower standard of morality. They live way back from the railroads, making their living by burning charcoal, killing animals, and alas, by stealing." The New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs knew a little of these folks, having funded traveling libraries in these regions, organized classes in commercial lace making, and tried to get the state to enforce school attendance laws. None of these families had responded to the

^^Eva Perry Moore, "Opening," in Glimpses of Rural Conditions in America by the Board of Directors: Proceedings of the Tenth Biennial Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 18, 1910 (Washington, D.C.: General Federal of Women's Clubs), 416. -123- Good Housekeeping Inquiry.^

Perhaps because of perceived common concerns, the GFWC was

enormously sympathetic about rural problems as revealed by the survey.

Eva Perry Moore explained, "The bulk of the correspondence came from women, whose letters show that they are not having for one reason or another what President Roosevelt called a 'square deal.'"^ So, the GFWC determined take action; from 1912 to 1916, it instituted a rural initiative that eventually encompassed club activities in 46 states.^®

The General Federation of Women's Clubs had been formed in 1890 to serve as a nexus for women's social and political reform efforts nationwide. Some member clubs were urban, activist, and large, such as the

Chicago chapter, with its "reform, home, education, philanthropy, art and literature, philosophy, and science departments."^® Other clubs were comparatively tiny, nestled into rural neighborhoods such as Wausau,

Wisconsin. All operated as vehicles for women to coordinate their efforts to effect change, in themselves and in their communities. Particularly in the days before female suffrage, the GFWC was a significant body, attracting

^Mrs. Ida W. Dawson, "The Sandy Shores," in Ibid., 421-422.

"Moore, "Opening," in Glimpses of Rural Conditions in America by the Board of Directors: Proceedings of the Tenth Biennial Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio, Mav 18, 1910, 416.

^Mary Jean Houde, Reaching Out: A Story of the General Federation of Women's Clubs (Chicago: Mobium Press, 1989), 147.

"Houde, Reaching Out, 43. -124- prominent reformers, including Jane Addams, Sarah B. Cooper, Frances

Elizabeth Willard, Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, and Dr, Julia C.

Lathrop. Probably more to the point, the GFWC attracted women whose

names are not known outside the history of the organization, women who

pioneered in the kindergarten movement, who fought for child labor laws,

who supported the establishment of the U.S. Forest Service, who agitated for

the creation of the Children's Bureau, who defended the jobs of women in

civil service, and who built libraries and classrooms across the nation. The

effectiveness of their efforts may be gauged not only from their actual

accomplishments, but from the words of former president Grover Cleveland

who, in 1908, charged that club activiiy was a "horribly misplaced and

vicious retaliation" for the neglect of husbands, directly menacing "the

integrity of our homes." Even clubs that restricted themselves to the

education of their own members had a tendency toward "waste of time and

perversion of effort...It should boldly be declared that the best and safest

club for a woman to patronize is her home."^^

When the GFWC summarized the Farm Home Inquiry, it was still hoping that a presidential commission might be appointed to sort through the volume of data, which had "high value industrially, from a sociological point of view, and with reference to sanitary conditions."" The Tenth

% d . , 115.

^®Moore, "Opening,"in Glimpses of Rural Conditions , 416. -125-

Biermial Convention report was intended to pique the interest of club

members and encourage them to address the needs of rural women much

like themselves. Indeed, Louisa B. Poppenheim, speaking of "The Sunny

South," made no distinction between herself and her subject." She asserted

that "Life in the South is synonymous with country life." Of course, she also

somewhat defensively suggested, "The privations of country life in our

section are rather less than in other sections, on account of the mildness of

our climate in winter, the general fertility of our soil and the abundance of labor, ignorant though it be."

In their reports, other board members were less inclined to paper over the difficulties of rural life. Still, they generally agreed with Mrs. Philip

Carpenter who, writing of New York and New England, noted: "They think it a clean, wholesome, healthy life — the healthiest in the world. But for a few disadvantages, they say that the life would be ideal. "®°

The points raised by GFWC reports reveal common interests across regions.®! In some cases, an issue might be raised negatively (not enough

"Miss Louisa B. Poppenheim, "The Sunny South," in Glimpses of Rural Conditions in America , 423-429.

®“Mrs. Philip Carpenter, "New York and New England," in Glimpses of Rural C onditions, 418.

®!Having completed the Farm Home Inquiry, neither Good Housekeeping nor the GFWC was moved to preserve the responses. What remains are some extracts filtered through the editorial offices of Good Housekeeping for publication in the magazine and summary reports by the board members of the GFWC, sorted out by territory. Those reports are fascinating as much for what they don't say as for what they do; some board -126- good roads) and in some positively (better roads are rapidly improving rural life), but in all instances the central issue remained clear (good roads are essential). Key elements in assessing rural life seemed to be:

isolation/ loneliness lack of free time to leave farm monotonous/ unremitting labor scarcity of household help Grange/ civic clubs/church sociables access to schools/ school improvement associations lack of capital or spending money/ wife denied money modem household amenities/electricity access to mail publications/ libraries good transportation/communications extension courses for men and women®^

Far and away the two most significant problems noted were the isolation of women bound by workload or spousal fiat to the farm and the difficulty of running the farm home without water, electricity, or modern appliances. On the plus side, four categories shared almost equal weight: existence of professional, civic, and religious voluntary organizations; good roads and the automobile; rural free delivery and telephones; and aggressive state agricultural colleges with outreach courses in both scientific farming and domestic science. Out of the Farm Home Inquiry, also came a wish list of sorts:

porches & piazzas

members cleaved tightly to the letters, listing specific needs and improvements, while others spoke more vaguely, using their forum to defend country living in their neck of the woods.

®^For a more detailed overview, see Appendix A. -127- bathrooms/kitchen sinks windows running water extension courses compulsory education/ school consolidation manual training/ domestic science for children extending rural free delivery cheapening telephones promoting industries which use farm products securing a direct market for farm products lowering railroad express rates providing a parcel post finding a sure market for home manufactures improving access to books better roads/transportation more women's clubs creation of community recreation centers"

These are intriguing laundry lists, in light of what the GFWC did next. The board could have viewed the problems of country life largely in economic terms and set out an agenda to lobby for lower railroad express rates and parcel post, to find broader markets for agricultural produce and home manufactures, to funnel laborers into the countryside to work in fields and homes, to improve roads and mail service and telephone rates, and to grapple with banks to loosen credit and increase the flow of money into rural homes. None of these were tasks beyond the reach of an organization used to fighting for child labor laws and the preservation of national forests.

Instead, the GFWC focused on education and the creation of rural

"For a more detailed overview, see Appendix A. -128- women's clubs.®^ By 1916, the GFWC had programs running in 46 states, mostly falling into one of three categories: "1) studies of school laws and of legislation needed for rural schools; 2) coimty-by-county surveys of rural schools, indicating needs and also identifying local women interested in improving the school system; 3) the 'adoptions' of one or more schools by clubs in cooperation with school and local authorities."®® Specifically, club women in Georgia opened the Tallulah Falls Industrial School in 1909, after discovering that 32 percent of all school children in the state were not in any school, and began lobbying for a compulsory school attendance law finally adopted in 1915. In Virginia and Texas, club women worked with local chambers of commerce to improve rural schools; in Kentucky and Georgia, they held education rallies; in sixteen states, they instituted a "moonlight school movement" to keep schools open after dark for the education of adults, with 900 sites in Oklahoma alone. In 1914, the GFWC began agitating for the construction of "teacherages;" by 1916, some 500 such homes had been built for teachers, ending the need for such ladies to board on a rotating basis with families throughout the school district, thereby encouraging qualified

®^Arme Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women's Association in American History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 2-5, 158. Scott explains that club women gravitated toward subtle and not overtly political avenues of reform, rendering their projects somewhat invisible to their both male contemporaries and later historians.

®®Houde, Reaching Out, 147. -129 teachers to remain on the job.®®

The GFWC, if pressed on the point, would probably have disagreed with the theory that all rural families needed was exposure to higher ideals and the grit to pursue same. Nowhere in any of the reports of the Farm

Home Inquiry did any board member suggest that respondents were myopically letting their opportunities pass them by. Rather, the reports suggest that rural families had a rational and realistic grasp of what was needed; they lacked only the training necessary to modernize rural life. Very much in keeping with progressive era ideology, the GFWC seemed to operate on the assumption that any accomplishment is possible for a citizenry that was well educated and efficient.

Such an assessment was also totally in keeping with GFWC philosophy. The organization traced its beginnings to the snubbing of journalist Jennie June, who, in 1868, was discouraged from covering a dinner given by the New York Press Club to honor Charles Dickens. When Horace

Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, insisted that June and other women reporters be allowed to attend the event, the Press Club responded that they could sit behind a curtain, out of sight. Jennie June declined this gracious invitation and went on to form a women's club, lining up her own speakers.

®®Ibid., 147-148. -130- permitting women to learn and work together and reach out to "higher

aims."®’’

Women's clubs throughout the country provided an entree into the public forum for reformers and intellectuals—and also for homemakers.

Meeting usually in someone's front parlor, women learned the basic skills of advocacy: public speaking, committee work, group decision, formal resolution.®® By 1910, Jennie June's club had grown into a national network in which major projects almost always found their beginnings in the self- education efforts of small groups of ladies. In its recommendations on farm life, the GFWC sought to resolve rural problems with methods tried and true.

Board members saw little distinction between themselves and the respondents to the Farm Home Inquiry. As Mrs. PhiHp Carpenter asked:

"[W]hy do we separate the rural woman from any other New England woman? I find that she wants the same things that I want. She is my sister.

We understand each other, and we can and will help each other."®® It follows only logically, then, that Mrs. O. P. Kinsey would write, of the "Near West,"

From the data obtained, I feel safe in saying that, except near towns and cities, the homes and the life in rural communities is far from ideal and that the shortest road to reforms and improvements in these conditions will be found through the schools and through an education and training better suited to their needs than the kind of training that it has

®%id., 1.

®®Ibid., 14.

®®Carpenter, "New York and New England," 420. -131- heretofore been their privilege to receive.®®

Techniques that had worked so well for so many women in the GFWC surely would work in parts of the countryside yet to be organized.

The debate over farm life scattered over the country in the Farm

Home Inquiry and bound into the issues of Good Housekeeping was echoed in most national publications in the early years of the twentieth century. It is perhaps not surprising that a nation in transition from being predominantly rural to predominantly urban would worry over the ramifications in the popular press. What is striking, however, is the intensity of emotion sparked, not by superciliousness of urbanites, but by criticisms of the countryside made by its own inhabitants. Likewise, it is notable that the advantages and disadvantages of rural living cataloged in the letters to the editor sections of national magazines were virtually identical to the issues raised by the Farm

Home Inquiry. The terms of the debate did not alter, though the venue shifted.

Historians Deborah Fink and Nancy Grey Osterud have both explored the ways in which the lives of rural women were mediated through the lives of their husbands. Though laws had been passed by 1900 giving women the right to own and exchange land independently, few farmed separately from

®®Mrs. O. P. Kinsey, "The Near West," in Glimpses of Rural Conditions in America bv the Board of Directors: Proceedings of the Tenth Biennial Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio, Mav 18,1910 (Washington, D.C.: General Federal of Women's Clubs), 430. -132- husbands, fathers, or brothers. Osterud, in her study of New York's

Nanticoke Valley, demonstrated how women operated within these constraints to build mutually constructive work relationships that crossed gender and generation.®^ Fink, concentrating on Boone County, Nebraska, argued that the "derivative status" of women within marriage, the isolation of life on farms, and the perceived or real lack of other occupational options, made rural women desperately vulnerable, rendering them economically powerless, trapping many of them into abusive marriages.®^ Whether emphasizing the positive or the negative aspects of the arrangement, both historians agreed that family farming was built around a farmer and his wife.

It was expected that each woman would marry; it was taken for granted that her labor would prove critical for the success of the home farm.®® Willingness to participate in elaborate networks of cooperative labor and mutual aid also undergirded the social relations between rural women. Those who were deemed slackers, who refused to assist neighbors, were ostracized except in life-threatening situations.®^

®^Nancy Grey Osterud, Bonds of Community: The Lives of Farm Women in Nineteenth-Centurv New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 159- 201.

®^Deborah Fink, Agrarian Women: Wives and Mothers in Rural Nebraska, 1880-1940, Studies in Rural Culture, Jack Temple Kirby, ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 94-95.

®®Ibid., 64-69.

®^Osterud, Bonds of Community, 220-222. -133- These social norms, predicated on particular economic expectations,

left little room for maneuvering. "One Farmer's Wife" from Illinois told her

story in a piece in the Independent in February 1905.®® From all accounts, her life was somewhat of a disaster: "I am not a practical woman and consequently have been accoimted a failure by practical friends and especially by my husband, who is wholly practical." Reared on a farm, this

Illinois woman was teaching in her Sunday school and had earned a teacher's certificate for the second grade, when she married at age eighteen, "tho I begged to be released." Overridden by the stronger wül of her intended

(who was "innocent of book learning"), she found herself wed and wrapped up the daily business of helping her husband on the farm (for he was too miserly to hire help) and of keeping house in primitive conditions for little thanks. Forced to read by stealth, "for my husband thought it a willful waste of time to read anything and that it showed a lack of love for him if I would rather read than talk to him when I had a few moments of leisure," One

Farmer's Wife found herself frustrated intellectually.

I must admit that there is very little time for the higher life for myself, but my soul cries out for it, and my heart is not in my homely duties; they are done in a mechanical, abstracted way, not worthy of a woman of high ambitions; but my ambitions are along other lines.®®

Her friends sent her books and magazines by mail and urged her to

®®"One Farmer's Wife, The Independent 58 (9 February 1905), 294-299.

®®Ibid. -134- take a correspondence course in writing, which her husband found to be

"humbug," but finally agreed to on the condition that she keep her aspirations secret. And so, at the time she wrote the article, she was still hoping for a literary career, still engaged in an avalanche of farm work (which she detailed), and still feeling defensive about the unspoken criticism of her neighbors, who didn't realize that she had no time to earn butter and egg money for the household because her spouse worked her in the fields in place of hired labor. "But money is king, and if I might turn my literary bent to account, and surround myself with the evidences of prosperity, I may yet hope fully to redeem myself in their eyes...."®’'

A month later, the Independent ran a collection of responses from rural women who found farm life intensely satisfying.®® These letters suggest that quality of life rested in large measure on one's ability to make significant economic decisions and on the respect accorded by close relatives—especially husbands.®® "Women on the Farm" began with a testimonial from a college-

®rrhe editors of the Independent explained that they were publishing the piece because there were champions of industrial classes, garment workers, and household servants, but no one to speak for the farmer's wife. Noting that they printed the article without change, they wrote, "We hope that the money received for it and the joy of seeing it in print will not induce the author to neglect entirely her domestic duties to attempt a literary career."

®®"Women on the Farm," Independent 58 (9 March 1905), 549-554.

®®Osterud, Bonds of Community, 275-288. Osterud discusses how rural women overset their economic inequalities by establishing "mutuality in their marriages," working in close conjunction with their husbands, creating "a common culture of reciprocity and respect among women and men." The extent to which they succeeded in these goals determined the caliber of their -135- educated woman who, faced with the need to support herself and her invalid

sister, and "having a great prejudice against teaching for women, having seen

numerous nervous wrecks after five years at this work," set up as a farmer.

With the help of an Irish foreman, this "New England Woman Farmer"

established a retail milk trade, supplementing her income with boarders

desirous of a vacation in the country. "As for boasting of having grown rich in the past five years, I am afraid that is impossible." Still, the farm was comfortably prosperous; the sisters belonged to the village library ("which for

$3 a year allows subscribers four books a week"), owned a telephone and managed to visit New York and Boston several times each winter (dressed

"well enough so that my friends in these places need not feel ashamed to see me come in"). "On the whole, mine seems a sane and pleasant course of life and I have never regretted the school teaching or other alternatives. It is some satisfaction to be 'the boss,' even if the domain is small.

Of course, the New England Woman Farmer had dispensed with the husband along with the teaching career. "A Pennsylvania Woman," whose

"heart was touched by the tale of woe told by the farmer's wife in 'Illinois,"' had a vastly different story—not in the description of daily chores, but in the attitude of her husband. The daughter of Irish immigrants, "who came to

America as poor as English persecution could make them, and God knows

days.

Women on the Farm," Independent 58 (9 March 1905), 549-554. -136- that was poor enough," the Pennsylvania woman was reared in the

Alleghenies and convent educated as a school teacher. She taught in several

counties and resisted the blandishments of "John" for nearly two years,

cautioned by her friends that "He is too much of a buckwheat for you."

"[B]ut I listened to John, and you know when a woman listens what she will

do." John "led me to the altar and then led me to his home," over one

hundred miles away. There she found a large farm, with many buildings,

and "work enough for a small army." A real hustler, her new spouse "had a

strong will, and his word was law about the whole place. My heart sank."’^

"But my husband's kindness came to the rescue." He encouraged her

to spend her savings from teaching on improving the house and "laid all his

plans before me, asked my opinion in everything he was about to do."

Possessor of a large library, he would argue literary subjects during dinner, but he was practical enough to build a windmill over the well and pump water into the kitchen and bathroom. Discovering his wife was musical, he bought her a piano, never made her account for her spending money, and always had a horse and driver ready for her use. Eventually, they added five sons "to the confusion," and clearly had a loving marriage in what they considered to be ideal environs.

We don't believe in the wife raising chickens for pin money. We have no separate acts. Everything is in common, both in earning and spending. John thinks or says, at least, that the wife is "the whole thing"

^Ibid., 551. -137- at the home, and so has always treated me as the principal partner in the business. I have tried to act my part along these hnes, and therefore there is no hitch.^

Significantly, John's kindness was expressed not only in respect and

consideration, but in the material accouterments of the twentieth century.

Other letters reveal an assumed connection between standard of living and

quality of life; farm women bristled at the implication that the countryside

was in any way lagging behind the city. Mrs. F. A. Niswanger of Blencoe,

Iowa, suggested to the Independent that "you have put us farmer folks in a

wrong light." Arguing that the Illinois Farmer's Wife was "not only

unfortunate in her husband, but also in her place of residence," Mrs.

Niswanger said the article described farm life of 20 years earlier. "Some of my neighbors eat in their kitchens, but I could almost say that every wife has

a cream separator, a patent churn and other labor-saving devices. Some of them 'do not have time' for solid reading, but most homes (particularly since

R.F.D.) have the daily paper and several good magazines."

I am busy, busy, and must be quick and methodical or be swamped. But when I am woefully tired from the dairy work, the pickling, the canning, etc., cannot you see that it is some compensation to know that my husband and babies will have pure cream and butter, that my pickles are not crisp because of the use of alum, that boric acid does not enter into my chicken salad and boned turkey, and that the latter really are chicken and turkey?’'®

A farmer's daughter for 30 years and a farmer's wife for six, Mrs. Niswanger

^Ibid., 552.

” Ibid., 552. -138- took a dim view of the whole discussion. "As to this farmer sister of mine, her story is the most pitifully tragic thing that has come to my notice for many a day. It has been my observation that modern martyr's crowns are usually uncomfortable and profitless."’'^

"Another Illinois Farmer's Wife" and "A Michigan Farmer's Wife" were much more sympathetic and charitable in their response to their farmer sister. Still, they wrote to the Independent to testify on behalf of rural life, taking great pains to draw parallels between their lives and those of families elsewhere in the country. "I would like the Eastern people to know of the handsome homes, the culture and higher life of farmers 30 miles west of

Peoria," wrote the former. This Illinois farmer's wife owned with her husband a 200-acre farm, a house in town, and land in Canada. She was many years a member of the First Congregational Church and the Woman's

Club in town, "composed of ladies of wide culture and who have traveled in

Europe." With a daughter at the Chicago Musical College, this farmer's wife was yet able to subscribe to $30 worth of magazines and dailies, "travel when we wish to," and live comfortably in a house furnished handsomely (with lovely china) from money she earned selling butter and chickens.

Tying standard of living to modern household technologies threw into high relief the tradition tension between house and barn. By the 1890s, the Grange was campaigning to alleviate drudgery in the farm home, with

74Ibid. -139- numerous women members suggesting that the root cause was men's

unwillingness to make expenditures for household conveniences. Though

women and men might work together to make the farm prosper, in most cases husbands had exclusive control of the income.^ In part, this was due

to the gender division of agricultural labor. Men tended to handle commodity production; their labor led directly to the market and cash transfer. Women tended to handle the subsistence aspects of farm life, all of those things produced for the family's own consumption. Even when women took charge of commercial diary or poultry production, the income generated was minuscule compared to that of their husbands.’'®

Even within the barter economy of rural neighborhoods, women's work took on less value. Nancy Grey Osterud suggests that husbands and wives tallied up the value of their work differently. Men followed the practice of cooperative labor, but they usually fixed a price for the work, essentially hiring themselves out to neighbors. Not only would one farmer recognize that he owed his neighbor a day's work cultivating corn in return for the day of haying just received, he would record the monetary value of the day's labor. Money never changed hands, but yearly accounts were kept-

^®Marti, Women of the Grange, 77.

^®Osterud, Bonds of Communitv, 209. Deborah Fink related a story about a woman in an affectionate, respectful marriage, whose husband nonetheless failed to recognize the importance of her egg business. He refused to sell a sow that was eating hens. Ultimately, the lucrative poultry enterprise was ruined. Agrarian Women, 75. -140-

-$1.00 for haying, $1.50 for cultivating com—to be settled still by barter, but

on the basis of the dollar value of labor traded. Women, by contrast, never

fixed a price on cooperative labor, thereby rendering it invisible in market

terms.’^ With women's work generating little actual cash and appearing to

have little monetary value within the community, the temptation was to

invest limited family money in the real business of the farm—the barn.

William Atherton Du Puy ran a piece in the Jut sa 1909 Delineator

entitled, "The Useless Tragedy of the Farmer's Wife: Prosperity on the Farms

May Mean More Land and Happier Men But the Work-Crushed Women

Only Die the Faster."’'® Du Puy's handsomely written thesis was relatively

simple: Agriculture was becoming ever more prosperous, but increased

production, with its attendant number of hired hands, was putting intolerable

burdens on farm wives. In large measure, the fault lay with husbands. "The

tendency to extol him as the mainstay of the nation and possessor of all the

virtues in the decalogue has somewhat spoiled him." It should be pointed

out to farmers that, while they bought modern technology for the bam, they

did little to help their wives.

He should be reminded of his shortcomings in no uncertain terms. He should be slapped in the face with them, should be insulted and made mad about them....There are some hundreds of thousands of farmers in the United States today who are working their wives into their graves

^Ibid., 222-223.

’'®William Atherton Du Puy, "The Useless Tragedy of the Farmer's Wife," Delineator 73 (June 1909), 778; 813-814. -141- before their time....The cure of the unfavorable conditions on the farm rests in awakening the women to the fact that more consideration is due them, and in rousing the men to their duties to their wives....Any organization that wül teach women their due and men their duty will be beneficial. Any enthusiast who is burning with zeal to do good to humanity may go among farmer people and show them a better living and find a better field for missionary work than in savage lands.’'®

In other words, Du Puy's argument in the Delineator barkened back to

Professor Burkett's essay in Good Housekeeping. Rural men selfishly invested the bounties of new agricultural prosperity in devices to lighten their own work load, whüe entirely ignoring their wives'. Such husbands must be shown the error of their ways; the most logical teachers would be wives, themselves, who must be stirred to action by outside forces. With

Burkett, Du Puy felt strongly that "to get at the farming people as a mass requires education." The answer could be found in the rural school.

Hundreds of letters reached the Delineator by August, prompting the editors to point out somewhat defensively that they also published articles detailing the virtues of rural life, that they frequently covered the shortcomings of the city, and that they knew fuU well that the tragedy described by Du Puy did not extend into every country home. Likewise, the editors denied charges that they were aU born and bred in the city. "So we are not quite so ignorant of rural conditions as some readers seem to think.

’'®Ibid., 814. -142- nor do we hold the people of the farm inferior to those of the city."®®

Mrs. B. C. Rienks of Greeley, Colorado, excoriated Du Puy for his

misrepresentation of country living and documented her case with reference

to sitting rooms: "Large and well-lighted, rugs and fine carpets cover floors,

easy chairs, bookcases and tables where the late novels and the best

magazines of the day are at the disposal of all who wish....The women also

have their clubs, both social and literary, and enjoyment is not banished from

the 'poor farmer's wife.'"®^ Mrs. C. L. Anderson read Du Puy's article with

tears in her eyes because it seemed so truthful. Writing from Fayette, Utah,

she reported:

Most of us are prosperous farmer's wives. Not any of us have water­ works in our homes. Most of us never saw such things. There are no electric lights in these parts....There are no telephones, and, in fact, all of the improvements mentioned are almost unknown in the entire county and, with few exceptions, one would be safe in saying in the entire State.®^

Anna Covinness, of Mineral Wells, Texas, was never reared to live on

a farm. "I only dreamed of the country, and the pure air, birds and flowers

and everything that goes to make life's pleasures, but I woke to find that it is work, grind, toil forever as long as life lasts, stay at home and look at my

Delineator and wish it was only so I could enjoy wearing some of the

®®"The Farmer's Wife's Tragedy: All Parts of the Country Write to Contradict or To Support Mr. Du Puy's Indictment," Delineator 74 (August 1909), 136; 74 (October 1909), 320.

®%id., 136.

®%id. -143-

beautiful dresses again."*® But an unnamed reader from Woodland,

Wisconsin, took exception to the entire conversation: "You have a dense, dark

ignorance in your cities which you never find in a well-cared-for farming

community." She went on to opine that the Country Life Commission knew

nothing of rural life, being composed of "professors, theorists, town women, everybody but the people mterested....For Heaven's sake, give us farmers' wives a little credit for being at least human beings."*^

The people interested were more than willing to speak their piece. In

1909, Mattie Corson, Bachelor Girl and farmer's daughter, organized a women's club in Sheldon and set out to poll every woman in the county about rural life. Some 956 letters were received in response to a mailing of

1100 questionnaires. According to the Tournai, three-fourths of the single women responded that they did not wish to marry a farmer. "The cattle must have everything: Mother nothing." One girl reported, "Not a convenience has Mother in her kitchen: but Father has every new contrivance in his bam, and he has plenty of means: land all paid for: money in bank, yet not a hired girl." Though some wives wished for access to more cultural activities, "most of them only asked for the absolutely necessary utensils to work with, 'arrangements at least as convenient,' said one woman, as the

*®Ibid., 320.

*4Ibid. -144- arrangements of the horse and cow barns, the corn-crib or the hay-loft.'"*®

Women also wanted greater control over their persons and income.

The notion of a "rest room" in town was greeted with great enthusiasm,

"some place to go when they went into town with their husbands and

fathers." If such a meethig room existed and ladies were not left to sit in the

wagon or stand awkwardly at the grocery or feedlot, they would be inclined

to travel to town more frequently. Resentment over waiting for husbands

and fathers to "have a final gossip with 'the men in the store,"' paled by

comparison with the very real anger women felt at having no control over

money they earned themselves. One wife complained that she had saved for

five years to buy "a nice rug for the sitting room," only to have her spouse

take the money and buy a gasoline engine for the barn. Once again she

saved, to get a "dummy-waiter" to carry items from kitchen to cellar; this

time her husband bought a sulky plow.

By constantly returning the discussion to issues of what Liberty Hyde

Bailey had called the "money problem," rural women were doing more than

arguing for great autonomy and self-determination. They were indicating a

firm belief that social problems could be resolved through the acquisition of

things, that quality of life depended upon modern conveniences. One doesn't

save for five years to buy a sitting room rug unless that carpet has a larger

*®"Is This the Trouble with the Farmer's Wife," The Ladies' Home Tournai 26 (February 1909): 5. -145- symbolic meaning.

By 1911, the Ladies' Home Tournai was talking directly to rural men, cautioning them that, while they worried that their sons might leave the farm, their daughters were slipping away. Author Thaleon Blake considered farm life for women to be unhealthy and tuberculous, cooped up as they were in dark houses and stuffy kitchens. Once again, the discussion revolved around household conveniences: "It Remains for the Men of the Farm to better the conditions by providing certain mechanical and other labor-saving devices." Blake was not content to exhort men to transform their ways; he provided a detailed list of essential changes, complete with illustrations. Air could be purified, if husbands would install a Hood Over the Stove

(illustrated) and central heating in the cellar, encouraging women to open up the rooms of the house. Pumped-in water and indoor bathrooms were vital, as were improved kitchen cabinets, fireless cookers, dumbwaiters, iceless refrigerators, windmills to provide electricity, rational cooking pots, and alcohol flatirons (all illustrated except the windmill). Any right-thinking man could, with the aid of Thaleon Blake's detailed drawings of cut-aways to the interior and descriptions of levers and pulleys and cleats and sheave wheels, radically improve his wife's working conditions. He had only to avail himself of "the marked achievements of American mechanical ingenuity."*®

*®Thaleon Blake, "What the Farmer Can Do to Lighten His Wife's Work," Ladies' Home Tournai 28 (15 February 1911): 28. -146- From one national magazine to the next, the merits and demerits of

country living were being traced out in the early decades of the twentieth

century. Again and again, the same points were raised: 1) the quality of rural

life was dependent upon access to household conveniences, good

transportation, and improved communications; 2) men were far more likely

than their wives to benefit from disposable income, with investment centering

disproportionately in the barn, rather than the home; 3) isolation, inability to

hire household help, and lack of spending money typified the daily

experience of many women; 4) rural problems would most appropriately be

addressed from within the community, by men's and women's voluntary

associations; 5) job specific education for children and extension courses for

adults, operated in concert with state agricultural colleges, was the key to

alerting rural people of their options and giving them the practical training to

reorder their communities along more scientifically rational lines.

A review of this national discussion essentially illuminates the

sentiments of a particular portion of the rural community, one that historian

Sally McMurry considered to be disproportionately influential. "They were

cultural mediators, poised between past and future, rural and urban, folk and

popular cultures, and their historical significance extends further than their relatively small numbers suggest."®^ Educated, comparatively affluent, opinionated, imbued with large expectations of themselves and their

^’'McMurry, Families and Farmhouses, 4. -147- commumties, these families constituted a significant commercial and political

market segment and were courted by advertisers and government alike.

Many of the terms of the debate had been outlined by Teddy Roosevelt's

Country Life Commission. Subsequent arguments were printed in columns

bounded by ads for Cook's Linoleum, Moore Push-Pins, Kashmir Rugs of

Distinction, Hardman Autotone Player-Pianos, Lifebuoy Soap, Butterick Paper

Dress Patterns, and Standard Oil Pure Refined Paraffine.

That many of the rural women participating in the discussion could not afford rugs of distinction and player pianos, does not obviate the importance of their words. Sally McMurry's "progressive" farmers were those distinguished by their attitudes toward technological innovation and social change—not the balance in their bank accounts or the paintings on their walls.

Alice Cutting Phelps had not even enough money to buy fabric for baby clothes. Yet, compared to her neighbors, she was comfortably circumstanced, able to take in orphan children to rear and to move a nearby family into the vacant log cabin on her ranch so that the mother did not have to give birth in a tent. More importantly, she knew how to go about getting what she wanted, sending off her letters to New York and to Washington, D.C., unabashedly demanding the same sort of educational and technical support for her work as a modern, American mother that her husband was receiving for his as a scientific farmer. Aggressive and articulate, she had no qualms about working with the Children's Bureau to document the need for better -148- maternal and infant care in her state. Isolated and poor, this farm woman clearly considered herself a full participant in Progressive era reforms and fully entitled to speak her piece in the public forum. And, hers was a voice to which the government was willing to listen. Alice Phelps was, after all, no fool. CHAPTER FOUR

USDA IN KITCHEN AND PARLOR

By 1922, the USDA had sophisticated programs in place nationwide to improve the quality of rural life. Home demonstration agents, working in conjunction with county extension agents, had organized a network of local clubs to encourag men to set their hands to making the farm home a more comfortable and cultured place. Teaching bulletins and circulars were mailed regularly, generated at both the state and national level, to spread the word about domestic science and rational housekeeping. USDA home economists met in regional conferences with farm women to gauge need and public opinion. But there was a certain ambivalence running through USDA efforts as to whether the agency should be monitoring and responding to public opinion, or shaping it

On April 24, 1922, Henry C. Taylor, chief of the Bureau of Markets and Crop Estimates, dashed off a memo to his boss, Henry C. Wallace, secretary. Department of Agriculture:

Dear Mr. Secretary: Dr. Galpin was asked to go out to Minneapolis to pass upon letters which had been received on questions relating to country life. Upon his return he was more impressed than ever with the fact which he had been mentioning to me earlier, that some of the publicity of the Department of Agriculture, commencing about three years ago and which held up the dark side of country life, needed to be

-149- -150-

counteracted by the presentation of the truth.^

Scrawled across the top of Taylor's missive was the word, "Good."

His memo was returned with the attached message: "Note Secy's Comment

In the meantime should anything be done to prevent erroneous information

from going out?...W.W."^

Then the original Taylor memo began circulating among the senior

officers at the USDA, collecting additional paper clipped comments. "Best

suggestion I can make is to start a stream of optimistic facts and interpretations going toward the farm homes of the country and into the press of the country in general. C.J.G." (Charles J. Galpin, head. Division of

Farm Population and Rural Life).® "The main point is not to send out any reports bearing on the situation in farm homes until they have been commented upon by several people who are working on the same general subject...J.C. Marquis." (John Clyde Marquis, new to USDA after ten years as associate agricultural editor of the Country Gentleman newspaper, would be

^Henry C. Taylor to Henry C. Wallace, 22 April 1922, Typed, Record Group 16, General Correspondence, Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1906-1970 [hereinafter referred to as Record Group 16, General Correspondence Files], Box 891, "Country Life." Taylor, head of the Bureau of Markets and Crop Estimates, was named chief of the newly created Bureau of Agricultural Economics just a few months later, on July 1,1922.

^W.W. to Henry C. Wallace, undated. Record Group 16, General Correspondence Files, Box 891, "Country Life." Attached to letter from Henry C. Taylor, 24 April 1922, cited above.

®Charles J. Galpin to F.J.H. 29 April 1922, Record Group 16, General Correspondence Files, Box 891, "Country Life." Attached to letter from Henry C. Taylor 24 April 1922, cited above. -151- named director of economic information in July, upon the creation of the

Bureau of Agricultural Economics.)^

Finally, on May 17,1922, Henry Taylor directed a note (complete with his original memo and all comments) to William A. Jump, USD As first budget officer and architect of national agricultural policy.®

You will be interested in the suggestions which Dr. Galpin and Mr. Marquis make with regard to this matter of the state of mind of country people. I think that they are both right and that Dr. Galpin has in hand materials which may continually flow toward the country which will tend to attain the end in view. In the meantime, I think the Secretary's correspondence originating in the various bureaus should be scrutinized carefully from the standpoint of statements made relating to country life.®

Extension was predicated upon USDA's understanding of community needs and influenced by the constituency with which it came in contact.

Champions of the rural home for its intrinsic role in the business of agriculture, the agency knew surprisingly little about conditions therein.

Almost fifteen years into the great age of rural sociology, Florence Ward,

^J.C. Marquis to F.J.H. 29 April 1922, Record Group 16, General Correspondence Files, Box 891, "Country Life." Attached to letter from Henry C. Taylor dated 24 April 1922.

®Gladys L. Baker, Wayne D. Rasmussen, Vivian Wiser and Jane M. Porter, Century of Service: The First 100 Years of the United States Department of Agriculture (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1963), 104. For more information on all these gentlemen, see L. H. Bailey and Ethel Zoe Bailey, RUS: A Biographical Register of Rural Leadership in the United States and Canada (Ithaca: Mason Printing Corporation, 1925).

®Henry C. Taylor to Mr. Jump, 17 May 1922, Record Group 16, General Correspondence Files, Box 891, "Country Life." Attached to his original letter of 24 April 1922. -152- reported that the USDA had only run two surveys, one on Farm Home

Conditions in 1914 and one covering two counties in 1916. Those

"endeavoring to build up a broad educational extension movement...had a much more limited background of facts on which to base plans for cooperation with rural housewives than with farmers for the reason that little attention has been given to farm home problems...."^ Ward, head of

Extension Work with Women, Office of Extension Work North and West, was reporting to the American Home Economics Association annual meeting that the USDA had just reef jied the problem by conducting a survey of 10,044 homes in the northern and western portions of the country between June and

October 1919.

The data here presented serves a dual purpose: first, it offers a reliable and much needed guide to extension workers in their service to the home; and, second, it points out to the farming people, and others interested, the great value of trained assistance to farm women along definite lines.®

By giving her project a dual agenda—that of collecting information and that of demonstrating the need for training—Florence Ward was placing her efforts squarely in the midst of the Social Survey Movement, which held sway in the first three decades of the twentieth century. The social survey

’'Florence E. Ward, "The Farm Women's Problems," Journal of Home Economics 12 (October 1920): 450. Address presented at the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the American Home Economics Association, Colorado Springs, June 1920.

®Ibid. -153- was a mechanism of community reform, a vehicle, as scholar Jean Converse

has pointed out, for bringing reformers, scientists, and citizens together "to

take stock of their communities' living and working conditions...and for

designing programs for improvement. "® Such surveys were carried out by civic and religious volunteers, government agencies, and social scientists within academia. And, always, there was a political agenda. Martin Bulmer distinguishes social surveys from later university-based social scientific research by suggesting that the former "was concerned primarily with social problems and social planning," whereas the latter attempted primarily to

"formulate theories or laws to explain social phenomena."^® In fact, Chicago sociologist Robert E. Park saw social surveys as being wholly political and not at all scientific.

The social investigators in the past have been very largely social politicians, interested in formulating programs and initiating policies....In the most limited sense of the word, I should say that a survey is never research,—it is explorations; it seeks to define problems rather than test hypotheses.^^

Begun in Britain in the 1880s, the social survey in America became an effective tool for catalyzing public opinion, what historians have called "that

®Jean M. Converse, Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890-1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 23.

^®Martin Bulmer, "The Decline of the Social Survey Movement and the Rise of American Empirical Sociology," in The Social Survey in Historical Perspective, 1880-1940, ed. Martin Bulmer, Kevin Bales, and Kathryn Kish Sklar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 304.

^^Robert E. Parks, quoted in Bulmer, "The Decline of the Social Survey Movement," 303. -154-

amorphous combination of middle-class and working-class attitudes that

activated politicians and labour leaders alike within the American political environment"^^ Statistics, especially when presented in press reports, made for a persuasive argument. But this was a combination of attitudes largely orchestrated by the middle class. Historian Eileen Janes Yeo points out that the very word "survey" implies "a commanding view of the whole." Adopted as a means of knowing the lower classes, the survey served to legitimate middle class claims to public authority on the basis of superior knowledge and understanding. Ultimately, the survey was linked to the development of

"a certain kind of interventionist, sometimes punitive, welfare state.

Underlying a very sincere thirst for knowledge, was an equally intense instinct for social control.^^

Throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, the term

"survey" was actually used relatively loosely, encompassing everything from factual inquiries to complex studies designed by social scientists. Among the most rigorous of these projects were those of the Country Life Movement.^®

^^Martin Bulmer, Kevin Bales, and Kathryn Kish Sklar, "The Social Survey in Historical Perspective," in The Socid Survev in Historical Perspective, 1880-1940, ed. Martin Bulmer, Kevin Bales, and Kathryn Kish Sklar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 27.

^®Eileen Janes Yeo, "The Social Survey in Social Perspective, 1830-1930," in Ibid., 49-51.

^^Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 219-256.

^®Bulmer et al. Social Survev in Historical Perspective, 31. -155- The USDA began to study quality of life in 1915; by 1919 the Division of

Farm Population and Rural Life had been created under the direction of

Charles J. Galpin. Federal support to expand experiment station research to include sociological surveys and attitude studies was authorized under the

Purnell Act in 1924. These government initiatives were mirrored in the private sector by the American Country Life Association which, beginning in

1919, held annual conferences with published reports and furnished a monthly magazine. Particularly attractive to sociologists and ministers, the

Association continued for decades.^®

Though rural surveys may have been systematic enough for tabulation, interviewing techniques were rudimentary at best. A sociologist in 1925 surveyed forty-five Minnesota farmers each of nine towns by starting out north, south, east, and west from the middle of town and interviewing each farmer he met on the road until he had the requisite number. Many social surveys were conducted one step removed, with participants filling in forms on their own time or with analysts culling aggregate data from the responses to essay contests sponsored by the agricultural press or national

“Converse, Survey Research, 28. Rural survey work was carried by members of the Country Life Movement into the New Deal and reflected in the journal Rural Sociology, begun in 1936.

:%id., 60-61. -156- women's magazines.^® Particularly in instances where information gathering hinged on the literacy of respondents, these surveys targeted the

"progressive" class of farmer and farm wife. Certainly there is little evidence that rural sociologists shared the interest of their urban counterparts in recent immigrants or African-Americans. Given the nature of the political agenda underlying the Country Life Movement—that of identifying and working with rural leaders—the foreign-bom and racial minorities were extraneous to the d iscussion.^

Jean Converse indicates that rural surveys from all sources were of

"intense interest" to Congress (legislating to preserve the family farm), manufacturers of farm machinery and household conveniences, advertisers and publishers (looking to tap the rural market), and religious leaders

“For an example of the former, see the General Federation of Women's d u b Rural Home Equipment survey discussed in Chapter 5. For an example of the latter, see the Good Housekeeping Farm Home Inquiry discussed in Chapter 3 and the Farmer's Wife essay contest covered in this chapter.

^®With the exception of a very few number of scholars, such as Robert Parks at the University of Chicago, urban sociologists did not focus on African-Americans, either. Dorothy Ross, Origins of American Social Science, 360-361. W. E. B. Du Bois conducted a magnificent study of blacks in Philadelphia in 1899 for which he received virtually no recognition, much less a teaching position at a major university that a comparable study of whites by a white scholar would have earned. Du Bois's survey was not even mentioned in 10 of the 11 histories of the early social survey published between 1911 and 1952. This is because American sociologist of the period were not interested in African-Americans. Martin Bulmer, "W. E. B. Du Bois as a Social Investigator: The Philadelphia Negro, 1899," in The Social Survey in Historical Perspective, 1880-1940, Martin Bulmer, Keven Bales, Kathryn Kish Sklar, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 183. -157- (hoping to make the country church a source of community organization and

reform).^® Florence Ward, with her survey of 10,044 farm women, was well

aware of the potential her study held.

Keen interest in the findings of the survey has been expressed by representatives of women's magazines and the agricultural press, as well as advertising interests, and the figures are being used to give constructive publicity to the need of modern equipment in rural homes, and to encourage manufacturers and dealers to place the advantages of such equipment before the rural public, and see to it that the commodities offered are those that wül stand the test of practicality and economy.^^

Not only did Ward have a social agenda for rural women—that of improving their quality of life through training, she had an equally ambitious agenda for manufacturing—that of producing household technologies that would be appropriate for rural use.

What makes Ward's report so fascinating is the degree to which it echoes that original debate over the status of the farm home in an industrializing America that ranged across the popular press in the wake of the Country Life Commission. Twenty years later, after a period of unparalleled agriculture prosperity, farm women were still reporting essentially the same problems. Equally fascinating are the questions and assessments left out of Ward's presentation, omissions highlighted by comparison to a 1913 Good Housekeeping article by Herbert Quick, editor of

2“Ibid.

^^Florence E. Ward, "Ten Thousand Farm Women," Women's Home Companion 48 (May 1921): 34. -158- Farm and Fireside, a farm paper.

Quick, in "The Women on the Farms," noted that he was in the

business of investigating farms and that, over his lifetime, the nation had reversed the ratio of one city-dweUer to three farmers.

My explorations of the souls of farmers, backed by my own life on a farm, and the lives my mother, sisters, aunts, cousins, and women neighbors lived, lead me to the conclusion that the "drift to the cities" has been largely a woman movement. I have found the men on farms much more contented and happy than the women.“

The key to improving the lot of women was the introduction of labor saving devices comparable to those already purchased for the barn. "[PJrogress came along and emancipated the man." Unfortunately, it had not done likewise for the woman. ^

Ward, four years later and backed by ten thousand surveys, found herself in complete agreement. Marked progress had been made in some farm homes, progress measured in highly technological terms. "The telephone and the automobile free the farm family from isolation. Modem machinery for farm and home takes the drudgery from kitchen and field.

Rural engineering has mastered the problems of sanitation for the farm home."^ But these "life-giving factors" were only available to a smattering of families.

^^Herbert Quick, "The Women on the Farms," Good Housekeeping 57 (October 1913): 427.

2®Ibid., 428.

2^Ward, "Farm Woman's Problems," 439. -159- It is the realization of this need that stimulates the Department of Agriculture and the state colleges of agriculture to offer the service of extension work with women, a work which would not be needed if all homes had reached the high state of comfort and efficiency attained by the few.“

The underlying problem was false economy. There was a waste of

"woman power" because neither husband nor wife understood the "economic importance of a contented rural population" or saw clearly that "improvement of the home [is] a means of contentment and stimulus for farm work."“

Profits were plowed into buying more land, rather than in raising the standard of living. Ward considered such behavior to be purely wasteful, because it encouraged young people to depart for the city. "The independent, venturesome spirit of American youth has in no way expressed itself more characteristically than in the thousands of farm boys and girls who have turned courageous young backs upon a certain type of farm life which offers little that youth craves. While this initiative was to be admired, preventing

America from developing an entrenched peasantry, it still behooved the

USDA to be "as coldly calculating" in its interest in farm women, as it was in studying labor, machinery, and crops.

Herbert Quick also argued for economic viability. Noting that the

American farmer bought machinery not because he wished to "spare himself,"

2®Ibid.

“ Ibid., 440.

27lbid. -160- but because he saw the link to greater profits, Quick suggested that "the farm woman has not received a fair deal in the partnership." Those aspects of her labor that were tied to the generation of income had been touched by technology to the extent that she was no longer burdened with the responsibility. Electric cream separators freed women from the dairy; cheese and butter making had shifted to factories. Mechanical milking machines were liberating women from the barn and the steam-thresher, "carrying its own cook and crew," had saved her the labor of feeding "hordes" of workers every harvest. "These things helped her because they were introduced as profitable innovations, and not as woman-saving ones."“ Little investment, however, was being made to alleviate tasks women did for the family and not the farm business.^ Quick, at liberty to express himself more flamboyantly than Ward, thundered in the pages of Good Housekeeping:

It pays to emancipate slaves, and especially when those slaves are our wives, our mothers, our daughters.... Any farm than can afford a silo can afford a bath-room and a septic-tank sewage-disposal system. Any farm that can afford a cream separator can afford a washing-machine.

“ Quick, "Women on the Farms," 428-429.

“ Historians have suggested recently that relieving women of income generative tasks eroded their role in the home. On the commercialization of die dairy and poultry industries, see Christine Catherine Kleinegger, "Out of the Barns and Into the Kitchens: Farm Women's Domestic Labor, World War I to World War H" (Ph.D. diss.. State University of New York at Binghamton, 1986.) On feeding those hungry threshers, see Corlann Gee Bush, "'He Isn't Half So Cranky as He Used to Be': Agricultural Mechanization, Comparable Worth, and the Changing Farm Family," "To Toil the Livelong Day": America's Women at Work, 1780-1980, Carol Groneman and Mary Beth Norton, eds. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 213-229. -161-

Any farm that can justify binders, silage-cutters, hay-forks, pumping-engines, shredders, side-delivery rakes, corn-harvesters, potato-planters, and finely equipped barns can afford every modem convenience for making the home a good place for a woman to live, work, rear children, and develop in her the love for farm life.®"

Not only did Quick and Ward concur on the economic and social importance of a comfortable farm home and a satisfied farm wife, they basically agreed on the ingredients for comfort and satisfaction. Noting that comparable conditions in a factory would trigger a walk-out, Florence Ward reported that the average working day for the 9000 women who answered this question was 11.3 hours.®^ Some 87 percent of 8773 respondents took no vacation during the year.®^ Quick, after enumerating a long list of domestic chores, noted, perhaps with some irony, that farm women did not share the woes of their urban sisters who "complain that they have lost their economic usefulness in the household, and demand a share in the productive work of the world."®®

Quick opined that running water would be the odds-on favorite to win a referendum of home improvements, guessing that not ten-percent of rural homes had a bathroom. He was a good guesser. Ward's survey (of all

®"Ibid., 432.

®^Ward explained in her presentation that not all 10,044 women responded to each question on the survey. Therefore she usually discussed results in terms of specific respondents and reported all percentages in the context of total number of records calculated.

®^Ward, "Farm Woman's Problems," 440-441.

®®Quick, "Women on the Farms," 429. -162- sections of the nation except the South), revealed that only 10 percent of homes had an indoor toilet; 20 percent reported owning a bath tub (and this did not imply that hot water was hooked up); 60 percent had an indoor sink and drain; 65 percent had water flowing to the kitchen (many with just a pump or a rubber hose attached to a barrel located outside the kitchen).

Suggesting that "running water is the pivot upon which much modern convenience and comfort turns," Ward explained that only 32 percent of homes were so equipped. As to electricity, "When we consider that it is often a simple matter to connect the engine used in the barn with household equipment it seems a singular fact that but 22 per cent of the farm homes reporting this advantage."®^

Like Ward, Herbert Quick argued for modem lighting, bemoaning the hours wasted cleaning lamps, and lingered in his discussion of the kitchen.

Pleased that "The meat-grinder has largely displaced the chopping bowl...the egg-beater has supplanted the spoon," Quick still noted that most homes had no refrigerator or kitchen cabinet (or tireless cooker!).®® Ward was passionate in her argument for central heating, citing both the long hours spent hauling wood and coal and tending fires and the health hazards resulting from a disinclination to bathe frequently and thoroughly in frigid rooms. She also pointed out that farm women rarely had domestic help and that, when they

®^Ward, "Farm Woman's Problems," 442-443.

®®Quick, "Women on the Farms," 431-432. -163- participated in the business of the farm, they had little control over money.

Although 60 percent made butter for sale, only 11 percent kept the butter money; 81 percent cared for poultry, but only 16 percent controlled the egg money.®®

Isolation remained a major problem for farm families in 1920. At an average of 5.9 miles from the nearest high school, 2.9 miles from the nearest church, and 4.8 miles from the nearest market, "country people are far enough from the center of trade, social, and religious activities to tempt the spirit of individualism and to put their neighborliness and piety to the test."®’'

Such distance may have prompted families to buy automobiles (62 percent) and telephones (72 percent), but it also put them at risk. Most could not summon a doctor quickly, most Lived fourteen miles from the nearest hospital.®*

Herbert Quick was concerned about farm women's inability or unwillingness to pass along a love of agriculture to their children. ("My mother wanted my father to leave the farm, and move to a college town where the children would have 'a better chance.' He did not accede to her wishes; and one bit of spiritual drift was checked."®") But Ward was more

®*Ward, "Farm Woman's Problems," 441-445.

®%id., 445.

®*Ibid., 446.

®"Quick, "Women on Farms," 427. -164- directiy concerned with the health of the children. Noting that rural children had been falling behind urban children in recent measures of weight and height. Ward took a stand that would have resonated with Alice Phelps. "A campaign to bring the child life, the most precious on the farm, up to standards of nutrition and development should excel in intensity campaigns in the interest of cow testing or poultry culling."^"

Parallels aside, there was one striking difference between the recommendations of Herbert Quick and those of Florence Ward. As the head of home extension service everywhere except the South, Ward placed her faith in education and rational training.

The entire purpose which animates the work of the cooperative extension service as it pertains to the home is to help the homemaker to so arrange the various departments of her housekeeping that she may secure for herself, her farnily, and her community the highest possible degree of health, happiness, and efficiency

The challenge was to increase cooperation with farming people, "placing housekeeping on as sound an economic basis as farming itself."

Quick, by contrast, foresaw the need for real structural changes in the arrangement of the rural community. In particular, he zeroed in on farm tenantry, arguing that "The American landlord is the worst enemy of the movement for betterment in rural living. Referring to the rented farm

^"Ward, "Farm Woman's Problems," 447.

^%id., 447.

^^Quick, "Women on Farms," 435. -165- home as little better than a tent. Quick wanted state and federal legislatures

to revamp American laws to protect the renting family. Speaking with

admiration of British and German practice. Quick urged the United States to

guarantee renters the right to payment, when evicted, for "the unexhausted

fertility which his farming has embodied in the land." In the meantime, "I

should like to ask the American farm landlord what sort of man he thinks himself if he fails to see the duty he has to the nation in this matter of making his farm the permanent home of some family of farmers, under conditions which will make for the comfort, health, prosperity, and contentment of that family?"^

Florence Ward had no such questions and was anxious not to cast aspersions on country living. The survey, she pointed out, identified two populations. "One represents a favored small percentage of these 10,044 women whose surroundings, working conditions, and social experiences reach high levels of comfort and progress in farm home life." The other, much larger, percentage was far less fortunately placed. But the responses of that less fortunate majority would give a "somewhat exaggerated impression of hardship," unless evaluated in the context of the compensations "that come to every homemaker in her round of activities for the happiness and comfort of her family. Moreover, there is the context of the countryside, itself.

^Ibid., 435-436.

^Ibid., 438-439. -166- "Anyone who has experienced the satisfaction of living in the open country knows that the average farm woman is more fortunately placed in many ways than her average city sister."^ It speaks volumes about USD As desire to champion rural life that Florence Ward, who reported the total number of respondents for each percentage typed onto her many charts, should evaluate those statistics on the basis of presumptions "anyone" knew to be true.

Charged by the Country Life Commission (and eventually Congress, in the Smith-Lever Act)“ to improve the quality of rural life, the USDA saw itself as the champion of economic and political parity. Secretary Henry C.

Wallace, in his 1923 annual report, laid the blame for the post World War I agricultural depression squarely at the feet of a federal government unwilling to protect the farm to the same degree it did the factory. Lamenting continued high levels of rural/urban migration, Wallace scolded, "This drift from the farms to the cities is due in part to inability to make a decent living on the farm and in part to the fact that the Nation has been willing to pay higher wages relatively to workers in the industries of various sorts than for workers who are producing food." He "deplored" a population shift that was

"draining from the country such a large percentage of the more intelligent

«Ibid., 439.

«Passed in 1914, the Smith-Lever Act established a system of nationwide educational extension in agriculture and home economics, funded jointly by the federal government and state and local public and private agencies, administered largely through the land-grant colleges. -167- and ambitious young farmers," and noted that drastic economies triggered by the economic downturn were eroding the standard of living for those who remained in rural communities, depressing morale, causing the break-up of families, and preventing children from completing school/^ Wallace warned sternly:

Industry, commerce, and industrial labor may prosper for a time at the expense of agriculture, as indeed they have during the past three years, but the longer that continues the more hurtful to tiie Nation will be the results. The truth of the statement that in the United States national prosperity must rest on a sound and prosperous agriculture stands unchallenged.^

Well aware that the interests of farmers were not finding a wholly supportive audience in either the White House or Congress,^ USDA officials wished to represent their rural constituency as a solid and potent political force. Moreover, county-level extension work, both scientific agriculture and home demonstration, had met with initial resistance from local farm organizations, land-grant colleges, and farm families, themselves.®" From the

^^Henry C. Wallace, "The Year in Agriculture: The Secretary's Report to the President," Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1923 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1924), 10-11.

«Ibid., 13.

«Baker et al., "Century of Service," 118-122.

®"See a passage of letters between M. C. Burritt, vice director of administration. New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, and Martha Van Renssalear, head of the Department of Home Economics at the same college. Van Renssalear was striving to protect her long-standing home study course, which were designed and implemented by women, from the incursions of the new extension service, which was spearheaded by men. Home Economics Records, 23/2/749, 25-22 through 25-25, Department of -168“ very begirming, sorne farmers had taken a dim view of the raft of agricultural experts released upon the open country. Matthew Jansen, age seventy, took the opportunity to write Theodore Roosevelt in 1909 to suggest, "The farmer, at present, needs more protection than instruction." Incensed by the questions and recommendations of the Country Life Commission, Jansen asked, "I would like to know whether these men were raised in a family or took a tabogan [sic] slide down the rain bow."®^ It behooved extension workers to tread warily and do as little as they could to resemble rainbow sliders.

But the USDA was perhaps less afraid of alienating its own constituency than it was determined to protect farm life from outside attack.

And this was a sentiment that stretched beyond Henry Taylor and his confreres at the BAE. A 1926 memo from the senior horticulturalist in charge of the Bureau of Plant Industry expressed alarm at a newly completed manuscript, "The Farmers Standard of Living: A Socio-Economic Study of

2886 White Farm Families of Selected Localities in Eleven States." The memo urged Taylor, as head of the BAE and sponsor of the study, to consider

Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York. See also Roy V. Scott, The Reluctant Farmer: The Rise of Agricultural Extension to 1914 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970).

®^Matthew Jansen, Maize, Kansas, to Theodore Roosevelt, Washington, D.C., 23 January 1909, Liberty Hyde Bailey Papers, 21/2/541, Box 4, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York. -169- whether the wrong impression might be given to the "lay reader" about the

quality of rural life as compared to urban. The mental and social rewards of

farming did not readily lend themselves to tabulation or analysis, "But they

exist and form a very important part of every satisfactory farm home

enterprise." While finding absolutely no fault with the use of figures

obtained through the survey, Taylor's correspondent was concerned that the

report did not adequately reflect those aspects of the rural standard of living

that could not be diagramed. Outside the proper frame of understanding, a

reader might conclude that farm life compared very unfavorably to industrial

life.®2

This inner-office discussion took place within the arena of public perception, as had that between Taylor, Galpin, Marquis, and Jump in 1922.

Not merely the champion of economic and political parity, the USDA felt duty-boxmd to insure that farming should have social and cultural parity within the national ethos. Agriculture was more than a business; it was a way of life, currently being given short shrift.

Historian Dorothy Ross found a backlash within the social scientific community in the aftermath of World War I. Disillusioned by the brutality and violence and sheer irrationality, some sociologists turned to scientism.

®^Unsigned, senior horticulturalist in charge. Bureau of Plant Industry, no location given, to Dr. Taylor, BAE, 23 July 1926, typed memorandum. Record Group 83, Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Manuscript File 1917-1935, Box 4, "The Farmers' Standard of Living," National Archives, Washington, D.C. -170- divorcing their research from Progressive reform and suggesting that the role of the scholar was not to change society, but merely to discover universal norms and promote the enforcement of scientific laws. Others emerged from the war years invigorated with patriotic fervor, convinced that political scientists could work in conjunction with politicians for the rationalization of society. Just as they had cooperated with the war effort in budgeting and administration, in propaganda and international organization, so, too, could sociologists and historians continue to shape the post-war nation. In statistics would America find the clue to greatness.®®

Ross also noted the suppression of dissent in the post-war years.®^

Frightened by radical political currents in Europe, Americans looked back to the comfortable, well-worn stories of their own national genesis, congratulating each other upon the natural superiority of their republican democracy. One such tale was the agrarian myth, which depicted the family farm as morally superior and commercially essential. Deborah Fink has pointed out that, in the midst of the rural depression that began in 1920, the nation chose to revive the agrarian myth, rather than rethink it. "Even as the material promise of agrarian life dissolved, the mainstream of public (male) discourse reemphasized farming as the soul of the country and identified

®®Ross, Origins of American Social Science, 322-325.

®^Ibid., 325. -171- women's sacrifices as critical to the survival of farm life."®® Utterly

discounting the hardships of rural life, agrarianism identified women as

"uniquely blessed" because they were spared the idleness and selfishness of

city women. "A woman working alongside her husband on the farm had a

unique power that grew from her close involvement in farm production, her

sharing of his world."®®

Fink sees the agrarian myth as primarily orchestrated by men. But

nothing could more overtly demonstrate the desire to take up the cudgels in

defense of rural life than a 1922 survey of farm women analyzed by Emily F.

Hoag, assistant economist. Farm Population and Rural Life, BAE. Even the

name of the report indicated Hoag's agenda. Whereas Florence Ward had

called her study "The Farm Woman's Problems," Hoag entitled hers, written a

scant three years later, "The Advantages of Farm Life."®’'

In 1922, an agricultural journal called the Farmer's Wife sponsored a

letter writing competition on the subject, "Do I want my daughter to marry a

farmer?" In contrast to that earlier orphaned survey by Good Housekeeping, this time the USDA, in the person of Emily Hoag, was definitely interested in

®®Fink, Agrarian Women, 190.

®®Ibid., 189-190.

®’'Emily F. Hoag, "The Advantages of Farm Life: A Study by Correspondence and Interviews with Eight Thousand Farm Women, 1923" TMs [carbon copy], Record Group 83, Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Manuscript File 1917-35, Box 2, "Farm Life Through the Eyes of Women," National Archives, Washington, D.C. -172- the results. She was given all 6794 responses, which she eventually distilled into "The Advantages of Farm Life."®*

From the very beginning, Emily Hoag was clear about her intentions.

On the heels of the Country Life Conunission, attention had centered on the evils of rural life. She explained:

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....But with the movement for improvement of conditions well under way, protests against the calamity howling began to appear and farm people now resent characterization and cartooning as ignorant objects of misguided pity.®"

The gentlemen of the USDA, though evidently somewhat dismissive of their associate economist's enthusiasms, surely could find no fault with her agenda.

If Florence Ward seemed to speak to the actual needs of farm women,

Emily Hoag wanted to quiet public criticism. Her section titles indicate their adamancy: "The Satisfaction in Good Farming," "Tonic Virtues of the Land,"

"Farm work preparation for citizenship," "Effacement of Drudgery,"

"Removing the stigma from agriculture," "Upholding the dignity of work."*"

Essentially, Hoag used the voices of farm women themselves to illuminate the advantages of rural life, bringing up various "calamities" only to refute

®*By the time the final digest of the manuscript made its shortened way into the National Agricultural Library, the author had married and was now Emily Hoag Sawtelle.

®"Hoag, "Advantages," 2.

*"Ibid., 4-43 passim. -173- them.

These women are strong, resourceful, capable and are leading personalities in their communities. Living full and active lives, they see the best side, and choose to consider the handicaps and the undesirable features of temporary and minor importance and to emphasize the possibilities of farm life.®^

Above all, these were women who had deliberately chosen farm life and were women who operated in full partnership with their husbands.

The business itself is spread out in front of her door. Its details come into her kitchen. She see the plans for the work going on around her. She hears the talk of the business at her table. The farm papers come into her living room, farm bulletins are on her desk. She has every opportunity for studying the technique of a science, and for acquainting herself with the inside workings of a thriving business.*^

Whereas other authors detailed the lack of financial independence of farm women, Hoag stressed fiscal equality. '"We have one common pocketbook at our house,' asserts a wife from the Northwest, 'and whether it is a dozen eggs or a bunch of fat steers that are sold, the proceeds go into that pocketbook and each feels that the other has a right to draw from it for farm, household, or personal use.'"*® Moreover, Hoag's ladies did not see a conflict between investment in household and agricultural machinery. Admitting that farm outbuildings were usually modernized first, an Iowa farmer's wife explained, "There's truth in the old saying: 'A barn can build a house sooner

®%id., 3.

*%id., 13.

*®Ibid., 14. -174- than a house can build a barn.'"®^ Nor would Hoag agree to a sharp division between the work of the husband and wife. "The farm is not a man's world entirely, not yet completely a woman's world. It takes both man and woman to make a successful go at building up a true home and a successful business on the farm."®®

A self-selected sample concentrated in the North Central states (where the magazine had its largest subscription base) but not confined to that region, respondents to the Farmer's Wife competition were almost all mothers; two-thirds middle aged, only three percent old women, the rest young. Ninety-two percent had lived for more than ten years on a farm; 96 percent reported themselves as in moderate circumstances, "though the limits of the classes are broad and poorly defined." Three percent were college educated, 49 percent had attended high school, and, although Hoag did not mention this fact, almost all of the women must have been able to read and write. [See Table 6.] All types of farms were represented, though the majority were grain and livestock concerns, common to the region.®®

"The Advantages of Farm Life" is fascinating in and of itself, as a window on the passionate convictions of both the 6794 ladies who participated in the letter writing competition and of one crusading

®^Ibid., 16.

®®Ibid., 18.

®®Ibid., 132-133. -175-

Table 6. Education of Respondants to Farmer's Wife Survey

U.S. North South East West South West Atlan­ Atlan­ North North Central tic tic Central Central

Total 6794 902 524 2124 2433 492 319 elem. 3263 413 253 935 1057 276 145 high 3327 475 253 935 1301 203 160 school college 204 14 19 69 75 13 14

Source: Emily Hoag, "Advantages of Farm Life," Table IV. -176- agricultural economist But the interest stretches beyond the personal to the institutional, for the ardor of Emily Hoag was that of a professional woman steeped in the policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Her voice is, to a certain extent, the agency's voice, if only because her superiors signed off on her report.

In her appendix, Hoag discussed the composition of her rural constituency. Some 6466 of the letter writers were of "moderate" economic status neither poor nor wealthy. [See Table 7.]

Middle aged people on middle sized farms, in moderate circumstances with an ordinary sized family seem to express the acme of contentment. It is a great blessing for America that there are so many of these representative families scattered over every state in the union.

By "moderate," Hoag seemed to mean families who had started with very little but worked their way up to real comfort Over and over she detailed stories like that of a Miami Valley woman, born to parents in a two- room log cabin.

Now I am mother of two lively children. We have been on the farm over two years. We have over a hundred acres. I have gas lights in every room, a 3-hole hot plate for hot summer cooking and an extra large coal range, a washing machine that can be run sitting or standing or by gasoline engine, if I ever am lucky enough to possess one. I can all my vegetables by 'cold pack' in a steam cooker. I have all the pans and kettles I can use in aluminum and granite, and I haven't a heavy iron pot in the house. I have a big roomy kitchen with large cupboard cabinet, chest of drawers for towels, 2 large roomy work tables and 2 stoves in it®*

®^Ibid., final page of manuscript (unnumbered).

®*Ibid., 35. -177- Table 7. Economic Status of Respondants to Farmer's Wife Survey

U.S. North South East West South West Atlan­ Atlan­ North North Central tic tic Central Central

Total 6794 902 524 2124 2433 492 319 Poor 169 13 5 70 49 20 12 Moder 6466 876 514 2008 2316 464 291 ate Weal­ 159 16 5 46 68 8 16 thy

Source: Emily Hoag, "Advantages of Farm Life," Table V. -178- None of the women quoted in the report shared the despair of Alice Phelps,

unable to afford to buy fabric to make her new baby clothes. Instead, theirs

was a tale of fashion practicality. '"We women of the country,' declares a

western farm woman, do not have to grow wrinkled "keeping up

appearances" for the chickens and the trees and babies and the husband think just as much of us in a fresh percale as in a taffeta and we think as much of

our family in roUickers or overalls.'"®" And few reported stepping over the line that distinguished women's work from the heavy field work of men.“

[See Table 8.]

Also by "moderate," Miss Hoag was implying white and native-born.

Under her category, "Tonic virtues of the land," she noted:

Those races, nearer to nature, not so civilized as our own, speak without fear of ridicule of the bracing, steadying, satisfying stimulation that comes out of the soil to those who live, walk, and work on it. "I like to get off the city sidewalks and get my feet on the good, solid, strong, real ground," Booker T. Washington was fond of saying....Chtidren of our own race, in the country, wait impatiently for tiie first warm day in

®"Ibid., 97.

“Whether so few women admitted to field work may speak to their prosperity or may reflect their cultural biases. It was considered more "progressive" to exempt women from regular field work, but a 1920 USDA survey showed that 20 percent of them did so. Donald B. Marti, Women of the Grange: Mutuality and Sisterhood in Rural America, 1866-1920, Contributions in Women's Studies, No. 124 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 74. Nancy Grey Osterud found that women who regularly did field labor considered that they were "helping" their husbands with work that was appropriately the purview of men. These farm wives did not object to field work, but neither did they claim responsibility for it. Bonds of Community: The Lives of Farm Women in Nineteenth-Century New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 139-158. -179-

Table 8. The Business Side of the Farm Woman's Life

U.S. North South East West South West Atlan­ Atlan­ North North Central tic tic Central Central

No. 4466 530 358 1363 1671 341 203 mentio ning farm work poul­ 2979 300 267 874 1178 255 105 try gard­ 1776 139 149 493 764 137 94 ening dairy­ 925 82 101 255 302 136 49 ing fruit 390 67 44 102 126 40 11 raising cotton 9 0 3 0 0 6 0 live 132 9 13 46 26 29 9 stock board­ 16 3 3 5 3 1 1 ers market 332 33 16 89 140 38 16 ing other 221 20 16 74 78 19 14 part­ 2115 269 125 664 810 127 120 ners­ hip

"Some of the writers mentioned more than one kind of farm work...2115 declared themselves partners in the farm business, in fact as well as theory. Source: Emily Hoag, "Advantages of Farm Life," Table V. -180- spring when they may discard shoes and stockings.^

Rural families, "of our own race," drew strength from the fact that their pioneer ancestors had taken the culture of New England and the South and

"triumphantly transplanted it at the edge of the frontier." The daughters of those pioneers were now grappling with the challenges of a "newer age and a bigger nation."^

Emily Hoag's families were those who embraced the principles of scientific agriculture and rational planning. She described one woman as writing, "I know from actual experience what helps most in house work is system. Have a day for your special work and see that it is done on that day."^ As Hoag explained:

Farming comprises, not one science only, but a great number of combinations. In the last twenty-five years mechanical invention and scientific research have brought about such a Renaissance of agriculture that it appeals to alert, keen-minded men and women. Especially does it interest the independent, resourceful woman who is a product of the twentieth century

Being modern and resourceful, rural families were able to abolish the old problems of isolation and loneliness by paving roadways, building market centers, and stringing telephone wires across the miles. "Time means much to the modern scientific farmer and to the up-to-date social-minded farm

^Ibid., 5. "%id.. 111.

^Ibid., 40.

7^Ibid., 10. -181- woman." In the name of efficiency, rural communities organized to insure

they had access to necessities and amenities of the twentieth century. Given

that the categories on Hoag's many tables were derived from the letters

rather than established prior to the contest, it is significant that she listed the

disadvantages of farm life largely in terms of modern conveniences and the advantages in terms of intangibles.^® [See Table 9,]

Threading through every discussion of science and efficiency was the underlying notion that farm people prospered because of their deep affinity for the land. "'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.'"^® This love of the land served to bind together the rural community, repairing any damage caused by earlier years of urban migration.

I often invite in the young people from the village for parties with my nieces....For instance, one afternoon, I looked out at the hayfields and thought, 'tonight will be moonlight, a splendid night for a haycock party.' So I made up sandwiches and lemonade, and telephoned to the young folks and the party came off, and a fine time the youngsters had, playing hide-and-seek among the haycocks in the moonlight^

Triggered by timeless moonlight, such socializing still depended upon the

^Ibid, "Table II. Advantages of Social Side of Farm Life," no page number; "Table IE. Disadvantages of Social Side of Farm Life," no page number.

% d . , 4.

^Ibid., 102. -182-

Table 9. Assessment of Rural Life as Reported By Emily Hoag.

Advantages Disadvantages

Neighborliness Isolation

Delight in unconventionality Tendency to insanity

Joy in hospitality Downtrodden life

Value of individual Inferior to town life

Fostering of strong family life Poor schools

Social pride in occupation Poor churches

Social prestige in land ownership No social clubs

Social independence Lack of good neighbors

Freedom from restraint No libraries

Social service in occupation Low standard of living

Opportunity for advancement Bad health conditions

Wholesome recreation Monotony

Deep human relationships Poor roads

Source: Emily Hoag, "Advantages of Farm Life," Tables II and HI. -183- modern technologies of the telephone and automobile to come to fruition.

Hoag thought that rural social life was generally enhanced by the progressive

institutions of scientific agriculture.

In the earlier days, the husking bee, the barn raising, the apple paring, the sugaring-off parties, the quilting bees mingled work and play in an informal fashion. Nowadays, community fairs, seed selection days, farmers' excursions, boys' and girls' club camps and State and County Farmers' Week promote among other things, this same informality.^*

If Hoag's constituency was modern and progressive and imbued with

a love of nature, it was also marked by exceptional leadership capabilities.

She spent two pages describing the efforts of a North Carolina farmer's wife

to reconstruct her own neighborhood. Establishing a community club along

the lines of the commercial clubs in town, a group of families set out to

"boost our little community center seven miles from the railroad." They

printed letterhead inviting businesses to relocate and courted young farming

couples who they thought would make good neighbors. The result was the

reopening of several abandoned store-fronts, the transfer of a "splendid little

chair-and-basket manufacturing business," and the addition of several "live-

wire farmers." This woman concluded, in a disparaging aside, "We are apt to let communities drift too much."^’

Leadership also translated itself into active cooperation with the

USDA and broad-reaching civic involvement. One community was praised

"*Ibid. 103.

^%id., 119-120. -184- for constructing a club house suitable for housing the County 4-H camp school, another for tackling rural health problems. "We have weighed and measured all the children. Nutrition classes have been organized by the

Home Demonstration agent and the pupils who are under weight are going to be taught how to diet themselves and to observe such health rules as will cause them to improve....You see, we are not waiting for prosperity but are using the resources at hand."®* According to Hoag, "American farm women, after experimenting with social organization have now come to the point of defining and interpreting its use." Responsible farm women set in motion

"the machinery of modern social progress."®^

Hoag's admiration for her well-educated, self-motivated, progressive rural constituency underscored the USDA's vision of the relationship of the farm family to the nation. Not too affluent to be complacent or too poor to be impotent, the farm family of "moderate" means remained the one critical factor for maintaining American democracy. As Hoag reported the words of one woman:

All this that is said about rural life's having come to the end of its possibilities for Americans with high standards, is a mistake, a pathetic, a ludicrous mistake. Social life in rural American is just coming into its own. It is stepping over the threshold into a new destiny. The farmer has been and still is the American par-excellence. If he finds a way to culture, it will be an American way, a democratic open-handed, open-hearted free way which all can follow. This is

®°Ibid., 122-123.

®%id., 128. -185-

possible, provided the farmers of this generation stay farmers.®^

Emily Hoag and the USDA were leaving nothing up to chance.

Unwilling to wait for rural America to come into its own, anxious to give this generation of farmers every reason to stay on the farm, she analyzed the responses to the Farmer's Wife contest through the lens of a brilliant agrarianism. She set out to redefine country life in the public imagination.

There is every reason to believe that the courageous spirit with which American farm women are now attacking their problems of social organization will soon be widely reflected in the press. Presently we shall have appearing in our magazines and newspapers strong truthful pictures of farm life. Already, occasional glimpses into farm life given in current periodicals show us that we have in the making a new rural literature.®®

Though she may not have been privy to the exchange of memos between

Taylor and Galpin and Marquis and Jump, Emily Hoag knew with certainly that plans were afoot to resurrect agriculture in the national ethos.

The fact-gathering of the Social Survey Movement did, indeed, bring about structural change in the countryside, particularly the provision of rural health facilities, consolidation of rural schools, construction of roads, and the extension of rural mail delivery.®^ But perhaps most notable was the development of a nationwide agricultural educational infrastructure promoting scientific agriculture and domestic science. Funded primarily by

®%id., 112.

®®Ibid., 131.

®^Converse, Survev Research, 36. -186- the federal government under the Smith-Lever Act in 1914, there had grown up by the second decade of the twentieth century, a tightly-knit system of cooperation between local leaders (often from farmers' clubs), educators and agricultural scientists (from the state land grant colleges), and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture (in the person of the local extension agent).®®

In arguing for the 1914 Act, which mandated cooperative agricultural extension conducted by state land-grant colleges in conjunction with the

USDA, Asbury F. Lever, chair of the Committee on Agriculture and a representative from South Carolina (one of the first states to have a home demonstration agent), specifically defended the education of farm women.

Insisting that home demonstration work was an indirect means of building up agriculture as a whole. Lever demanded that provision be made for the itinerant teaching of home economics and home management.

This is the first time in the history of the century that the Federal Government has shown any tangible purpose or desire to help the farm woman in a direct way, to solve her manifold problems, and lessen her heavy burdens....The drudgery and toil of the farm wife have not been appreciated by those upon whom the duty of legislation devolves, nor has proper weight been given to her influence upon rural life. Our efforts have been given in aid of the farm man, his horses, cattle, and hogs, but his wife and girls have been neglected almost to a point of

®®Extension under Smith-Lever initially was divided into two offices covering work in the North and West and work in the South, leading to uneven services. Finally, in 1921, the two officers were combined into the Office of Extension Work, a part of the States Relations Service. The Extension Service became a separate agency within USDA in 1923. Wayne D. Rasmussen, Taking the University to the People: Seventy-Five Years of Cooperative Extension (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989), 80. -187- criminality.®®

Though home demonstration programs were oriented almost exclusively to women, the overt goal was always "the improvement of agriculture." Central was the insistence that women played a crucial role in the rural economy: "the ultimate goal in any agricultural and home- economics extension program has been to make possible a better standard of living for the farm family by the full capitalization of the material resources at its command."®^ Women were to become domestic engineers.

Broadly speaking, reformers who wandered the countryside to spread the gospel of efficiency tended to be relatively young, from comfortable, economically secure stations in life. Specifically, home demonstration agents came from farm backgrounds, had advanced degrees—usually in home economics from land-grant colleges, had been trained to apply their research to everyday problems, and were hired for their familiarity with farm conditions.®® Their primary charter was to identify, train, and coordinate local leadership.®*

®®Ibid., 10-11.

®^Madge J. Reese, A Ten-Year Review of Home-Management Extension, 1914-1924. USDA Circular no. 17 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1927), 1.

®® Florence E. Ward, Home Demonstration Work Under the Smith- Lever Act, 1914-1924. USDA Circular no. 43 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1929), 13.

®*Ibid., 5. -188-

Targeting community leaders, of course, restricted reformers to an elite constituency. M. C. Burritt, vice director of extension at the New York

State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, wrote in 1919 that he feared his office was only reaching "what might be called the 'upper crust' of the farm population, and that our agents are really not reaching as effectively as might be those persons who are most in need of our assistance."** Well aware that county agents were freely criticized for their lack of scope, Burritt was not quite sure how to remedy the situation. "The nature of the extension problem is such that extension workers must be fitted to work with the most advanced men in the communities and be helpful to them. I very much doubt if men who can do this will ever be able to meet effectively the 'less fortunate' group."*^

Perhaps the answer to reaching "the great mass of the people" could, indeed, be found within the rural elite. Burritt noted, hopefully:

If the county agents and our extension workers can develop good, strong local leadership among the best and most advanced folks in all the communities, they will in turn stimulate other leaders and these local leaders wül get contact finally with pretty nearly the last man in the community. I doubt if it can be done any other way.*^

**M.C. Burritt, Ithaca, to Florence H. Freer, College of Agriculture, typed letter, 3 March 1919, New York State College of Agriculture Home Economics Records, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Olin Library, Cornell University, Ithaca [hereinafter referred to as Home Economics Records], 23/2/749.

*^M. C. Burritt, Ithaca, to H. W. Collingwood, New York, typed letter, 3 March 1919, Home Economics Records, 23/2/749, 1.

*% id., 2. -189- As evidence, Burritt pointed to his statistics. Five years previously, there had been 7,000 or 8,000 members of farm bureau associations; now there were some 70,000. Additionally, 235,000 persons had attended various meetings sponsored by the service. Home bureaus had reached only a few hundred women directly two or three years ago; now there were 10,000 women members, w ith some 178,000 women attending 2,400 meetings over the past year. "So you see we are constantly widening the circle of folks reached and

I believe we will eventually reach the greater proportion."*®

There can be little doubt that the reach of home demonstration was extensive. Instructions for building a Fireless Cooker, a forerunner of the crock-pot slow cooker, were reprinted from "Farmers' Bulletin No. 927" by the

Children's Bureau, for distribution to their clients.*^ By 1922, there were home demonstration agents in 800 counties, with club agents in another 200 counties. It was estimated that this county-level staff, working in conjunction with some 750 district agents and specialists, came in contact with about

2,500,000 farm homes.*®

But, underneath this welter of numbers, there remained the fact that

*®Ibid., 2-3.

*^Children's Bureau, "FIRELESS COOKER," M. 254 (Washington, D.C.: US Department of Labor, undated). Reprinted from "Farmers' Bulletin No. 927," US Department of Agriculture. Record Group 102, Children's Bureau Records, Box 273, 4-10-0-2, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

*®Henry C. Wallace, "Report of the Secretary," Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1922 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1923), 43. -190- extension and home demonstration agents were dealing primarily with community leaders. This, coupled with their fascination with technological improvements, kept the discussion of good life in the country firmly within the ranks of "progressive" farmers. Not only did it urge rural families to make use of devices that would streamline household operations, the USDA seized upon modern innovations to spread the message. First and foremost, of course, was the automobile. Home demonstration agents were true circuit riders, bouncing along back roads with their pamphlets and their model kitchens. Beginning in the early twenties, the radio became a crucial tool in home demonstration work, with "Aunt Sammy" taking to the airwaves with

"Housekeeper Chats."*® By the mechanisms they adopted to reach rural families and forestall the disintegration of the agrarian myth, rural progressives exemplified the new, industrial order. Within this rubric, agents had very little to say to the poorest white families.

In the end, USDA's perception of its mission was all bound up with its vision of rural life. Painfully aware of the liabilities of the agricultural economy and committed to their rectification, the agency was anxious to ward off outside criticism. From memos and reports and surveys and studies, it is clear that the USDA understood "good life" in the country to

*®Virginia C. Purdy, "Uncle Sam to Aunt Sammy: Federal Approaches to Farm Women," paper delivered at the New Mexico State University Conference on American Farm Women in Historical Perspective, Los Cruces, New Mexico, February 2-4,1984, 8. -191- entail not only economic and political parity, but social and cultural parity, as

well. Prosperity and standard of living were at issue; technological

innovation and modernization the solution. But, above all, it was necessary

to keep the farming community on an even footing with the rest of the

nation. More than anything, the agency wished to agree with one of the

women quoted in Emily Hoag's study:

No, American farm life will never be abandoned by the best blood of America. We are too business-like a nation for that. We farmers will somehow find a way to convert our profits into cultural agencies and facilities....It would not pay any part of American economically to have for example a 'coolie' class on the land here in the United States. In the first place, American farmers with their high standards of living are too good customers for business to lose; in the second place, it is well known that the personnel of city business is ever recruited from the people on the land.*^

In 1896, William Jennings Bryan had warned the nation: "destroy our farms

and grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country."*® Twenty-six years later, a woman writing to the Farmer's Wife again stressed the interdependence between city and country. She saw rural and urban communities as not only being inextricably entwined economically, but bound together in a common culture. By 1922, in contrast to 1896, that was a culture increasingly demarcated by washing machines and electric irons and radios and automobiles.

*^Hoag, "Advantages of Farm Life," 113.

*®Wüliam Jennings Bryan, "Cross of Gold Speech," Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, 1896. CHAPTER FIVE

GOOD LIFE IN THE COUNTRY

Maud Howe reported in 1909, in the pages of Harper's Bazaar, that she had heard from her friend Rustica. Raised in the city, "graduated with honors from a young ladies' college," Rustica found herself, at the age of forty, living in a small town and slipping off the edge of American civilization. "Will you please tell me what I can do to keep myself from going back? I want to be told what it is that I have not that the city woman has."^

Throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, commercial advertisers were more than anxious to tell rural women what the city woman had. Abstracted from their audience by education and income, advertising writers portrayed an urban America peopled by sleek upper middle-class men and women in drawing rooms and on golf courses, surrounded by modern conveniences and attended by worshipful maids and butlers.®

^Maud Howe, "Self Help for Country Women," Harper's Bazaar 43 (March 1909): 269.

®Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Wav for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 32-38, 194-205.

-192- -193- Within this milieu, it was only logical that G. I. Seller's & Sons should advertise its kitchen cabinet to farm women as "The Best Servant in Your

House." Next to a huge drawing of the cabinet, with doors thrown open to reveal wide and narrow shelves, flour bins, an attached meat grinder, hooks, note boards, and a multiplicity of drawers, stood a smaller sketch of an elegantly coiffed woman in white collar and cuffs, striped dress, ruffled apron, dark stockings, and high-heeled pumps, filling the "Famous Automatic

Lowering Flour Bin" at floor-level, without the "dangerous lifting of heavy flour sacks and climbing on treacherous chairs." Certainly, this 1922 advertisement in the Farmer's Wife addressed such ergonomic issues as lifting and climbing. But the underlying message was clear. With the

Automatic Lowering Flour Bin and a cupboard that doubled as a "servant in your house," any farm woman could dress as elegantly and work as daintily as her urban counterpart. Lest the message be too subtle, the headline drove home the point "More Than Any OÜier Woman, You Need These

Conveniences....No woman has a fuller day than you in your farm home."®

Home economist and consultant to industry on "Selling Mrs.

Consumer," Christine Frederick had a low opinion of advertisements glamorizing housework. She described in disgust a drawing of a washing machine operated by "the imaginary pretty girl housewife:"

She wears high-heeled pumps with cut steel buckles, her right arms

®Advertisement, Farmer's Wife 32 (March 1922): 765. -194- boasts a wrist watch, and her attire is beautiful and fetching. She wears a wrist watch because many girls on Fifth Avenue and elsewhere do wear wrist watches; and the fact that the watch would be ruined the first time she plunged her arm into the tub in order to life the clothes from the blueing water has entirely escaped our artist's penetration and knowledge.^

Suggesting that neither a homemaker nor a laundress would tackle Monday

wash day wearing a black uniform dress, a "delightful little triangle of muslin

edged with lace with long bows behind" for an apron, and a "bewitching ruff

on her hair," Frederick concluded that the advertiser was depicting a parlor maid, someone who, in the household scheme of things, would never operate

a washing machine. Mrs. Consumer, according to Mrs. Frederick, was alert to the stupidities of such "advertising folly."®

Despite the best efforts of Christine Frederick through the 1920s, advertisers clung to their images of a rarefied America. William Rogers &

Sons Silverplate found it well worth the expense to purchase the inside cover of the Farmer's Wife and print a delicately tinted drawing of ladies in broad- brimmed hats, with stole-draped shoulders, taking afternoon tea in a shadowed parlor, dappled sun light filtering through lace curtains. Set in script type against an embroidered leaf background: "The charm of hospitality...is not a matter of costly decoration, but rather one of quiet cordiality and good taste. For every use in a well-ordered home Wm. Rogers

^Christine Frederick, Selling Mrs. Consumer (New York: The Business Bourse, 1929), 351.

®Ibid., 351-352. -195- & Son Silverplate is appropriate and desirable." Off to the lower left, nestled into the lace background, is a photograph of a "La France" pattern flat server

($ 2.00).®

The April 1922 issue of The Farmer's Wife gives an indication of how both farm journals and advertisers envisioned good life in the countryside.

In brilliant watercolor on the front cover is a little girl sitting on some front steps in a yellow frock, her hair bobbed, her dark bangs topped with an enormous, floppy bow, her ankle socks sliding down into her Mary-Jane slippers, her lap more than occupied by a big straw hat filled with ducklings.

Except for the poultry, these front steps could easily have been attached to any suburban or affluent city house; there is notliing at all bucolic about this young lady's sense of fashion.^

"News from Washington" featured Mrs. Warren G. Harding in her uniform as Commander-in-Chief of the Girl Scouts (with dog Laddie Boy);

New Perfection wished families to buy a five-burner cook stove ("Indifferent to seasons, always ready for instant use"); Home Demonstration reports indicated cooperation between farm women and government agents to improve rural life; Montgomery Ward promised to send out its Fiftieth

Anniversary Catalogue to all interested parties; and a nutrition specialist from

®Advertisement, Farmer's Wife 33 (March 1922): inside front cover.

^Farmer's Wife, 33 (April 1922): front cover. -196- the University of Minnesota discussed "How Much Food is Enough?"®

One of the most interesting aspects of this April issue of the Farmer's

Wife was its treatment of hygiene and fashion. Some 579 members of the

Iowa Four-H Girls Club had switched to "approved shoes." Ten clubs in

Scott County were running a health contest, in which each girl was to keep a

diary of what she ate, how much she slept, how often she bathed and

brushed her teeth, and other, more delicate, particulars. A little further on,

next to a graphic drawing of corns being removed with "Freezone"

(obviously, someone was not wearing approved shoes), was a lengthy piece

on "Filling the Hope Chest"—practical suggestions listing, in exquisite detail,

essentials for a new home, or at least those essentials provided by the bride.

Maiy Robinson, clothing specialist from the University of Missouri, penned

an illustrated article on choosing the right hat ("A snub nose is emphasized

by upturning lines. A receding chin calls for slightly drooping brim") and women were assured that, following directions, they could smock aU their children's clothing. Sundry other dress and middy blouse patterns were included, but most fun was the advertisement from the Gossard Corset

Company, which promised, dubiously, "Comfort — With Style." Gossard artists ("For your convenience in buying corsets") had classified all women into nine types of figures and sketched all nine in corsets and silk dressing gowns (draped down the arms and trailing off the wrists to better illustrate

®Advertisements, Farmer's Wife 33 (April 1922): 808-812. -197-

the product line). Interestingly, these scantily clad ladies were also wearing

elaborate headgear (turbans, fans, jeweled head dresses) and each was

considered "Ideal." There was the "Ideal Figure, Tall Slender," "Ideal Average

Figure," "Ideal Figure Large Above Waist," "Ideal Figure Large Below Waist,"

and so on.*

None of these corsets appear ideal for milking cows, nor did the

contents of the Hope Chest specifically reflect farm life. Rather, in their

instructions on hygiene and health and beauty and table manners, the editors

of the Farmer's Wife and assorted advertisers were speaking to the American

Woman, rather than the Rural Woman. The Farmer's Wife, published out of

St. Paul, Minnesota, was perhaps the most prominent of the national

circulation agricultural magazines pitched specifically toward women. Most

farm journals catered to male readers, with a section set aside for the ladies.

But even in these magazines, advertisers were using arguments that winnowed women away from their work and stressed common concerns between city and country.

In 1924, Capper's Farmer, was not nearly as sophisticated a publication as the Farmer's Wife. With the exception of automobile advertisements, the layout in general looked not much different than farm journals of 1900, with many ads clinging to the old patent medicine format.

But here, in Capper's Farmer, rural women were shown a page of dress

*Advertisements, Farmer's Wife 33 (April 1922): 816-827 passim. -198-

patterns, with a small drawing in the background of two ladies framed by

Cyprus trees, taking tea beneath an umbrella, at a table set in the midst of a

huge, rolling lawn (flock of birds overhead to the right). The headline read

"Youth is Expressed in the New Styles." Few of the "Morning Frocks" or

"Easily Made Slip on Dresses" looked suitable for housework, much less

mucking around in the home garden or the barn.®*

Helen Lake's article, "Wholesome Cleanliness Rather Than Regular

Features Defines Beauty," was flanked on the left by a butler, towel across the

forearm, serving Peach Melba on a silver platter ("A Dessert that Costs a

Dollar") and, on the right, by a tiny face reflected in a framed mirror ("Does

the face in your mirror register HAPPINESS?"). Armand Cold Cream

Powder (on the right) understood "how much it means to a woman to be

comfortably conscious that she is looking her best," whereas Good Luck Jar

Rubbers (on the left) was convinced that "any housewife who cans skillfully"

could serve a dessert found on the menu of fine hotels, for a fraction of the

price. Helen Lake notwithstanding, each advertiser was pushing glamour

and elegance rather than cleanliness and nutrition.®®

Interestingly, the automobile ads, though by far superior in design

and graphics, spoke directly to the business of the farm. J. H. Nagle, posed with his family and their Chevrolet, reported that he had realized "—a

®°Advertisement, Capper's Farmer 35 (August 1924): 22.

®®Advertisement, Capper's Farmer 35 (August 1924): 25. -199-

Chevrolet Would About Double My Working Hours." By taking his car to

market and to church, Mr. Nagle was able to rest his field horses and shorten

his time on the road, "all at a cost of $8.25 for repairs" over four years.

Though the ad doesn't specify whether or not Mrs. Nagle was allowed to

drive, plunking her and the children down in front of the car (two straw

bonnets, two caps) for the publicity shot clearly indicates that this was a

family purchase.®®

Historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan has suggested that advertising between the two world wars hinged on guilt, celebrity, and social status, guilt being perhaps the most effective.®® Certainly neglect was the central theme of

an advertisement placed in the Philadelphia-based Farm Tournai by

Fairbanks, Morse & Co. asking, "Words or Deeds? Which means most to mother?" Contrasting one poor mother in spectacles, hunched over, sewing by kerosene light, with an upright, relaxed mother, sans spectacles, sewing by electric light, the ad suggests that "home folks" everywhere might best express their regard by installing a Home Power Plant Certainly, bringing city conveniences into the farm home was healthy and labor saving. But, more importantly. Home Light Plants and Home Water Plants "are

®®Advertisement, Capper's Farmer 35 (September 1924): 15.

®®Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 187. See also Charles Goodrum and Helen Dalrymple, Advertising in America: The First 200 Years (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), 149-155. -200- expressions of human regard that actually bring profit while they bring happiness!"®^

Many of the blandishments in rural journals were the product of advertising agencies and could have been placed in city magazines without change. American Radiator Company's 1925 reminder in the Country

Gentleman, "The floor is the child's playground...Keep it warm with radiators," was illustrated with a rosy-cheeked tyke peering over the playpen railing, finger in the mouth, curl on the forehead. This ad did nicely for city or country, babies being ubiquitous.®® The Country Gentleman was a highly sophisticated publication in the mid-1920s, owned by Curtis Publishing, of

Ladies' Home Tournai and Saturdav Evening Post fame. Elegantly printed, with large, glossy pages lending themselves to advertisements filled with detailed drawings and color separations, the Country Gentleman carried many of the same advertisements as general circulation national magazines.

A smiling, immaculate, and dry mother sits at the edge of the tub chatting with her bathing daughter, the bathroom fully outfitted with Standard brand plumbing fixtures.®® A young wife sits on the floor, her cheek resting on her husband's knee, her fate as a "Baking Failure or Success" dependent on the

®^Advertisement, Farm Journal 50 (November 1926): 33.

®®Advertisement, Country Gentleman 90 (September 1925): 45.

®®Advertisement, Country Gentleman 90 (September 1925): 133. -201-

Great Majestic Range.®® And (a personal favorite), "Expectant Mothers" are

instructed to write for literature on the Ktddie-Koop. A modern crib cum

bassinet cum playpen, the four-wheeled Kiddie-Koop, in its full glory, formed

a completely enclosed mesh and wood compartment. The rested young

mother, photographed squatting on the floor, peering pleasantly through the

screen at her fuzzy child, could equally have been urban or rural.®®

But most outstanding in the Countrv Gentleman were advertisements

promising to improve quality of life for farm families. Unlike the Farmer's

Wife, in which there was an underlying assumption that conveniences would

be contrived and homemade as often as they were purchased (hence the great

emphasis on USDA agents and bulletins), the Countrv Gentleman of the mid-

1920s seems clearly targeted for an affluent audience. Crane Automatic

Water Systems made no bones about charging $120 for its shallow well

electric system (attractively illustrated). But this drawing was followed

immediately by one of an irrigated garden: "The profits a Crane system

makes on the farm pays for the comfort it brings to your home."®*

Westinghouse showed a couple sitting on their front porch, the wife shelling peas, the husband reading the paper and turning to say, "The best is none too

good for us; let's send in this coupon for the new Westinghouse book. They

®®Advertisement, Countrv Gentleman 90 (November 1925): 79.

®®Advertisement, Countrv Gentleman 90 (September 1925): 145.

®*Advertisement, Countrv Gentleman 90 (September 1925): 46. -202- say its the most complete book on electricity for the farm ever published."®*

Of course, not all advertising in the Country Gentleman smacked of

consumer gentility. Kroehler Manufacturing insisted, in large type below a

tasteful illustration, "This fine Living Room Furniture is not high priced!"

Claiming that beautifully furnished farm homes owed their existence largely

to increased use of Kroehler-made upholstered chairs and davenports, the

company explained, with reference to heavy tempered wire and germ-cured

flax fiber, that it was able to make "moderate-priced 'quality' furniture" using

economies of scale.®® Even RCA Radiola promised economical entertainment.

Thanks to the radio:

When famous orchestras play their liveliest dance music in the great hotels, the farmer tunes in—at home! When opera stars draw formal crowds to row on row of boxes, the farmer listens in—in his comfortable shirtsleeves. Laughter, song, music, plays-everything the city has to make life joyful comes right into the farm home now—with a Radiola.®®

High or low priced, the goods advertised in rural magazines promised to

make life more comfortable, more entertaining, more elegant, more like that

enjoyed in the cities.

Threaded throughout all the advertisements for room heaters and radios and corsets and oil stoves and various soaps, ointments, and powders were numerous ads for farm equipment. After all, these farm journals

®*Advertisement, Countrv Gentleman 90 (September 1925): 73.

®®Advertisement, Countrv Gentleman 90 (September 1925): 119.

®®Advertisement, Countrv Gentleman 90 (September 1925): 90. -203- pitched to a target audience selected on the basis of its industry. So the

Country Gentleman was not at all too nice to print ads for De Laval Cream

Separators and Milkers.®® Capper's Farmer mentioned the Gold Corn

Harvester,®^ the Farm Tournai included the address of a catalog of farm

wagons from the Electric Wheel Company,®® and the Farmer's Wife unfurled

a truly impressive illustration of poultry from the M. M. Johnson Company,

"Raise More Chickens and Help the Family Income," (complete with

testimonials from sundry satisfied customers).®®

Interestingly, only in the Farmer's Wife were traditional divisions of

labor depicted. Women had long been charged with care of poultry and

dairy products, but they were, in the mid-1920s, being edged out by scientific

agriculture. Once dairy and egg production were defined as big business,

they became the legitimate concern of farm men.®® Reflecting the amorphous

state of the industry, advertisements in farm journals encompassing the entire

family typically showed photographs of milk separators standing alone and

of incubators filled with chicks but unattended by human beings. Only in the

®®Advertisement, Country Gentleman 90 (November 1925): 155.

®^Advertisement, Capper's Farmer 35 (August 1924): 25.

®®Advertisement, Farm Journal 50 (November 1926): 30.

®®Advertisement, Farmer's Wife 33 (February 1922): back cover.

®®See Christine Kleinegger, "Out of the Barns and into the Kitchens: Farm Women's Domestic Labor, World War I to World War II," (Ph.D. diss.. State University of New York at Binghamton, 1986). -204- Farmer's Wife were women regularly shown pouring milk into the separator,

fastening the latch on the incubator. And even in the Farmer's Wife, ladies

were most often depicted stirring soup, serving cake, washing lace,

administering nostrums, peering into the mirror. In the world of advertising,

at least, farm women's work was more appropriately channeled into service

for the family, rather than being income generative.

Christine Frederick chose to believe that good advertising

(presumably that without parlor maids) had a true educational function, alerting women to the availability of new products, teaching them how to use new technologies, inviting them to compare prices and values and make wise purchases®®. "Most of the major changes in the public standards of living, housing, interior decorating, of intelligent family care and feeding, clothing, are directly traceable to constructive advertising."®* Mrs. Consumer, however, was a canny broad. The more advertising she was exposed to, the more adroit she became at sorting out the false claims from the true, at distinguishing real needs from artificial.

We inhale advertising as we breathe in air—and exhale unconsciously that part of it which is without interest, without merit, or without sincerity and sense....We women simply adapt ourselves to an advertising age as men adapt themselves to a machine age—because it is

®®Advertising was particularly charged with teaching new behaviors, such as the use of cosmetics and products of personal hygiene, and in introducing new technologies. See Goodrum and Dalrymple, Advertising in America, 125-135,173-189.

®*Frederick, Selling Mrs. Consumer, 340. -205- an important element of modern life.®°

Advertising agencies were not unnaturally anxious to determine what

precisely was being inhaled and what exhaled. Christine Frederick, herself,

developed numerous research projects for industry between 1910 and 1930

and considered the survey essential to the development and marketing of

modern technologies.®^ But historian Roland Marchand has pointed out that

market research was in its infancy in the period between the two world wars;

agencies were still in the process of defining their questions and their

audience, much less applying rigorous statistical techniques. Throughout the

1920s, much of what passed for market research never made it out the front

door of the advertising agency. Campaigns targeted to women consumers were often merely passed for review among the young women in the office; copywriters routinely tried out new ideas on their long-suffering wives over

dinner.®^ The J. Walter Thompson (JWT) company was one of the few agencies that approached market research in a systematic fashion. Under the impetus of Stanley B. Resor, trained in history and economics at Yale, JWT set out to describe and predict buyer behavior using statistics. At first, the agency merely combed the U.S. Census for demographic and economic data

(a practice it continues to today). But in 1916, JWT established both a

®‘>Ibid., 336-337.

®%id., 89.

®^Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 75-76. -206-

Plarming and a Statistical Investigation department, which joined the business of tracking and anticipating market trends.®®

In Selling Mrs. Consumer, Christine Frederick mentioned almost off­ handedly, "The farm market is, of course, much less understood and researched than the city market."®^ But in the early 1920s, J. Walter

Thompson embarked upon an ambitious investigation of rural communities and small towns, planning to survey one county thoroughly in each of the eighteen regions it designated for the nation. As set forth in the introduction to its first study, of Putnam County, New York, the advertising agency explained:

The company is going to make a very exhaustive study of the market afforded in the small town and farm population of the United States— (1) to determine the extent of the existing market for our varied products in these territories (2) possibilities for expanding these markets there (3) sales machinery to secure and maintain distribution (4) a complete study of all media reaching these people®®

To that end, researchers, moving house to house, interviewed 355 consumers and visited all the grocery, drug, and general stores in the county. Putnam

County, 50 miles north of New York City and bracketed on either side by the

®®Daniel Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 142.

®^Frederick, Selling Mrs. Consumer, 207.

®®Statistical Department, J. Walter Thompson Company, "Report of Rural and Small Town Investigation in Putnam County, New York, August and October 1923," TMs, J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, Special Collections, Duke University Library, Durham, North Carolina, 1. -207- Hudson River and the Connecticut state line, was chosen as a test case

because it was so typically rural. Of an entire population in the 1920 census

of 10,802, Putnam had no towns over 2500; some 70 percent of all people

lived in villages of fewer than 500 people. Putnam was also of interest to the

J. Walter Thompson Company because it never developed electric railways,

being too close to two major commuter railroads to justify the expense:

The population, the country stores and the villages all show in various ways the effects of this absence of electric railway development. For example, the villages and the general stores are typical of the period of 30 years ago and the more recent changes wrought by the automobile have been imposed directly on the old equipment....Gasohne tanks, stocks of parts and automobile repair outfits, refreshment tables and candy stocks are the most notable outward changes in the general stores; and these often are installed without changing the fittings of thirty years ago.®®

JWT thought local buying patterns were as affected by the prevalence of the

automobile as by advertising. Chain stores, seeing that families with cars were making more of their purchases in town, had expanded accordingly.

Threatened with being edged out of the local market, country stores

"undertook to win back their trade" by operating route cars, automobiles loaded with goods that made the rounds of farm homes in the tradition of the old Yankee peddlers.®^ In survey responses, some families even mentioned learning about a new product from the "peddler."

JWT wanted to know about size of household, class of home, type of

®®Ibid., 2-3.

®%id., 3. -208- farm, ownership of automobile, and presence of electricity or running water not as a clue to improving country life, but as a context within which to set the real meat of the survey: data on buying patterns of household products.

Researchers duly reported that 166 families had cars and 189 did not. (One- hundred eight of those automobiles were Fords.) Of 320 homes included in the survey, 117 had electric lights, 24 general electric power, 137 telephones,

10 radios. Of those same 320 families, 83 had running water, 70 had set tubs,

171 sewing machines, 62 washing machines, 7 mangles, 5 knitting machines, and 48 vacuum cleaners. One hundred and sixty-eight houses were heated by stoves (and 22 by open fire places): 219 had coal cook stoves, 129 kerosene and 59 wood.®®

What JWT really wanted to know was what sort of laundry supplies, toilet articles, drugs and medicines, food, and clothing rural families purchased. The agency needed to know how strongly shoppers were influenced by brand names and wanted to determine the media through which they got the message about product lines, old and new. Most particularly, JWT wanted to know how the goods of their own clients were selling in the hinterland.

Take two examples: soap and baking soda. Of 355 questionnaires,

277 answered "yes" to using LUX soap; 76 answered "no." LUX was mostly used to wash blouses, blankets, dresses, underwear, dishes, and diapers.

®»Ibid., 38-45. -209- though two people used LUX to scrub the floor and one to "wash...chickens for poultry shows." The remarks of women interviewed are particularly interesting, because they indicate both how successful the LUX advertising program had been and also how strongly women relied on brand name products. "LUX rots waists. Now using Ivory." "Like LUX better than Fab."

Have tried Rinso — prefers Chipso — cheaper." "Use LUX more for fine things and Fab to sprinkle in tub with clothes — with bar soap." "1 did not like Fab 'takes color out'." "LUX turns white material yellow (uses Ivory)."

Of the ladies who preferred LUX (despite its higher price), many had become convinced, either through use or through advertising, that the product was good for their skin. "Use LUX for most washing because its easy on hands." "1 who used it for dishes liked it — said her hands were very sensitive and it was good for them." Of one woman who used 4 or 5 packages of LUX per week, for almost every type of cleaning, researchers noted, "Said she has to save her hands, and LUX is the mildest thing she knows. She told her husband when he said she was extravagant if her hands weren't worth more to him than the kitchen floor, he'd have to get another wife."®®

If the questions on soap revealed rural brand name affiliation, those on baking soda indicated changes in the kitchen. Still with that 355 household sample, 229 women bought bakeiy bread, 81 did not, and 48 had

®®Ibid., 47-50. -210- no answer. By far the greater number purchased bakery bread every day,

most of the others at least once a week. With 188 women also reporting that

they baked their own bread (and 130 saying they did not), it is clear that

some households supplemented their own efforts with "boughten goods."

Two hundred two ladies also baked hot breads; 201 made biscuits.

Why did so many rural and small town households rely on the

baker? For most, the issue was one of time. "Would like to make bread, but

is too busy. Thinks home baked bread more nourishing." "Buys bakers bread

when work is heavy otherwise bakes — twice a week." "Buys bread when

without help — bakes bread if she has help." For others, the issue was one of

quality. "Stopped baking during the war on account of poor flour." "Doesn't

bake, 'Baker spoiled me.'" "Buys bread from Poughkeepsie." Though one

lady noted that she baked for house guests, none of the respondents

indicated family preferences for bakery or homemade bread. Household management, rather than gastronomical factors, seem to determine purchasing patterns.^®

In 1924 JWT replicated its survey in Randolph County, Indiana, conducting 808 consumer interviews: 494 with farm women, 293 with town women, 62 with farm men, and 31 with town men.^^ Randolph differed from

""Ibid., 73-76.

"^Research Department, J. Walter Thompson Company, "Rural and Small Town Investigation: Randolph County, Indiana, 1924," TMs [photocopy], J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, Special Collections, Duke University -211- Putnam County in ways that reflected regional patterns. Far more isolated

geographically, Randolph residents reported a much higher reliance on mail

order houses; 625 families had automobiles, compared to only 183 without

(Three hundred thirty-five were Fords.) Perhaps Randolph was more affluent

than Putnam, or perhaps the difference can be attributed to its relative youth

as a community; either way, Randolph County residents showed a marked

interest in modem conveniences. Four hundred nine homes were equipped

with electricity for lights or general power; 755 had telephones; 80 had radios.

There were also 293 irons, 12 toasters, 102 set tubs, 787 sewing machines, 393

Washington machines, 19 mangles, and 358 vacuum cleaners. Five hundred

and thirty-one houses were heated with stoves, 211 with hot air, 43 with hot

water, and none with open fire places. There were 708 coal cook stoves, 452

kerosene, 283 wood, and 183 gas stoves."^

Buying patterns on soap paralleled Putnam County, particularly in

the impact of brand names and advertising. "Noticed Rinso advertising six

months ago and have used it ever since." "Led to try Rinso from magazine

advertisement and vote it the best ever!" (Marketing sometimes backfired:

"Afraid Rinso might eat Clothes. Advertisement sounds too good.")"® And preference for bakery bread was even more pronounced: 770 women (or 95

Library, Durham, North Carolina, 112.

"% id., 113-121.

"®Ibid., 123-130. -212-

1/3%) admitted to buying their bread; only 27 (or 3 1/3%) claimed to bake.

Interestingly, these Indiana cooks cited not convenience, but cost, as their primary reason for buying bakery bread and, unlike their Putnam County compatriots, reported much higher levels of homemade pies, griddle cakes, and com bread.""

JWT's reports do not indicate what conclusions the agency drew from its investigations. From a historical perspective, however, it would seem that rural families differed little from urban families in their notions about modem products and appropriate consumer behavior. Women were persuaded to purchase soap not on the basis of greater economy or accessibility (one Putnam woman had her daughter send packets of LUX from Boston), but because it was good with fine washables, didn't harm the skin, and carried a recognizable label. They were prompted to abandon baking bread not because of considerations of taste or nutrition, but because of time and cost. But, of course, it was small wonder that rural families shared consuming habits with city folks, since they shared the same reading material. In Randolph County, 431 families subscribed to the Muncie Star,

214 to the Richmond Item, 159 to the Indianapolis News, 79 to the Muncie

Press, and 36 to the Indianapolis Star — daily papers, all, published in large cities. Two hundred fifty households received the Country Gentleman, with its sophisticated color-separated advertisements; 46 families received the

""Ibid., 154-156. -213-

Farmer's Wife. (Subscriptions to the latter magazine were much higher in

Putnam County, New York, reflecting the regional base of that women's

magazine.) Significantly, 344 families got Women's Home Companion, 235

Ladies' Home Tournai, 222 Good Housekeeping, 205 McCall's, 193 Woman's

World, 161 Pictorial Review, 154 Hearth & Home, 141 Needlecraft, 74

People's Home Tournai, and 40 the Delineator — all national circulation

general women's magazines. Saturday Evening Post was ordered by 336

homes. Literary Digest by 140, American Magazine by 538, National

Geographic by 81, Cosmopolitan (in its former incarnation) by 184. Most families reported that they read more in the winter than summer; 73 said they were particularly interested in magazine advertisements; 46 said they were interested in all advertisements; 10 said they liked advertisements but did not think they were influenced to buy through them, and 46 said they were not interested in advertisements and never bought from them."® At least from the perspective of JWT, the American pie did not look so different, city versus country.

While JWT investigations shed light on rural purchases of household products, sales figures from Sears, Roebuck and Company are probably the best indices for general merchandise. This is particularly so, given the conservative nature of the enterprise. No innovator in merchandising types.

Sears waited to list an item in its catalog until it had an established

"®Ibid., 191-201. -214- popularity with the public; no item remained for long once it ceased to sell."®

So what were people buying? The 1910 catalog devoted the greatest

space to furniture, women's and girls' clothing next, then hardware, watches

and jewelry, and men's and boys' clothing. Since 1900, the company had

added gas and electric fixtures, school furniture, telephones and line material,

flashlights, motorcycles, motorboats, heating plants, portable houses, and

concrete-block machines. Automobiles had first appeared in 1909; they

received prom inent treatment in the 1910 book."^

Over the next ten years. Sears added built-in bathtubs, women's wrist watches, machine-built homes, electric household appliances, church and theater furniture, dairy barn equipment, gymnasium and playground apparatus, baseball uniforms, roller skates, pocket knives, and tents. The

1920 catalog (with its drawings of ladies in short dresses) pushed player pianos and phonographs, white enamel cook stoves and bathtubs, electric vacuum cleaners and washing machines (also gas-powered washers), and lawn mowers (the best selling item). Prices were high, reflecting wartime inflation. By 1925, low-cut shoes had almost entirely ousted high-tops; bicycles were back to their prewar prices; pajamas sold five to three over nightgowns; built-in bathtubs were standard; and electric milking machines

"®Boris Emmet and John E. Jeuck, Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 219.

"7Jbid., 220. -215-

were big. Wrist watches outnumbered pocket watches; radios were a

significant product line; machine-built houses were in their final year of true

profitability; and buggies were relegated to one page."®

Perhaps as interesting as the successes were the marketing disasters,

particularly glaring among which were the Continental fashions designed for

the farm wives of the Plains. Each gown in the "Lady Duff-Gordon" line had

a name, such as "I'll Come Back to You." Evidently, this dress was

particularly well named; two were sold, and both came back. Attempts to

sell high priced footwear and an expensive line of men's clothing also flopped. It has been suggested by historians Boris Emmet and John E. Jeuck that these failures underscored Sears, Roebuck's "true function as a distributor

of merchandise that can be priced well within the budget of the farming, working, and lower-middle classes.""® They also underscore the rural community's priorities. An argument could be made for LUX soap over

Chipso, hands being significantly more important that kitchen floors, but what on earth was one to do with a Lady Duff-Gordon tea gown? Marketers and manufacturers could strive mightily, but the rural family was going to buy only what it found desirable and useful.

At the same time that advertisers and private industry were spelling out a definition of American life based on a particularly genteel vision of city

"®Ibid., 219-224.

"®Ibid., 225-226. -216-

life, the USDA was busy promulgating its own version of good life in the

country. For over a decade, the agency had been spelling out the particulars

in bulletins and circulars. For instance, W. R. Beattie, assistant horticulturist.

Bureau of Plant Industry, was nominated in 1910 to write "Comforts and

Conveniences in Farmers' Homes," for the Yearbook of the Department of

Agriculture. Beattie argued that most farm families were "comfortable and

happy," but that maintenance of such comfort was overly labor intensive,

leaving little time for "mental improvement or social life." (Clearly, the

USDA was not opposed to Shakespeare.) The solution lay in modern

conveniences, most of which could be installed by the farmer himself.

Every home needed running water and electricity to run dairy and

laundiy machinery, "even ceiling fans and motor-driven sewing machines."

Every home need be ringed with intelligently placed outbuildings and

equipped with a large, well-lit and well-ventilated kitchen. Every home

should have a bathroom at least 8 by 10 feat of floor space, with hot water

and thread-connected lead pipes. Every house needed pumped water and a

holding tank, proper drainage, screened doors and windows, and a separate

laundry room. Beattie supplied instructions for building window ventilators

(or open-air cupboards), screened cellar cupboards suspended from ceiling joists ("the entire cost not exceeding 60 cents"), and concrete milk troughs for

separating cream. Heating with open fireplaces was held to be uneconomical except in Southern climes; acetylene gas was preferred for lighting over -217- kerosene lamps, and homeowners were reminded of the importance of a good kitchen garden, shade trees, and the telephone.®" All in all, Beattie's list of essential conveniences matched Florence Ward's, drawn up ten years later

(though she added the automobile).®^ Taken together, these were solid, structural suggestions, speaking to the rural woman in her laboring capacity, conceiving of the home as an integral part of the farm business, and rationalizing all expenditures on the basis of increased efficiency and production.

The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) fully endorsed this agenda. In 1925-26, the organization orchestrated two massive surveys of home equipment, prompted in large measure by the outrage of its president, Mary Sherman (Mrs. John D.), over the Census Bureau's refusal to recognize homemaking as a legitimate profession. Mrs. Sherman reasoned that, because homemakers were not enumerated as such, no information was collected about their working conditions and no effort was made to improve their lot

The government publications tell us periodically just how many factories in each industry and in each geographical division are served by mechanical power — water, steam or electric — but no government or other publication could tell us how many homes were connected with

®"W. R. Beattie, "Comforts and Conveniences in Farmers' Homes," in Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910), 345-356.

®^Florence Ward, "The Farm Woman's Problems," Journal of Home Economics 12 (October 1920): 437-57. -218- water and sewer mains, gas mains; how many were centrally heated or how many were lighted by electricity, gas, or by the labor-exacting kerosene lamp.®^

With funding from the Woman's Home Companion, provided in

exchange for first rights of publication, the survey was conducted by

women's club members across the nation, running from May 8,1925 to May

31,1926. Information was collected from local officials and culled from

community records, one questionnaire per family, to determine water supply,

garbage disposal, heating systems, use of gas for lighting, cooking, and hot- water, source of electrical power and nature of appliances, and lists of recreational equipment (encompassing radios and automobiles and pianos and public libraries). Small rural villages were included in the scope of the project, but investigation did not branch beyond clustered communities, into the open country.®®

Questionnaires for nearly eight million families were returned, housed in six million dwellings, in 2,228 communities, representing 48 states and the

District of Columbia, and accounting for some 32 million people, half the estimated number living in incorporated villages, towns, and cities in 1925.

®^Mrs. John D. Sherman, "Detailed Report of the Home Equipment Survey and the Follow-Up Campaigns," Address presented at the General Federation of Women's Clubs Biennial Convention, San Antonio, Texas, Program Records, Sherman 1924-28, Box 1, Folder 0710049-1-22, Women's History and Resource Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs Archives, Washington, D.C.

®®Mary Sherman, "The Home Equipment Survey," Woman's Home Companion (November 1926): 15, 111. -219- The editors of Woman's Home Companion were pleased with the survey as

much for the effect it had on public opinion, as the data collected. In a note

illustrated, somewhat obliquely, with an drawing of the Hamilton-Burr duel

of 1804, the editors wrote, "The survey has brought to the attention of

millions of husbands, through their newspapers, the fact that the inadequate

equipment of their homes may be partly responsible for apparently inefficient

management, ill-health and friction in those homes."®"

Mary Sherman, however, focused on the data gathered and was much

less quick to blame husbands for the inadequacies of American homes. She was actually rather appalled by the choices being made by women. "We have said over and over again that we were a progressive people, knowing how to make money and how to buy conveniences and comfort with that money, until we believed it firmly."®® The survey suggested that this was an ill-founded faith.

[A]s a nation, we American women do not live efficiently; we do not reduce drudgery to a minimum, even when means and opportunity permit; we do not avail ourselves of sanitary and labor-saving equipment; but prefer certain luxuries and recreations to release from almost primitive forms of domestic facilities.®®

Most galUng was the fact that families routinely purchased automobiles, telephones, phonographs, and pianos before fliey bought electric washing

®"Editor's Note, Woman's Home Companion (October 1926): 14.

®®Sherman, "Home Equipment Survey," 15.

®®Ibid. -220- machines, sewing machines, and refrigerators. In places of less than 5,000 population, where families were not swept up into subscribing to public utilities and there were no health inspectors, people bought automobiles and telephones before bathtubs or wash basins; in areas of less than 2,500, cars and phones beat out flush toilets.®^

Sherman took her crusade to the business community, explaining to a convention of manufacturers and wholesalers of plumbing and heating material.

The thing we overlooked was that while the women run the home they do not equip it, and cannot operate any of the equipment therein that depends upon community utilities without the initial cooperation of the men who make and install such equipment, and without the continuous cooperation of the men in charge of such utilities.®®

She wanted the members of the Central Supply Association, meeting in the

Hotel Sherman, Chicago, to recognize the potential of the home market and seriously court the woman consumer. She wanted them to pressure Congress to recognize homemaking as a legitimate profession for the purposes of the census. And she wanted them to promote a vision of the nation that bound together home equipment and citizenship.

We want you to help us get into the grain of public thought — woman thought and man thought — that running water in the home, sewer

®7lbid.

®®Mrs. John D. Sherman, "The Home Makers of America," address before the Central Supply Association, Hotel Sherman, Chicago, 21 October 1926, 5. Program Records, Sherman 1924-28, Box 1, Women's History and Resource Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs Archives, Washington, D.C. -221-

facilities, gas, electricity, proper heating systems, are vital parts of the American home organization.®®

With or without their assistance, Mary Sherman was determined to break women of their "habit of drudgery," their willingness to purchase items like cars and telephones that allowed them to escape poor working conditions, rather than the equipm ent designed to change those conditions.®" She justified her crusade by quoting letters sent in response to a woman who had written a magazine explaining that she had seven children, no labor saving devices except a sewing machine, and wouldn't buy any if she had the money because she saw it as her job "to hold her family up to the sunlight, even though her own feet were deep in the mire" of poverty and drudgery.

Several homemakers wrote in advising Mrs. C. of Washington State to "come out of her cherished mire." One woman wrote, "I am teaching my children that electric appliances are necessities and not luxixries." Pointedly and providently, another insisted, "I tell you Mary Sherman, we women must be educated out of drudgery — forcibly pulled out if necessary." Mary Sherman was only too happy to oblige.®"

®®Ibid.

®"Mrs. John D. Sherman, "Driving Drudgery from the American Home," address delivered before the Fiftieth Convention of the National Electric Light Association, Atlantic City, New Jersey, June 1927, 5 in President's Papers, Mary Sherman, Folder 021002-1-3, Women's History and Resource Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

®"Mrs. John D. Sherman, "Home Making an Occupation," Electrical World 87 (22 May 1926): 1124-1125. -222- Mrs. Sherman was also inspired to carry her project into the

countryside. This time with funding from the Country Gentleman, the

General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1926 surveyed over 40,000 farm

families. Because farm homes were not clustered like those in towns and

cities, information could not be gleaned from records of gas or electric or

telephone companies. Instead, questionnaires were sent directly to farm

women, with technical assistance from agricultural colleges, state granges,

and rural women's clubs.®^ Sherman admitted that "the thousands of farm

homes covered by our survey unquestionably represent the better

conditioned and the more progressive farm population — because it was

made with the aid of home demonstration agents..."®® Still, she found

conditions appallingly inadequate.

First returns were somewhat encouraging. Nebraska came in early, with 4622 women responding from 53 of the state's 93 counties. "They represent the group of forward-looking women who know that women must build together on a foundation of fact if the products of our nation's great scientific minds are to benefit all women in their homes."®" Noting that the

Nebraska housewife usually had at least one farm hand to feed, and entire

®%herman, "Detailed Report," 4.

®®Sherman, "Driving Drudgery," 4.

®"Mary Sherman, "A Lasting Gift of Leisure," Countrv Gentleman 1926, President's Papers, Mary Sherman, oversize file 021007-1-7, Women's History and Resource Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs Headquarters, Washington, D.C. -223- threshing crews during harvest season, Sherman explained that four out of

every five never had hired help; only two in seven received help from adult

relatives. As the lone housekeeper, the farm woman was doubly dependent

upon good equipment.

Eighty-six of every 100 Nebraska farm homes had washing machines

and at least four-fifths had churns, cream separators, food choppers, sewing machines, and door and window screens.

What more than three-quarters of the homes do not have are flush toilets, stationary laundry tubs with running water, stationary wash bowls with running water, bath tubs, electric lights, furnaces, electric irons, vacuum cleaners or bread mixers. So much for Nebraska.®®

Almost half of Nebraska farms had a stationary engine to generate electricity, but only 6 in 100 used that power to pump water. Worse, 14 of every 100 farms without electricity were within a mile of a power line; a quarter were within two miles. Somebody wasn't trying hard enough.

It is up to the housewife herself to improve the conditions under which she works, to make of her farm home a restful, delightful abiding place where labor-saving appliances instead of woman power will accomplish her most difficult tasks.®®

Once all the returns were in, things looked much grimmer. In her final report to The Country Gentleman in May 1927, Mary Sherman provided the following list:

®®Ibid., 2.

®®Ibid. -224r A Glimpse Into 40,266 Farm Homes 17,842 have water piped to the house 10,618 have electricity 8.111 have stationary engines 29,396 have automobiles 16,131 have washing machines 21,189 have telephones 20,057 have refrigeration of some kind 32,736 have door and window screens 28,732 have sewing machines 20,636 have food choppers 13,844 have pianos 13,191 have phonographs 12,214 use kerosene, gasoline or distillate for cooking 9,837 have electric or gas sadirons 8.111 have radio sets 6,946 have vacuum cleaners 6,673 light by kerosene, acetylene or gasoline mantle lamps 13,091 have cream separators 7.863 have incubators 5.863 have tractors 1,163 have milking machines 20,597 are within three miles of electric lines 9,262 are within five miles of a town of 2500 9,287 are from five to ten miles of a town of 2500 8,915 are from ten to twenty-five miles The average acreage is 129.7 72.6 per cent are occupied by owners.®’'

In her article, Sherman attempted to put those figures into context, particularly in comparison with the farm business. So, for instance, she noted with dismay that 28 percent of farms had electricity, 23 percent stationary engines, 11 percent windmills, 12 percent gravity delivery of water — yet less than a third of all farm homes had running water or pumped water at the

®^Mary Sherman, "Housekeeping on 40,000 Farms," Country Gentleman (May 1927), reprint, 1. Program Records, Sherman 1924-28, Box 1, Women's History and Resource Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs Archives, Washington, D.C. -225- kitchen sink.

Even though some farms have two or more of these sources of mechanical power, more than 20,000 women of the 40,000 reporting would not be carrying all water for household purposes from a distance to the farmhouse, more than 6,000 others would not be carrying it from porch or back yard into kitchens, and more than 26,000 farm women reporting would not be carrying waste water out of the house if mechanical power already available on these 40,000 farms were used to lift their burden.®®

Sewing machines were almost ubiquitous, found in four-fifths of homes reporting, but "it is rather discouraging to find that only 21 per cent have electric flat irons, and only 7 per cent gas irons — both inexpensive pieces of equipment"®®

Despite the fact that the largest proportion of deaths from typhoid fever were in rural districts and small towns, the privy remained the

"prevailing method of waste disposal" on farms in 41 of the 46 states reporting. Rural priorities, misplaced though they might be, matched those reflected in the urban version of the Home Equipment Survey. Only a sixth of 40,000 farm homes had flush toilets, only a little over a quarter of houses in villages with a population under 1,000. Yet 35 of every 100 homes had phonographs; 37 of every 100 had pianos. More than a fifth of farm homes owned radios, a greater number than in villages and town under 10,000.

Fifty-seven of every 100 farm homes had telephones, about equal to city folk.

®®Ibid., 4.

®®Ibid., 9-10. -226- And almost four-fifths of farm families drove their own automobiles, a

number far exceeding even the largest urban area/"

Robert and Helen Merrell Lynd, in their mid-decade study of Muncie,

Indiana, found buying patterns that echoed those discovered by the GFWC.

In January 1925, one in four houses not only lacked bathrooms, but had no

running water. Only two-thirds of all households had sewer connections in

1924, although 99 percent had electricity by June 1925. What particularly

impressed the Lynds were "1890 and 1924 habits jostling along side by side in

a family with primitive back-yard water or sewage habits yet using an

automobile, electric washer, electric iron, and vacuum cleaner."^

The Lynds were fascinated by the automobile, seeing it as a symbol of

consumerism and the technology that most altered leisure activities, drawing

people away from the church and the family parlor and out onto the road.’'^

At the end of 1923, there were 6,221 passenger cars in Muncie, one for every

6.1 people or two for every three families. "As at the turn of the century,

business class people began to feel apologetic if they did not have a

telephone, so ownership of an automobile has not reached the point of being

’'"Ibid., 5-6,10-11.

^Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, Middletown: A Study in American Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956, 1929), 97-98.

72lbid., 254. -227- an accepted essential of normal living."’^ The Lynds reported, with some

disgust, of houses mortgaged to purchases automobiles and suggested that

poorer families would even curtail expenditures on food and clothing to pay

for a car. Out of curiosity, drawn by the run-down appearance of the homes

in a certain neighborhood, the Lynds found 21 of 26 families owning a car but living without a bathtub.’^"

In her earliest report on the GFWC Home Equipment project, Mary

Sherman explained: "One purpose of the survey was to ascertain whether the home-makers of the nation, as a whole, appreciated the importance of efficiency and modern equipment for the home."^ The results of both the urban and rural surveys would indicate that they didn't. "Before toilets are installed or washbasins put into homes," she observed, "automobiles are purchased and telephones are connected."^® Mary Sherman was not unsympathetic to these buying patterns, noting that the hard labor and drudgery of her lot could break a homemaker "physically and nervously...The

”Ibid., 253. Daniel Horowitz, The Morality of Spending: Attitudes toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 151. Horowitz suggested that tiie Lynds over-emphasized the automobile as a luxury purchase, exaggerating working- class expenditures through mathematical error and overlooking the practical, rather than symbolic, uses to which families put their cars.

’'"Ibid., 254-256.

’'®Mary Sherman, "What Women Want in Their Homes," Woman's Home Companion (November 1925): 97.

7®Ibid., 98. -228-

automobile, the telephone and the talking machine or radio offer the modern

home-maker the escape from that monotony which drove many of her

predecessors insane.'”^ She may not have been unsympathetic, but she was

also not uninspired. Though she titled her article "What Women Want in

Their Homes," she really wanted to discuss what women should want in their

homes, reminding GFWC members that,

our better equipped homes campaign has as its single object the raising of the level of equipment in American homes in order that we may eliminate wasteful drudgery and conserve American mother energy for the enrichment of American family life.^®

Horrified by the advertising pouring into Muncie, repulsed by the image of an entire city buying advertised toothpaste, advertised soap, advertised furniture, advertised food, advertised clothes, Robert and Helen

Lynd wrote, "Middletown scarcely realizes the extent to which it is being

'told and sold'."^® Certainly the advertisers in the Farmer's Wife, Country

Gentleman, Farm Tournai, and Capper's Farmer hoped that their promises and enticements would appeal to the progressive farm family. Likewise, the

USDA and reform groups like the GFWC were trying tremendously hard to put across their messages for the enrichment of American country life.

But this begs the question as to whether the rural community was actually being manipulated by outside forces, bundled up and shoved into a

^Ibid.

^"Sherman, "Detailed Report," 14-15.

^®Lynds, Middletown, 491. -229- new, twentieth century consumer culture. Buying patterns suggest that farm

families were holding their own in the national discussion of good life in the

country, sorting through who gets which piece of the American pie. There is

amazing consistency in the standard of living described by Assistant

Horticulturist W. R. Beattie, in his 1910 "Comforts and Conveniences in

Farmers' Homes," Florence Ward's 1920 "The Farm Woman's Problems," and

Mary Sherman's 1927 report on the GFWC Rural Home Equipment Survey.

Good life had to do with running water and central heating and electric lights and indoor plumbing. So, what did people buy? Automobiles and radios and phonographs and telephones.

National advertisers didn't have much better luck in squeezing rural consumers into approved shapes (except, perhaps, for those Gossard Corsets with their multiple Ideal Figures). J. Walter Thompson, on behalf of

Fleischmann's Yeast, expended considerable effort in the 1920s urging consumers to eat yeast for medicinal purposes. Taken by the teaspoon, yeast was supposed to accomplish amazing feats, like "correct clogged intestines."®"

But when JWT went to Putnam County, New York, 236 people reported that they did not eat yeast, compared to only 61 who did. Of those yeast eaters interviewed who cared to elaborate, 25 liked the product, 22 thought it was a failure, and 2 were ambivalent.®" This record is scarcely that of a populous

""Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 16-18.

®"JWT, "Putnam," 69-71. -230- manipulated from Madison Avenue.

If anything, the JWT surveys showed that rural consumers bought

what they wanted, for their own purposes. Some women swore by LUX

soap; others thought it rotted their blouses. All acted according to their own lights and did so when it came to subscribing to newspapers and magazines and when determining whether to send away to Sears for pajamas or Lady

Duff-Gordon gowns.

By the mid-1920s, rural women were no longer asking to be told

"what it is that I have not that the city woman has."®^ Instead, they were wondering how to buy what they wanted. Without disposable income, how could rural families bring into their homes Johnson's baby powder. Majestic ranges, RCA radios, Balbon rugs, American radiators. Standard bathtubs.

Crane water pumps, or None Such mincemeat? (Not to mention Lullwater service garments and Kiddie Koop cribs.) How could they be fully

American?

Production stimulated by the Great War, prices shattered by the

Treaty of Versailles, agriculture in the second decade of the century was affording a mean living compared to the speculative boom in the cities.

Henry C. Wallace,®® in his 1922 annual report on the Department of

®^Howe, "Self Help for Country Women," 269.

®®Henry Cantwell Wallace was the son of Henry Wallace (usually referred to as "Uncle Henry"), editor of Wallace's Farmer and member of Theodore Roosevelt's Cotmtry Life Commission. Henry Cantwell served as -231- Agriculture, pointed out that farmers had been blessed with unusually fine

weather, but still had not earned a reasonable living: "With the distorted

relationship of prices at the present time, the farmers, notwithstanding their

hard work and large production, find themselves still laboring under a

terrible disadvantage as compared to other groups."®^

Wallace's annual report for 1924, rang with indignation over the

plight of the farming community. In the decade prior to 1920, agricultural

production had increased some fifteen percent, "not by increasing the number

of farm workers, but by increased efficiency." Equipment was rejuvenated,

use of automobiles broadened, tractors introduced, pure breeding and disease

control programs adopted — all of these changes seemed to herald a new

day. "Farmers everywhere were pushing ahead to a better living standard."

Then the post war crisis struck, tractors and automobiles gave way once

again to horses, livestock herds were dispersed, the South was hampered in

its struggle against the boll weevil, cash reserves were exhausted, debt

accumulated, and standards of living declined. "In short, the condition by

the end of a decade of extraordinary progress in agricultural efficiency was

an advisor to the Food Administration during World War I and was appointed secretary of agriculture in 1921. His son, Henry A. Wallace served as secretary of agriculture and as vice-president under Franklin Roosevelt

®^Henry C. Wallace, "The Year in Agriculture," Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1922 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1923), 1. -232- the reverse of what might have been logically expected."®® The promises of

Progressivism were not being kept in the countryside.

And what of the promises of advertising? Wallace had words on this

subject, also, in his book. Our Debt and Duty to the Farmer:

Between 1910 and 1920 both the circulation and advertising patronage of agricultural papers all over the country increased enormously, and in the winter of 1919-20 these weekly magazines were carrying advertising almost as great in its variety as that carried by the publications designed especially for city readers. Beginning in the fall of 1920, however, the advertising patronage of the agricultural press all but shriveled up. Advertisers had discovered that farmers could not buy.®®

Wallace spoke adamantly of advertising shriveling up, a contention somewhat belied by the pages of the Farmer's Wife and the Country

Gentleman. Yet his was a concern shared by many during the decade of the twenties. USDA economists, statisticians in advertising agencies, editors of popular magazines, and leaders of national women's clubs all wondered what the farmer could buy. How did the standard of living of the rural family actually compare to that of the urban family? Who was getting which slices of the American pie?

A 1927 article, "Where the Farmer's Money Goes," in the Literary

Digest (reprinted from the Nebraska Farmer!, made much of a Cornell

University professor's estimate of a hypothetical family budget for two

®®Henry C. Wallace, "Report of the Secretary," Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1924 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1925), 17.

®®Henry C. Wallace, Our Debt and Duty to the Farmer (New York: The Century Co., 1925), 40-41. -233- generations, forty years apart. In 1880, that family had spent $321.45 for all

living expenses. By 1924, the figure was $2,563.62. W hat struck the Literary

Digest was the professor's comment that, "most of this increase is only in

keeping with the advanced plane of living to which the American people

have progressed."®^

The farmer is entitled to the same conveniences that city folks enjoy....Therefore, while living expenses on the farm have increased tremendously, and this accounts for the difficulty farmers have in getting ahead with their present income, it is also a fact that farmers are not to be denied this advanced scale of living unless other classes share equally in the scheme of retrenchment.®®

Good life in the country might have been defined in terms of washing

machines and radios, but it was being justified in terms of national pride and

basic fairness. By 1930, the dynamo seemed just as out of reach to many

rural families as it had in 1909.

87"where the Farmer's Money Goes," Literary Digest 92 (1 January 1927): 51.

««Ibid. CHAPTER SIX

THE PROMISE OF PROGRESSIVISM

In 1930, the rural community, having already endured a decade of hard times, was sliding with the rest of the nation into the Great Depression.

Mark Van Doren was available to explain in Harper's Monthly Magazine the nature of "The Real Tragedy of the Farmer." It was not, oddly enough, the fact that farms were worth about half their price in 1920 or that farm families were earning on average five hundred and forty dollars a year, receiving less for what they sold and spending more for what they bought. No, the real tragedy was the farmer's failure to "maintain his peculiar and age-old culture in the face of new conditions; to preserve the virtues for which he used to be respected and envied."

It was not merely that the farmer, by theory at least, was the only member of society who could subsist at home, comfortably and forever, without respect to the operation of complicated economic laws elsewhere applying. There was also the feeling that he had the best state of mind after all, the solidest ideas, the longest wearing morals.^

Granted, the "rustic virtues " were often laughed at, the hayseed rube made the butt of many a nineteenth century drama. But the farmer "usually

^Mark Van Doren, "The Real Tragedy of the Farmer," Harper's Monthly Magazine 161 (August 1930): 365-366.

-234- -235- triumphed over the city fellow in the end...he was ignorant of many things, but he was wise about the few things that were important, and we might safely place our future in his rough but kindly hands.

Now, in 1930, the farmer suddenly was no longer the subject of jest.

He was no longer subject at all. The farmer had been excluded from the national conversation.

He does not count in the spiritual economy of the metropolitan and industrial world about us. That world has its own problems to discuss, and its own nervous way of discussing them; it does not dream for a moment that the farmer would have anything to say to it...And indeed he does have nothing to say. For he has abandoned his original character, whatever it was, in an attempt to become a portion of the new world.®

What on earth did the rural community do to sell off its birthright, to cease to matter, to become less than fully American? According to Van Doren, farmers had yielded up both their economic and moral independence. They had tried to become businessmen and industrialists (doing a very poor job of it), and had "learned to love the fruits of that civilization." Unwilling to be what William Allen White indignantly called "peasants," American farmers had been unwilling to subsist cheerfully at home, ignoring the life of the cities, going their remote ways at leisure, as Van Doren would have preferred. Mistakenly, the turned his back on woodland and meadow and chose, instead, "to live like other men."

% id., 366.

®Ibid. -236- When he was prosperous a generation ago, a decade ago, he bought a car; he voted for hard roads (very expensive); he ordered a Victrola (it has since become a radio); he began to eat canned fruits and vegetables; he wore a pathway to the movies in the nearest good-sized town, and he sent his sons to the State agricultural college where, ironically enough, they learned how to make their father's land produce more than it was already producing, which now appears to have been too much—so much as almost to bankrupt him /

In so doing, the American farmer had become just another cog in an industrial machine, "a small manufacturer of edible goods," "part of an intricate structure which is national in its scope, and subject...to panic, depression, and reversal." Van Doren found the farmer noble but none too bright, lacking "a certain share of the shrewdness which the industrialist possesses," being "still too much the farmer to bargain well and lay his plans cleverly in advance." Having abandoned his own culture for a life for which he was not fitted, he was on the verge of losing his identity altogether, of no longer being "Farmer Brown of Libertyville, Ohio, but No. 2,496, Section 3,

United States Farms, Inc."®

At first glance. Van Doren seems to merely be trotting out the old agrarian myth and running it through its paces to the disparagement of

American farmers. But on closer examination, what he is really calling into question are the promises of Progressivism. He is suggesting that the farmer, having acquiesced to the recommendation of the Country Life Movement that

% id., 367.

®Ibid., 368-370. -237- he adopt the techniques of scientific agriculture and take his place in an

industrial economy, has been doubly betrayed. Not only have the promises

of prosperity proved hollow, he has lost claim to his very soul by taking on

the habits of modern consumerism. He has failed to achieve the standard of

living of the city and he has destroyed the patterns of rural life in the

attempt.

Considering the agricultural economy in 1930, there was some basis

for Van Doren's critique. Between 1897 and 1930, gross domestic farm

product had risen from only $8.4 billion to $10.0 billion. During that same period, nonfarm gross domestic product rose from $27.4 billion to $79.8 billion. Even the government did better than agriculture, moving from $1.5 billion to $4.6 billion. (See Table 10.) Even more telling is the comparison of

1929 figures, just before the stock market crash. That year, agriculture grosses $10.7 billion while nonfarm private businesses grossed $88.6 billion.

All businessmen were doing better than the farmer.

In fact, everyone in America (on average) was doing better than the farmer and his employees. Looking across selected industries, only those in agriculture were earning less per year in 1929 than they had in 1919. (See

Table 11.) Agricultural workers in 1919 were bringing home $725 per year.

Next lowest were service workers, at $897 per year. But, by 1929, whereas farm wages had dropped to $651 per year, service compensation was at -238-

Table 10. Gross Domestic Product in 1929 Prices (in billions).

Year Total Private Farm Nonfarm Government

1897-1901 35.8 8.4 27.4 1.5 1902-1906 45.2 8.9 36.3 1.8 1907-1911 52.9 9.2 43.7 2.2 1912-1916 59.9 10.1 49.8 2.6 1917-1921 67.0 9.7 57.3 4.6 1919 68.7 9.7 59.0 5.0 1920 69.3 9.5 59.8 3.7 1921 67.7 9.0 58.7 3.6 1922 71.7 9.6 62.1 3.5 1923 81.5 10.5 71.3 3.6 1924 84.0 9.7 74.3 3.7 1925 85.9 10.4 75.5 3.9 1926 91.7 10.3 81.4 4.0 1927 92.5 10.6 81.9 4.1 1928 93.5 10.4 83.1 4.2 1929 99.3 10.7 88.6 4.3 1930 89.8 10.0 79.8 4.6

Source: Based on U.S. Census Office, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960), 140-141. -239-

Table 11. Average Annual Compensation Per Full-Time Employees, Selected Industries, 1919-1929.

Year Agri­ Manufac Trade Finance Service Constru culture -hiring -tion

1919 $725 $1,264 $1,399 1,467 897 1,560 1920 830 1,497 1,418 1,623 1,081 1,924 1921 567 1,306 1,354 1,717 1,103 1,552 1922 551 1,255 1,410 1,782 1,109 1,459 1923 614 1,372 1,462 1,751 1,132 1,815 1924 629 1,394 1,447 1,795 1,161 1,822 1925 642 1,417 1,522 1,844 1,176 1,862 1926 651 1,442 1,570 1,854 1,191 1,872 1927 648 1,467 1,494 1,864 1,234 1,921 1928 646 1,500 1,526 1,886 1,229 1,934 1929 651 1,508 1,546 1,904 1,245 1,883

Source: Based on U.S. Census Office, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1960), 95. -240- $1,245. Hit hard by the post-war depression, agricultural wages dipped to

$551 in 1922 and remained low the rest of the decade—while everyone else

became increasingly better compensated. In 1929, workers in manufacturing

were earning $1,508; workers in trade, $1,546; workers in finance, $1,904; and

workers in construction, $1,883.

As a natural correlation, numbers of people in farm occupations

dropped. (See Table 12.) Between 1920 and 1930, 392,000 owners and

tenants lost their farms, taking wiib them 973,000 unpaid family laborers.

There were fewer managers, foremen, and self-employed agricultural service

workers. Only the ranks of paid farm laborers rose, most likely absorbing

farmers who had previously worked their own land. The Country Life

Movement certainly seemed to have heralded neither prosperity nor

economic parity.

Interesting, national polls did not reveal outrage and disillusionment

within the agricultural community. In 1930, New Republic reported that a

national farm journal. Country Home, had sent out 1,400,000 ballots to farms

and small town homes. The editors wanted to know whether "city comforts,

city standards of living, city diversions and excitements and gimcracks" had

brought with them "city standards of thought and conduct." Knowing full well that published surveys tended to attract the "more mature and serious- minded," the magazine sought to balance the scale and attract the more

"blithe" part of the populace by taking a somewhat irreverent tone. Thus, the -241-

Table 12. Farm Occupations, 1920 and 1930 (in thousands).

Occupation 1920 1930

Farmers (owners & 6,384 5,992 tenants Farm managers 58 40 Farm foremen 35 28 Farm laborers/ wage 2,271 2,597 workers Farm laborers - unpaid 2,633 1,660 family Farm service laborers - 10 5 self-employed

Source: Based on U.S. Census Office, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960), 75-77. -242- questionnaire was titled, in type an inch high, "FORUM & AG'IN 'EM

NATIONAL REFERENDUM ON PUBLIC AND PRIVATE QUESTIONS," and spiced with a 25-word "Tel-America" essay contest. Evidently, the ploy worked; 13,431 surveys, from a good cross-section of the nation, were received in time for tabulation.®

About three-fifths of the ballots were sent by women, two-fifths from men, the latter returning their forms quickly and the former waiting a week or more. Expecting to find significant variation by region. New Republic's

Russell Lord reported, "Standardization of opinion has seized to a noteworthy and depressing extent upon the entire rural area of the United States."

Though there existed no comparable survey of city attitudes against which to measure the Country Home results, Lord sensed that the rural audience was more conservative than an urban one would be ("four out of five against divorce on grounds of incompatibility; four out of five for prohibition, as is; four out of five against cigarette advertisements of any description").^

The truly significant part of the survey, beyond indications of shared opinion across region, was the response to questions asking what subscribers would like to read about. At least in part because of the "Forum & Ag'in 'Em

National Referendum," the Coimtrv Home altered its editorial content away

®Russell Lord, "Cross Section of the Rural Mind," New Republic 64 (24 September 1930): 143-144.

% id., 147. -243- from farming for profit to articles emphasizing "values of country living."

Readers wanted stories about world events and modern thought, child

rearing and youth, national policy and sermons. They were far less

interested in farm machinery, fruit, hogs, and horses. "The demands and

interests of country people become manifestly more general, more like urban

demands and interests, each year."®

Finally, there were the "Tel-America" essays, twenty-five words, four

dollars a word for the winner. Surprisingly consistent, the essays ended up

"representing the present leading preoccupations of the American

countryside...a pretty fair index to the things pressing hardest at the back of

their minds." Generally, the essays divided into sixty percent "Hold Fast" (to

God, to the Old Moralities, to Old Ways, to Prohibition) and forty percent

"Change!" (Economically, within and without the agricultural community,

and socially, in the home, the community, the individual, and the world).

Readers under the age of thirty were about ten percent less willing to "Hold

Fast;" increasing age brought increasing interest in God and Morality. The judges gave it as their opinion that "the closest hold of militant Puritanism is upon the people of very small towns."

But issues of morality were not what caught the attention of the

Coimtrv Home and Russell Lord. Rather, it was the amazing dearth of essays on money:

«Ibid., 146-149. -244-

Here is a class, or what is commonly thought of as a class, in the throes of economic maladjustment and presumably filled with pent-up grievances. Yet, given outlet for their sentiments, with some promise of a national hearing, something like 85 percent of them talk about other matters.’

From this. Lord concluded that it was still possible to speak of a "rural

psychology," Country people were farming not primarily for money, but for

a home, "the sort of home which can be said no longer to exist in the cities of

America or even in the larger towns." Much of the apparent change in the countryside was only external.

American country people have welcomed material progress. They have quickened and altered their working and living habits, and have altered some of their attitudes. They seem, for one thing, almost solidly acquiescent nowadays to the idea of monopoly and to the general dogma of national prosperity. Against the greater part of the "new" social morality, however, they stand over-apprehensively on guard.^°

Mark Van Doren and the agricultural depression notwithstanding, measurable numbers of rural people responding to the Country Home survey did, indeed, consider themselves to be culturally and socially distinct. They considered themselves to be full participants in the national forum, not restricted to issues of farm business or rural woes. And they did not voice a sense of betrayal although good life in the countryside was still elusive and slow in coming.

Still, this survey about rural life, like those of the 1910s and 1920s,

’Ibid., 150.

loibid. -245- was targeted to "progressive" farm families. Once again, only rural people

able to read, sufficiently affluent to subscribe to a magazine, and enough

motivated to send in a response were included in the sample. At the end of

the Progressive era, rural editors and reformers were still talking to the

community leaders targeted by the Country Life Commission.

In terms highly reminiscent of Liberty Hyde Bailey or Uncle Henry

Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture Wüliam Jardine spoke before the Country

Life Conference in East Lansing, Michigan in 1927, explaining agency policy:

So long as we have adequate production, our main interest is not in reducing numerically the movement from farms to cities. Rather, our problem is to keep on the farm those men and women who know rural life, who love it, and who can contribute substantially to its development”

In outlining the situation on the farm. Jardine pointed to conditions that were, indeed, new since 1908. With the 1920 census, the nation was for the first time predominantly urban, 51 percent of the people living in cities and towns of over 2,500 population. The number of people living on farms had fallen from 32 million in 1910 to fewer than 28 million in 1927. Eighty-four percent of those leaving farms between 1917 and 1926 were land owners; more than half under 50 years of age. More families abandoned their land in

1926 than any year since 1920. Times were tough.

”W. M. Jardine, Address for the Country Life Conference, East Lansing, Michigan, 1 August 1927, TMs, Record Group 16, General Correspondence Files, Box 1306, "Speeches of the Secretary to June 1," National Archives, Washington, D.C., p. 2. -246- Jardine was particularly concerned about those who left not because they were unable to earn a decent living, but because they could not live the way they chose: retirees, who moved to the city, taking with them a lifetime of accumulated experience and wealth; young families, who went in search of better schools and benefits for their children, taking with them their strength and enthusiasm and drive.

I want to emphasize that included among the people who are moving from the farm are many who could readily remain, who could make a real contribution to rural life, and who would be genuinely happy in a good rural environment These people are leaving the country partly because we are not emphasizing in a big enough way the real advantages of rural life, partly because we have not made the American countryside what we ought to make it.^^

The job for rural reformers, the job for the USDA, was to redress the balance between city and country. Exactly the conclusions of the Country Life

Commission.

But Jardine put his own mark on the discussion, speaking, as he was, at the end, rather than the beginning, of the Progressive era. Rather than emphasizing production and general schemes to give the rural family more disposable income. Jardine discussed "the technical principles of rural consumption." Arguing that "we" must assist the farm family achieve the highest standard of living. Jardine explained, "It would be to the distinct advantage of every individual and to the American Nation as a whole to achieve efficiency in rural consumption." City residents received all sorts of

”Ibid., 4. -247- assistance, depending upon "an army of experts in many phases of health, architecture, sanitation, public utilities, municipal government, education, information, play, art, religion."^® Country people, with no access to these experts, were dependent upon government funded research and education directed toward the development of rural life and the rural home. By government, of course. Jardine meant the Department of Agriculture.^^

Jardine was not insensible of the agricultural depression. In a similar speech the previous March, he had admitted that "the farmer lacks just now the ready money that the city man has." Noting that the USDA was

"struggling to improve the farmer's economic status," the Secretary still expressed confidence that "we are going to get results in this direction." The focal point of this speech, also, was improving rural access to modern conveniences.^®

Not only was efficient consumption, rather than production, the keystone to such access, the essential partner in this effort was modern industry. Even with expert advise on how to shop efficiently, farm families needed something to buy. As Jardine pointed out to the Country Life

i®Ibid., 4.

^^Notably, Jardine stressed that the government had the "legal authority" to provide this assistance. L. H. Bailey made the same point in this "Report" to Congress on the Country Life Commission survey.

^®W. M. Jardine, Radio Address at "Better Homes" Conference, Washington, D.C., 25 March 1927, TMs, Record Group 16, General Correspondence Files, Box 1305, "Speeches of the Secretary, Feb 1-May 31," National Archives, Washington, D.C. -248-

Conference, the farmer "can not overcome the inherent difficulties of rural

conditions without the aid of those who make and supply the various

modern appliances." USDA, therefore, was working in conjunction with

manufacturers, urging them to produce "heating plants, kitchen facilities—for

lighting, cooking, disposal of sewage—radio sets adapted to farm use." The

market was there, the technological expertise was there—all that was lacking

was national leadership. "We are not going to have better homes or a more

wholesome rural life so long as leaders place all emphasis on the city and are

willing to assist rural life only if the country will adopt what has been

worked out for the city."^®

For William Jardine, a high standard of rural life certainly hinged on

the accumulation of material goods. But it did not depend on abandoning all

that was distinct to the countryside merely to shove one's arms into a jacket tailored expressly for the city. Life on farms and small towns remained not

only intact, but clearly superior, still furnishing "the pattern of normal family life."^^ Distinct, and crucial to the welfare of the nation, the rural community required and deserved both heightened government attention and technologies designed specifically for its needs.

Mary Meek Atkeson, farm daughter and farm wife, saw significant impediments to Jardine's plan. According to Atkeson, it was almost

^®Jardine, Country Life Conference Address, 7.

^^Jardine, Radio Address, 1. -249-

impossible for rural families to consume intelligently in 1929. The average

village store did not stock goods needed by "the cultured family upon the

farm." Trapped in the grip of an "antiquated and wasteful system," country

merchants operated on too small a scale, competed with far too many other

little stores, had uneven access to fresh or modem goods and produce, and,

consequently, furnished low quality items at high prices.^®

Even worse for the farm woman was the difficulty of buying goods not stocked locally. Five-dollar dresses and fifty-dollar dresses looked the same in a mail order catalog. "She has no basis of discrimination except the price, so she chooses the cheaper article, and then feels cheated when it quickly loses its attractiveness after wear." Trips to the city offered little improvement, because rural women had no opportunity to learn to shop.

She has been deprived of the "window-shopping," and leisurely shopping about among many stores for an article, with the opportunity to inspect the materials, before making a choice. All this is a liberal education in buying which stands the city woman in good stead in choosing values and styles and getting the full worth of her money.^’

Careful reading of advertising in women's magazines was next to useless, alluring copy almost invariably ending with "At all dealers!" "The advertiser, apparently, does not know that in fact, those goods are not at the dealers of these 20,000,000 farm people." Even should the farm family make a wise

^®Mary Meek Atkeson, "Women in Farm Life and Rural Economy," Armais of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 143 (May 1929): 191-193.

I’Ibid., 192. -250- purchase, there were no local service representatives or repair shops. Such

families fixed their own water pipes, mended their own electric sewing

machines, repaired their own cars. Atkeson went so far as to guess that one

reason there were so few modem conveniences in farm homes was because families had seen them tried under farm conditions and determined they wouldn't work reliably.

It is natural that the country woman should want a home such as the city woman has. Under present conditions on the farm this is difficult to achieve, and, rather than endure the continual annoyance and expense of the conveniences when installed in the farm home, she gives up the struggle and moves to town.^°

Rural women saw themselves as more than consumers of manufactured products; they were in the market for particular services from government, Martha Van Rensselaer could explain in a radio talk that, while

Abraham Lincoln might not have realized that his 1862 bill establishing land grant colleges would be of interest to the ladies, farm women had demanded inclusion. Under the provisions of the Morrill Act, Van Rensselaer, director of the New York State College of Home Economics at Cornell University, had found funding to set up a four-year degree program and a variety of outreach courses—all targeted primarily to rural women.^^ But Julia Lathrop,

2<>Ibid., 193.

^^Martha Van Rensselaer, "Home Economics in Land Grant Colleges," Radio Talk No. 8230, 5 August 1930, TMs, New York State College of Home Economics Records, 23/2/749, Box 25, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. -251-

chief of the Children's Bureau, was forced to turn down Mrs. Fred Bowen's

request for food and clothing to succor rural children trapped in a Montana

drought "the Children's Bureau is not given funds by Congress with which it

can do direct work of the sort needed in Montana." Lathrop could merely forward Bowman's request on to the state Red Cross.^^ Two years previously.

Dr. Lathrop had been obliged to tell Mrs. George Hansen that, although money have been found to provide Alice Phelps medical care for her confinement, "The Government has no fund for this use....it is not possible to repeat the experiment; and I am very sorry that such is the fact"^

That rural women might expect federal agencies to intervene in their lives to the extent of providing yard goods for baby clothes or food stuffs or medical assistance was perfectly consistent with early Progressive notions of the altered relationship between citizen and government. Over time, however, a whole new set of requests began to arrive in Washington, reflective of rural interest in efficient consumption.

Mrs. A. D. Lambie, Elkhorn Montana, wrote to the Department of

Home Economics, USDA, in 1917, complaining that Nestle's Food for babies

^Julia Lathrop, Washington, D.C., to Mrs. Fred Bowen, Chester, Montana, 2 August 1919, TMs, carbon copy. Record Group 102, Records of the Children's Bureau, Box 26, File 4-4-0-3, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

“Julia Lathrop, Washington, D.C., to Mrs. George Hansen, Rock Springs, Wyoming, 19 July 1917, TMs, carbon copy. Record Group 102, Records of the Children's Bureau, Box 25, File 4-3-0-3, National Archives, Washington, D.C. -252- seemed inconsistent from container to container. The formula seemed more

watery, with less wheat "Baby, in consequence, seems undernourished and

not satisfied." Worse, the price had risen. "I would beg that these matters be

investigated."^^ She received a reply from the Bureau of Chemistry

explaining that there was nothing anyone could do. According to the Food

and Drug Act, the government had no authority to regulate proprietary

articles, "the composition of which may be varied according to the dictates of

the manufacturer provided it is sound, contains no added deleterious

ingredient and is properly branded. Lambie's letter also found its way to

the Children's Bureau, which sent her pamphlets on infant nutrition and

urged her to contact Margaret Hughes of the Montana State Department of

Health. But Lambie did not really get what she wanted in the way of

consumer protection.

Nor did Mrs. Robert D. Kauffelt who, in 1924, asked the Children's

Bureau to please tell her what it was about Ovaltine that made it such a miracle product. According to an advertising brochure tucked in with

Kauffelt's missive, Ovaltine digested more quickly than milk, restored nerves

^^Mrs. A. D. Lambie, Elkhom, Montana, to Home Economics Department, Washington, D.C., 19 October 1919, hand written. Record Group 102, Records of the Qiildren's Bureau, Box 26, File 4-4-G-l, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

“C. L. Alsberg, Washington, D.C. to Mrs. A. D. Lambie, Elkhorn, Montana, 8 November 1917, TMs, carbon copy. Record Group 102, Records of the Children's Bureau, Box 26, File 4-4-0-1, National Archives, Washington, D.C. -253- and muscles and tissues, corrected "weak stomachs," built up backward

children, was "universally prescribed by physicians" for invalids and old

people, and was critical for expectant and nursing mothers.^ June M. Hull,

M.D., Maternal and Infant Hygiene division, wrote back to say that no known analysis of Ovaltine existed. She warned that consumers routinely should be wary of "money making schemes that attract attention by extravagant claims of treatments and cures." She sent along two booklets on

Prenatal and Infant Care. But she could not tell Kauffelt what was in

Ovaltine.^’'

Contrary to Mark Van Doren's image of farm families fading away to mere ciphers on the national scene, progressive rural women were fully engaged in determining what they, as representatives of their households, wanted from government, from rural reformers, from manufacturers, from the nation. This was not, after all, a narcissistic preoccupation. In the last years before the Progressive era made its crisis-driven dive into the New

Deal, rural women repeatedly were asked to explain "What Does the farmer

(or farmer's wife) want?" The Country Life Association and the Farmer's

“ Mrs. Robert D. Kauffelt, Davidson, North Carolina, to the Children's Bureau, Washington, D.C, 30 September 1924, ALS, printed enclosure. Record Group 102, Records of the Children's Bureau, Box 187, File 4-4-4-2, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

^^June M. Hull, Washington, D.C, to Mrs. Robert D. Kauffelt, Davidson, NC, TMs, Record Group 102, Records of the Children's Bureau, Box 187, File 44-4-2, National Archives, Washington, D.C. -254- Wife magazine held a convention in 1926 to ask just this question. Beyond

the particulars (economic equality, good roads, community development, health and business education, uniform divorce laws, legal protection for widows and minors), three major points emerged from the conference. First, rural women seemed much more concerned than men about the social stature of the rural community and much more interested in neighborhood improvement. Second, attendees suggested that the original question had been phrased incorrectly, setting up a false dichotomy between city and country. "It is not a distinction between what the farm woman does and what the town woman does. It is a distinction between what some women do and what other women do." Finally, it was obvious that public opinion in the countryside was not monolithic.

Particularly striking, as one reads the report, is the fact that these women, from every section of the country with apparently every variety of social and educational training, all know what tiiey want, and can give intelligent and well-phrased statements of their reasons and beliefs.^

What is surprising, of course, is how temperate those reasons and beliefs sounded in contrast to the problems triggered by the agricultural depression. For that matter, even before the slump in farm prices, the distribution of modem amenities was wildly uneven across the country. In his "Graphic Summary of American Agriculture," O. E. Baker, agricultural

“ "What Farm Women Want," American Review of Reviews 74 (August 1926): 220-221. -255- economist for the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), split the country

East and West, demarcated by the Mississippi River, with the former region

receiving sufficient rainfall and the latter, insufficient.^® Each region was then

further divided into six areas, in the East designated by crop and in the West,

by topography. Thus, the Northeastern states comprised the Pasture Region;

the Midwestern states, the com and wheat belts; the South, the cotton belt.

Urban/ rural density varied by region. Rural families comprised the greatest

number of the population in the Cotton Belt and in the hilly section of the

Corn and Winter Wheat Region (running horizontally in a narrow band from

the mid-Atlantic states to the Mississippi). Rural population was thinner in

the Corn Belt and Spring Wheat Region (central and upper Midwest) and in

the entire Western section, except in irrigated districts and along the Pacific

Coast. Urban population was concentrated mostly in the Hay and Pasture

Region of the Northeast and great lakes, "where large manufacturing and commercial cities provide a vast market for the nation's agricultural products."®”

According to the 1920 census, "farm facilities" were apportioned along lines reflective of Baker's various regions.

Tractors are found mostly in the Corn Belt, and the Spring Wheat, Great

^®0. E. Baker, "A Graphic Summary of American Agriculture," Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1921 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1922), 413.

®”Ibid., 415. -256- Plains, and South Pacific Regions. Over one-third of the automobiles are in the Com Belt, where one-half to three-quarters of the farms have such vehicles.®^

Baker's dots on his several maps (each spot representing 250 farms) make

clear that there were many more households with automobiles and

telephones than with water. Moreover, rural homes closer to cities, those

located in older agricultural communities, and those scattered throughout the

Midwest tended to report more farm equipment and amenities.

Water has been piped into the houses mostly in the Hay and Pasture Region, especially in New England, and in the South Pacific Region. Telephones are more widely distributed than any other of the farm facilities; nevertheless, the map shows a noteworthy concentration in the Com Belt and the Hay and Pasture Regions.®^

Baker pointed out that farm facilities were the main criteria of "rural progress

and prosperity." He perhaps thought it would be redundant to mention that

the Cotton Belt didn't even make the list.

In complete agreement with the findings of the GFWC Home

Equipment Survey, statistics collected in 1920 by Emily Hoag show that

families bought automobiles and telephones in preference to water piped into the house and gas or electric lights. (See Table 13 and Appendix C.) This was a pattern that did not vary from state to state, region to region. But what did vary sharply was access to new technologies. In Iowa, 86.1 percentof all farms had telephones; in South Carolina, only 5.7 percent of

®%id.

®%id. -257- Table 13. Percent Use of Modem Amenities on Farms in 1920, Selected States.

Autos Telephones Water Piped Gas or into House Electric Lights

US Average 30.7 38.7 10.0 7.0 Alabama 6.2 15.0 1.2 3.3 Arkansas 6.6 22.7 .8 1.1 Delaware 36.4 27.2 7.4 3.9 Georgia 15.2 9.6 1.8 1.9 Illinois 52.9 73.2 11.2 9.8 Indiana 46.4 66.4 11.4 10.0 Iowa 73,1 86.1 15.9 15.3 Maryland 33.5 24.5 14.0 7.0 Mississippi 5.5 10.4 1.1 1.1 N. Carolina 15.5 12.2 1.6 2.9 Ohio 46.6 62.1 16.2 14.7 Oklahoma 25.5 37.3 3.5 3.7 S. Carolina 15.9 5.7 1.8 2.7 Texas 22.9 32.2 8.8 1.9

Source: Based on unnumbered table in Emily F. Hoag, "The Advantages of Farm Life: A Study by Correspondence and Interviews with Eight Thousand Farm Women, 1923," TMs, Record Group 83, Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Manuscript File 1917-35, Box 2, "Farm Life Through the Eyes of Women," National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Appendix C. -258- farms were so outfitted. In Ohio, 16.2 percent of farms had water piped into

the house, 14.7 percent had gas or electric lights; in Arkansas, .8 percent had

running water, 1.1 percent had lights.

Access to amenities reflected the difference in prosperity by region.

Illinois and Iowa, with agricultural products worth over $1 billion in 1920,

had among the highest percent of farms with autos and telephones and water

and lights. (See Table 14.) By contrast. South Carolina and Arkansas and

Mississippi and Alabama, with agricultural products worth less than $500

million, had also the fewest number of modern conveniences. Likewise, older

states had more of the world's goods than newly settled areas. Though Texas

also reported $1 billion of agricultural products in 1920, it had only 22.9

percent of farms with automobiles compared to Iowa's 73.1 percent.

Delaware, with less than $500 million in agricultural products, had 36.4

percent of farms with autos and appreciably more homes with gas or electric

lights than did Texas.

Although region seems have had a tremendous impact on standard of living, tenantry, taken alone, did not. South Carolina and Georgia reported

40-50 percent of all farm land operated by tenants in 1920. (See Table 15.)

Those states also had the lowest value of farm products and among the lowest percent use of amenities. However, Illinois and Iowa also reported

40-50 percent tenant-operated farms and those two states were among the most prosperous and the most well equipped with discretionary goods in the -259- Table 14. Value of Agricultural Products, by State, 1920

Less than $500 $500-750 million $750 million - $1 $1 billion and million billion over

Maine New York Ohio Illinois Vermont Pennsylvania Indiana Iowa New Hampshire North Carolina Wisconsin Texas Massachusetts Georgia Missouri Rhode Island Kentucky Nebraska Connecticut Michigan Kansas New Jersey Minnesota California Delaware Oklahoma Maryland West Virginia Virginia Tennessee South Carolina Florida Alabama Mississippi Arkansas Louisiana Washington Oregon Idaho Nevada -260-

Table 14. (continued)Value of Agricultural Products, by State, 1920.

Less than $500 $500-750 million $750 million - $1 $1 billion and million billion over

Utah Arizona Montana Wyoming Colorado New Mexico North Dakota South Dakota

Source: Based on U.S. Census Office, 1924, Statistical AÜas of the United States, 286. The Western states were sparsely settled. -261-

Table 15. Percent of All Farm Land Operated by Tenants, 1920

Less than 10-20% 20-30% 30-40% 40-50% 10%

Maine Vermont New York Maryland Delaware New Rhode bland New Jersey N. Carolina S. Carolina Hampshire Connecticut W. Virginia Penn. Ohio Georgia Mass. Florida Virginia Indiana Illinois Montana Wisconsin Kentucky Alabama Iowa Wyoming Colorado Tennessee Mississippi Utah New Mexico Michigan Arkansas Nevada Arizaona Louisiana Oklahoma Idaho Missouri Kansas Oregon Texas Nebraska Minnesota N. Dakota S. Dakota Washington California

Source: Based on U.S. Census Office, 1924, Statistical Atlas of the United States, 292. -262- nation. Clearly, when William Jardine spoke of assisting farm families to

achieve the highest standards of living he was not addressing himself solely

to landowners.

Interestingly, although farmers were agitating throughout the 1920s

for passage of laws to protect agriculture and the Bureau of Agricultural

Economics was attempting to persuade farmers to take control of the rural

economy through adjusting their use of land and their crop and livestock

specializations and reformers were lobbying state Farm Bureaus and

everyone else who would listen to form marketing cooperatives,®® very little

of this tumult was echoed in the on-going debate over good life in the

countryside. Amazingly, the terms of the discussion had changed very little.

Still at issue was the drudgery of farm life, particularly for women.

Perceived solutions continued to depend on technological innovation. In 1929

Mary Meek Atkeson, operating from the popular, but incorrect, assumption that "progressive" farm women did not labor in the fields,®^ took umbrage at the suggestion that exemption from such work indicated that American farm women were well treated.

[Ajlthough she was not allowed to ride the disc-harrow, or the reaper in the fields, no one objected to her working long hours over a steaming washtub, or cleaning the chicken house, or handling the deadly heavy

®®David E. Hamilton, From New Dav to new Deal: American Farm Policy from Hoover to Roosevelt, 1928-1933 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 8-25.

®^See Chapter 3. -263- cans of milk in the dairy, although this was a part of the heaviest work done on the farm....Effective labor-saving machinery for work in the fields has been developed a whole generation ahead of effective labor- saving machinery for work in the farm home.®®

Likewise, the Literary Digest reported on a series of letters sent to the

American Agriculturalist in response to the question, "How much is a wife

worth as a cold cash proposition?" One lady estimated that, in her thirty

years of marriage, she had performed labor worth $115,485.50, "None of

which I have ever collected." (Still, loving her husband and children, she

"wouldn't mind starting all over again for them.") A hugely indignant

gentleman wrote scathingly of women who slaved themselves to death on the farm, their passing attributed by the minister to the "inscrutable providences

of God."

Often before the clods were well dried on the graves of the departed, 'our bereaved brother,' the victim of those 'inscrutable providences,' would cast a calculating eye over the visible supply of marriageable maidens, looking for another husky young female willing to work eighteen hours a day and 'mother' ten stepchildren for her board and keep.®®

This correspondent suggested, with some glee, that farm wives submit an annual bill for wages at the end of each year, based on the figures provided by a home economist at the University of Nebraska. "We opine that his views will have to undergo a radical change before he will be ready to pay his wife $333.67 per month for just 'piddlin' about the house sixteen or

®®Atkeson, "Women in Farm Life," 188.

®®"The Cash Worth of a Wife," Literary Digest 82 (26 July 1924): 32. -264-

eighteen hours a day, seven days out of the week."®^

Echoing the letters sent almost twenty years previously to the

Delineator, the Independent, and the Ladies' Home Tournai, some farm

women, quoted in the same article, scorned the notion of mere wages.

Under what authority does the husband 'give' his wife the income from anything? Why should she not just as reasonably present him with a runt pig or a stunted calf, with which he is to provide himself and his children w ith necessities?®®

It was no more rational to expect a woman to run the home with butter and

egg money than to expect the husband to keep up the farm "with watercress

money." Farm wives were equal partners, deserving of neither a wage nor an

allowance. Rather, they were fully entitled to equal access to the farm

income, making spending decisions in common with their husbands.

The general opinion, as exprest in the answers, seems to be that the woman who cuts up the kindling and serves at the stove is worth all her husband can pay her, but that her share of the income should be in terms of joint partnership and not as "wages" grudgingly paid.®®

Here again, though, in this argument over the working conditions of women and their legitimate claim to farm resources, there are some noticeable differences from the discussion at the beginning of the Progressive era. One such element was Mary Atkeson's theoiy that farm women did a great deal more labor outside the home than was tabulated by the USDA or

®%id.

®®Ibid.

®®Ibid. -265- properly understood by the public. Running through a short list of USDA

surveys of the 1910s and 1920s, she pointed out that work in the kitchen

garden, with poultry, and in the dairy was rarely counted. Moreover,

Atkeson guessed that the direct work of women in the farm business would

increase over time.

The standard of living in American is steadily rising and the farm income shrinking...so that in many cases, the only hope for the farm family to maintain proper standards is for the farmer and the older children to engage in other pursuits for a part of the time.^°

The farm wife, thus, would take over more and more of the work previous

performed by her spouse and children.

Another change in the tenor of the discussion was the emphasis on

efficiency. Back in 1909, Home Demonstration classes and bulletins dealt

with inexpensive ways to pipe water into the kitchen, with novel methods of

constructing the fireless cooker. In 1930, home economists at USDA found

the roots of household drudgery to stem less from a lack of modern

technologies than from a lack of assistance. Ruth Moore reported on a

survey of 559 farm women who kept careful track of all homemaking work

done by all household members for a week. "The results make clear that the work of the home is no longer a family affair. Almost all of it falls to the lot of the home maker herself." While more women owned household appliances, they also received little from hired help, female relatives, older

Atkeson, "Women in Farm Life," 190. -266- children, or their husbands. Moreover, child care was almost exclusively the

responsibility of the mother. Even in homes where other hands lessened the

load, they tended to pick up brooms and dish rags, rather than babies and

toddlers.^^

Historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan has argued that modern technologies

did not decrease the amount of housework, but merely redefined it and

escalated expectations of cleanliness and the other domestic arts (owning a

vacuum sweeper, most women felt compelled to clean the rugs more

frequently).^^ Hildegarde Kneeland found, in her survey of 700 homes in

1928, that farm women averaged a normal work week of 63 hours and 30

minutes. Of this, 52 hours and 17 minutes was devoted to home making; 11

hours and 13 minutes to dairy work, care of poultry, and gardening.

Interestingly, only 2 hours and 26 minutes were devoted exclusively to care

of children.

Clearly this is a very different picture indeed from the one which is usually painted concerning the modern home maker. According to the current vision, we should expect to find her housekeeping tasks reduced to a mere hour or so a day, with the care of children and the management of the family income absorbing the major part of her

^^Ruth Moore, "Farm Home Makers Get Little Aid in Housework from Others in Family," Yearbook of Agriculture, 1930 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1930), 241-243.

^^Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 10-15. -267- limited working time.^

How did one explain the staggering numbers of hours spent in house work?

"Are we, then, to conclude that the farm home has not been touched by the industrial revolution? That ready-made clothing, ready-cooked foods, and better equipment and household conveniences have not cut down the time required in our grandmother's day for housekeeping?" The answer was in part due to the fact that so many women worked alone, without help; in part to the fact that they did not work efficiently.^

Where once agents were trying to persuade farm families of the value of running water and window screens and meat grinders, by the late 1920s they were conducting "long-continued time studies." The "housewife of today" was admonished to "take a lesson from industry and schedule her work." By carefully tracking her day with written lists, the modern farm woman could determine how most effectively to juggle her time, could streamline her operations by doing some tasks less frequently, turning them over to other household members, or by using commercial or ready-made products.^

^Hildegarde Kneeland, "Women on Farms Average 63 Hours' Work Weekly in Survey of 700 Homes," Yearbook of Agriculture, 1928 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1929), 621.

^Ibid., 620-622.

^Hildegarde Kneeland, "Home Maker's Time May Be Economized by Use of Schedule," Yearbook of Agriculture, 1927 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1927), 380. -268-

Almost always, the home was referred to not as a haven or the heart of the family or the cradle of democracy, but as a work place, as a factory of sorts.

As a means of conserving the home maker's time and energy and to give her more leisure for relaxation and constructive use, home demonstration agents helped many women to rearrange their kitchens, install modem home equipment, and to rearrange for greater efficiency the sequence of their daily tasks. Business methods were introduced in the farm home.^®

Nowhere was this sense of the home as a place of industry more pronounced that in articles discussing home manufacturing. In the early years, women had been encouraged to keep bees for honey or put up extra preserves to earn discretionary income. The image was one of roadside stands, of small enterprises. While USDA home economists made a major push to teach women canning techniques, the ultimate intent was to improve family nutrition. By 1926, canning had become a significant household industry.

Home economists were no longer talking in terms of health and vitamins, but were tossing around phrases like "profitable productive work," "raw products," "refined or manufactured at home," "cooperative marketing operations." Rural women's clubs in 1926 were more likely to set up permanent salesrooms for "standardized sale of special products" than waiting rooms where ladies could rest in town until the men were ready to return to the farm. Home demonstration agents were sent to Europe to study

^®"Home Improvement Assisted," Yearbook of Agriculture, 1930 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1930), 98. -269- leather working skills, only to return to the countryside to teach rural women glove making for sale and profit. The goal remained that of helping women and girls find "greater satisfaction and contentment in living in country homes." Whereas, before, such contentment arose from more expertly meeting the needs of the family, now it stemmed from "the wholesome interest which has been aroused.,.in the profitable utilization of farm resources.

If part of the solution to rural drudgery lay in the hands of the efficiency experts, the rest continued to depend upon the contrivances of modem manufacturers and the entertainments of contemporary culture.

Alice Winter, who sat in on a convention of rural clubs in the mid 1920s, reported, "The farm man and woman do not need or want social workers to come from outside and uplift them. It is what we do for ourselves that transforms us and our lives." That some of those lives were unspeakably grim, there was little doubt. One lady, "a tired, lank woman from off a farm suddenly got up and exclaimed, 'While you are discussing all these things, don't forget that some of us are starving for beauty.'" Another woman explained, "I stand at my door. No school, no library, no church. I would rather be hungry in my stomach than in my head." (Winter added that if the speaker had been sixteen instead of thirty-six, she might have said, "No

^^Ola Powell Malcolm, "Home Industries for Farm Women and Girls Numerous," Yearbook of Agriculture, 1926 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1927), 426-431. -270- movies, no dances, no bright lights.") A third stated, "Chickens is driving me to town."^*

Echoing the articles and letters of 1900, the material desires and

demands of rural women were a major preoccupation of the popular press at the end of the Progressive era, both agricultural and general. The titles of various pieces indicate both the lively nature of the discussion and the diversity of opinion. "Where Wires Go, Wives Don't Strike." "Doing With— and Without." "Country Cousin or Sister? Farm Women are Women." "The

New Farm Wife: Who She is and What She Will Demand Before She Will

Stay Put." "They Starve for Beauty." "The Farmer's Wife Looks at Life: And looking, finds it good." "What Do Farm Women Want?—Well, Listen."^®

At first blush, it may look like the discussion hadn't budged much since the turn of the century. Herbert Quick, in an interestingly complex article that must have provoked much thought in those not too antagonized to finish reading, stated baldly that rural wives had destroyed the American farm. Quick, member of the Federal Farm Loan Board, explained, "Wives have emptied the farmhouses; and wives must fill them again. Wives have weaned the people from the farms; and wives must win them back."®” He

Alice Ames Winter, "They Starve for Beauty," Ladies' Home Tournai (March 1925): 35,199.

^®Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1925-1928 and 1929-1932.

®”Herbert Quick, "The New Farm Wife: Who She is and What She Will Demand Before She Will Stay Put," Ladies' Home Tournai 36 (April 1919): 41. -271- waits almost a third of the way through the article to drop the other shoe.

Farm wives had spent the last seventy-five years chivvying their families into cities and towns in an anxious attempt to provide husbands and children with a better chance, with fuller lives. Given any proof that farm life could offer the same amenities, the same opportunities, farm wives would load up the kids and towels and head back into the open country.

Take the bathtub. Quick was the first to admit that there had been many "very good" civilizations in the world that lacked bathing facilities, "but that is not our sort of civilization....We have taught the bath as an appurtenance to self-respect. The Old Farm Wife read all about this. But— there was no bathroom in her house. Neither was there running water.

Granted, numerous "bathroomless ancestors" had made good, "for John

Endicott, Peter Stuyvesant and James Oglethorpe probably lived without bathrooms all their lives—lived clean lives, and died in the odor of sanctity.

But that was before bathtubs were so extensively advertised and prior to the discovery of bacteria." Now an essential adjunct to American citizenship, bathtubs should be installed in every farm home, lest millions more farmers float "away from the countryside on currents of hot and cold water running into village, town, and city residences." Despite his air of levity. Quick was all too serious in his insistence that the "small things" were driving women away from American farms.

®%id. -271- I am mentioning only the little things which ruin women's health and contentment, like lack of running water in the house, lack of lighting systems, lack of power to run washing machinery and dairy appliances, lack of community laundries, as things which long ago destroyed the morale of rural life so far as the women were concerned.®^

Having asked women to "look after the welfare of the race," the nation could not then castigate them for determining that they could best do so in the city.

Rather, rural life should be reorganized to meet the needs of requirements of farmers' wives.

Martha Benseley Bruere, after touring America and parts of Canada, echoed the insistence on modern conveniences, but narrowed her wish list to electricity. Agreeing that farm women departed the farm in search of amenities, she wondered what would lure them back.

Good roads were put in, and they did not return; automobiles came, and they only went on visits; village movies, community centers, rural telephones, and efficient health work appeared, and they remained content with what the towns could do for them. But when electric power was available the family began to move.®®

For Bruere, the answer was simple: "this new farming population will follow the wire." Run the current and revitalize the countryside.

Speaking as one who knew from experience, Mrs. Frank Jacobs said,

"Ridiculous." Carted onto the farm by a husband fired up with the desire to do his bit for the war effort, Mrs. Jacobs abandoned her eight room house.

®2lbid.

®®Martha Benseley Bruere, "Where Wires Go, Wives Don't Strike," Collier's 75 (10 January 1925): 21, 45. -273-

her maid, and electricity to help grow food for the allies.

Imagine yourself coming with five children and a carload of furniture to a house tiiat had not a closet or a cupboard in it, not even a pantry or porch; no fly screens, and no water supply except a well, down a hill some distance from the house. Even the coal sat in a neat little heap out in the sunshine, and the previous owner had kept the wash tubs and the chum "round the corner."®^

Over the course of their tenure, the Jacobses had made few improvements to the house, suffering through two crop failures and the expense of yet another baby. But even having to rifle through charity boxes to clothe the children didn't take the bloom off farming.

I can say enthusiastically, I do like the country. I wish you could see the fine bunch of children we now have. They have grown and thrived as they never did in town, and my husband looks ten years younger. What we call poor is a long way from being destitute, and you are still "you" after a crop failure. You never lack some food, some clothes and shelter on the farm—and that's more than you can say of poverty in the city.®®

Margaret Fayerweather waxed eloquent in her defense of farm life, reporting that practically every woman in the valley was content despite low levels of household amenities. What made rural living so comfortable, if there were no washing machines or vacuum cleaners or electric lights? For one thing, people lived in real houses, architecturally distinct from one another and seasoned by the passing of generations—in total contrast to suburban tract developments. Men and women worked in partnership: "the

®^Mrs. Frank Jacobs, "Doing With—And Without," Women's Home Companion 48 (March 1921): 4.

®®Ibid. -274- family was a firm, interdependent, with a common purpose, and all working steadily at a creative, satisfying job, with no time for neurotic self-pity, and no division of interest." Money was scarce, but basic necessities were plentiful; any mother could find abundant milk, vegetables, eggs, and fruit with which to feed a table ringed with hungry children. And there weren't a bunch of so-called experts, muddling around in family affairs. "Here were no traffic officers, no organizations to take care of you at every turn. Life demanded that you take care of yourself and help your neighbor, and the conditions of life made this possible."®®

On the brink of the Great Depression as in 1900 the discussion of good life in the country hinged on modern conveniences, technological innovations. Some claimed them to be indispensable; some declared them to be merely agreeable luxuries; no one seemed able to consider qualify of life without addressing the accoutrements of industrialism.

In the final analysis, those accoutrements not only comprised much of the substance of the discussion, they set the tone. When the American

Country Life Association and the Farmer's Wife asked their convention of ladies in 1926 what farm women wanted, Mrs. Dimock of Vermont replied,

"Pink underwear." "Make it silk!" piped up Mrs. Hoover of California.

Though the rural wives invited came from farms of different size and from

®®Margaret Doane Fayerweather, "The Farmer's Wife Looks At Life: And looking, finds it good," Countrv Life 56 (July 1929): 68-69. -275- different regions, all were drawn from the ranks of "progressive farmers."

Each was involved with civic associations, home demonstration clubs, farm bureaus, state federations of women's clubs, home economics associations, the

Red Cross, or youth groups; many wrote columns for local farm journals or taught extension courses. All felt that there was much yet to be accomplished to improve rural life; most felt that great strides had been made already, and most defined gains in terms of modern conveniences.

Most importantly, for aU of these women, the promises of

Progressivism had come true, if only to a limited extent. As one explained.

When I realize that fifteen years ago there was not a home in my community which had water in the kitchen and when I realize tiie large proportion of kitchens that have running water today, I feel we have a measuring rod the tells the difference between then and now.®^

Because the products of Progressivism had, indeed, lightened the burdens of these women, the philosophies and techniques of the reform movement remained viable.

Time and again, these rural women outlined their sense of civic obligation. "It is the business of farm women to get advantages for the farm people, for the farm children of the United States." "Farm women can do much to save the cooperative movement by keeping up the morale of these organizations." "Community development is our conscious guidance of our community toward a recognized ideal." "Agencies can't do the job; it is ours

®%id., 4. -276- and we have to do it" "The world is our home."®® But, intriguingly, their take on civic activism had a new twist to it, distinct from that in the opening years of the century.

New to the conversation was the idea that rural women constituted a cohesive political force, a "rural sisterhood." Mrs. Farmer of Georgia mentioned, "I see the answer to a great many of our problems in the lack of political responsibility. If women would register and vote, they would get these things done." Mrs. Tipton of Kentucky urged women to join women's legislative council and study the workings of government. "As farm women, we don't know as much as the city women because we do not have the close contact they have. I was not for woman suffrage at first but I am growing more enthusiastic about my vote and the responsibility I have in voting."

Beginning to explore the ramifications of the ballot, all these sixteen farmer's wives were clearly fascinated with the possibilities of forming a coalitional interest group with city women. Inspired to poetry by the

Conference, Mrs. Stockman composed "The Awakening Farm Women Come," one stanza of which read:

They are touching hands and, heart to heart. And eye to eye they see With dreams of a rural sisterhood From sea to shining sea. They are reaching hands across the bars Of prejudice and pride. To the womanhood of urban homes;

®®Ibid. -277-

Understanding, we would walk beside.®®

Initially reluctant to cooperate with her State Federation of Women's Clubs

for fear of losing their rural identity, the ladies in Mrs. Chappell's farm

organization in South Carolina were planning such an affiliation in 1926.

As a first step, rural women needed to shuffle out from under their

"inferiority complex," to realize, as Mrs. Dimock said, "Self pity exists not

only among farm women but among all housekeepers." Mrs. Farmer

enlarged upon this theme: "Farm women and all other housekeepers have

permitted the world to minimize home-making. It is a profession and should

be recognized as such. If we don't do it ourselves, we can't expect other people to do it." Women, regardless of location, could bring enormous pressure to bear for the betterment of schools, improvement of home working conditions, development of community socially and economically.

Power is latent in farm women, but they are laboring under this inferiority complex. This latent potential power must be brought out. Isn't it the farm women themselves who have to do it? I don't care who else helps—the Federation of Women's Clubs or the Extension Service— we have to do it ourselves.®”

Mrs. H. M. Aitken, sole attendee from Canada, was sufficiently familiar with

American law to remind her fellow farm wives that the U.S. Constitution had declared that the colonies "are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."

®®Ibid., 36.

®”Ibid., 10-11. -278- You are not free as long as you have tied yourself up with the burden of every lonely woman in this country, of every undernourished child. You are not free as long as you have taken that burden on your broad shoulders.®^

Rural women could no more evade the responsibilities of citizenship than

they could halt the march of time.®^

In 1912, Elizabeth Arthur sat alone in her farm kitchen committing

the political act of literacy, adding her voice to the national forum by

answering a survey, by sending a letter to Martha Van Renssalear to claim a place in modern America. A mere fourteen years later, women from across

the nation and Canada sat together in St. Paul, Minnesota, picking up the threads of the discussion where Elizabeth Arthur left off. Theirs, also, was a highly political act; overtly in their plans to register farm women to vote, more subtly in their commitment to community improvement and civic activism.

Perhaps most importantly, Elizabeth Arthur and the farm wives in St.

Paul took an intensely female slant to their politics. The ladies at the convention saw the same significance to the bits and pieces of modern commerce as Elizabeth Arthur had seen in her beige wallpaper with pink roses. They wanted "rural social self-determination," but they also wanted,

"Mothers on the farm who know how to Charleston; dancing mothers.

®%id., 34.

®2lbid., 34. -279- mothers keeping young with their children." "Spiritual uplift and dancing mothers."®®

Mrs. Aitken from Canada, the woman who was so impressed with the U.S. Constitution, also understood the need for dancing mothers.

I never saw so many farm women with so many different kinds of silk stockings. I think you have all worn a different pair every day with the exception of me....One thing I am taking home with me is the powerful urge of pink silk underwear.®^

Faith in the promise of Progressivism was sustained by washing machines and automobiles and radios and telephones and electric lights. That many farm women had none of these things by 1930 is undeniable. But the fact that many women had at least an assortment gave continuity to the discussion of good life in the countryside from 1900 to 1930. Enough water was running into enough kitchen sinks by 1930 to give validity to the underlying premises of the debate over rural life. After all, as Mrs. Stockman of Michigan pointed out, "Farm women want what other women want."®®

®®Ibid., 13-15.

®^Ibid., 33-34.

®®Ibid., 13. CONCLUSION

A civilization like ours—unlike that of the Roman or the Greek—centers its gcenius upon improving the conditions of life. It secures its thrills from inventing ways to live easier and more fully; means to bring foods from more ends of the earth and add to the variety served on the family table; methods to bring more news and entertainment to the family fireside; ways to reduce the labor and hardships of living; ways to have more beauty and graciousness in the domestic domicile; ways to satisfy more of the instincts of more of the family group. Inevitably in such a civilization woman's influence grows increasingly larger.

—Christine Frederick, Selling Mrs. Consumer^

In the words of rural women about quality of life, in their buying

patterns, are shades of nuances that add depth and perspective to our

understanding both of rural life and of Progressive era reform. It is not

enough to look to third party movements or to lobbying efforts for protective

legislation. It is not enough to analyze women's behavior at the polls or in support of political parties. The expressed desire for and the acquisition of the comforts of modern America are political acts in and of themselves. We cannot fuUy understand the history of early twentieth century America, unless we acknowledge that buying automobiles and telephones and running water had as much influence on shaping the course of the nation as the

^Christine Frederick, Selling Mrs. Consumer (New York: The Business Bourse, 1929), 15.

-280- -281- voting. Likewise, we cannot fully appreciate the coherence of the rural

community unless we gauge how far someone can travel on the hope of pink

silk underwear.

There is little disagreement that Americans in the early decades of the

twentieth century were, indeed, centering their genius upon improving the

conditions of life. This preoccupation was a matter of no small regret for

contemporary moral critics who feared that the nation was being reduced to

a homogeneous, mass society driven by the empty values of a consumer

culture. As Daniel Horowitz has explained, "This analysis assumed that by

nature people had limited needs and that consumers were victims who

accepted commercial goods and experiences on the terms on which the

economic system and advertisements offered them."^ For intellectuals of the

era, such acquisitions brought small pleasure at great social cost

To a large degree, this appraisal is shared by rural social historians

who, half a century later, measure the gains of the Country Life Movement

against the failures and find the cost too high. Rural progressivism failed to

create economic and political parity between agriculture and industry, it

failed to defend agrarian values in the national ethos against erosion by the city, it failed to stem the migration of the best and brightest from the farm to

^Daniel Horowitz, The Morality of Spending: Attitude Toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940, New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History, Thomas Bender, ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 162. -282- the factory. Compounding these shortcomings was the actual harm-

intentional or unintentional—inflicted on the rural community by over-

zealous, myopic reformers. Historians have argued that the urban-based

Country Life Movement was so preoccupied with the difficulties posed by an

unindustrialized agriculture in an urban-industrial society, that it ignored the

negative ramifications of change upon the family farm, that modernization

undercut traditional patterns of community life long relied upon during

periods of economic hardship, making it more difficult for families to stay on

the land.® Reformers made a concerted effort to persuade rural families to

take on the consuming habits of the city, meeting significant resistance on the

part of the agricultural community.^

The adversarial relationship between city and country, between

agrarianism and urban consumerism played a very minor rôle in the

discussion of good life in the countryside examined in this dissertation. For

the literate, comparative affluent, "progressive" farm families who participated in the conversation, dichotomies within the nation were to be deplored. Over and over, the farm women who spoke for these families

®David Danbom, The Resisted Revolution: Urban America and the Industrialization of Agriculture, 1900-1930 (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1979), 144; Mary Neth, "Preserving the Family Farm: Farm Families and Communities in the Midwest, 1900-1940" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1987), 343.

^Danbom, Resisted Revolution, 62,139; Neth, "Preserving the Family Farm," 412-413, 418. -283- looked to points of commonality, to shared interests and shared goals. More

often, they railed not against those who promoted collaboration between city

and country, but against those who suggested that their lives should be

qualitatively unique. Some women were highly critical of the caliber of rural

life, others fairly satisfied, but most agreed that country living could and

should be evaluated by the same criteria as city living.

That those criteria would be heavily dependent on modern

conveniences was generally accepted. The women whose voices thread

through this study took no notice of Daniel Horowitz's moral critics; for these

farm wives, telephones and automobiles and radios and washing machines

were no hollow contrivances of a homogeneous society. However much

rural families may have resisted the dictates of Country Life reformers, they

did not reject the household technologies, modem entertainments, and

comforts of industrial America. Rural families were perfectly capable of

buying the goods that they fancied and ignoring the message attached,

making use of the product but failing to change their habits.®

If the debate over rural life in the early twentieth century is

interpreted as one touching on the rights and privileges of citizenship, rather

than mere hankering after the comforts of an industrial age, we can better understand the events of the Progressive era. Faced with the shortcomings

^Katherine Jellison, "Entitled to Power: Farm Women and Technology, 1913-1963" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Iowa, 1991), 144-145. See also Mary Neth, "Preserving the Family Farm," 412. -284- and failures of rural reform, one is hard put to explain why farm families

were not more violent in their rejection and resistance of outside interference.

The promises were so grand, the experts so vehement, why was there so little

outrage? This dissertation suggests that rural families viewed themselves

more as participants in sculpting social change than as defensive objects of

reform. No matter how arrogant the presumptions of agricultural experts, no

matter how manipulative the efforts of national advertisers, farm women did

not ever describe themselves as victims or dupes. The fact that rural women

thrust themselves into the national forum and, there, expressed considerable

variety of opinion, demonstrates that farm families were doing more than

merely resisting the inept incursions of outsiders. These community leaders

sought so desperately by the Country Life Commission wrote of themselves

as partners in change—not always satisfied with the results, but never

rejecting the underlying premises.

Christine Frederick, believing that the woman was "the logical center

of peaceful living" and responsible for "the improvement of civilization and

the gratification of instincts,"® naturally considered that women would have

great scope in a society intent on improving the conditions of life. In so

stating, she was merely reinforcing the notions of municipal housekeeping to which women of the day ascribed and about which historians at the moment

^Frederick, Selling Mrs. Consumer, 15. -285- are so fascinated/ Responsible for the happiness and well-being of all

members of the household, women were best qualified by nature to oversee issues of public life that impinged on the home. Within this rubric, it was only logical and proper for farm women to speak out passionately and insist on shaping the definition of what constituted good life in the countryside.

The ladies conversing throughout the chapters of this dissertation unabashedly expressed their thoughts and were perfectly comfortable taking issue with each other in the pages of national magazines. In part, they justified their remarks on the basis of gender. Clearly, they considered themselves primarily responsible and primarily competent to debate issues influencing standard of living. But there was another theme running beneath their comments. Over and over, these farm women argued that they served a critical function as citizens and mothers of citizens. Again and again, they made note of the fact that they were the ones producing and rearing the nation's labor force, that they were the ones instilling the values that kept

America strong. In their role as citizens and mothers of citizens, they had a right both to shape the direction of national life and to demand services and considerations from government comparable to those received by male citizens. Some 140 years after the founding of the nation, rural women were still justifying their place in the public forum in terms of republican

’'See Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 141-158. -286-

motherhood.

Interestingly, the initial theory of republican motherhood crafted in

the 1780s suggested that women had a civic role distinct from that of men,

one that should be performed within the shelter of the home. To the husbands would be entrusted the vote, to the wives the rearing of republican citizens, the maintenance of public virtue.® Historian Sara Evans notes that suffragists at the turn of the century seized on republican motherhood as a rationale for granting women the vote, claiming that only a mother who exercised her own rights and responsibilities could teach citizenship to her children.^ But for the progressive rural women engaged in hammering out the definition of good life in the country, the rights and responsibilities of citizenship extended far beyond the ballot box. For that matter, some of the most active and passionate of rural spokeswomen came only late to supporting the vote for women. Their focus was not on revamping the electoral process, but on directly influencing the caliber of daily living.

Buying patterns in the countryside have been interpreted as an indication of the coherence of rural social values, of the tradition of making do and buying conservatively, of continuing to see themselves as producers and not merely as consumers.^” This dissertation would suggest that neither

®Sara M. Evans, Bom for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: Free Press, 1989), 57.

% id., 154.

^°Ibid., 388-389; Neth, "Preserving the Family Farm," 442-443. -287- city women nor rural women were seduced and mesmerized by the promises

of consumerism. When the General Federation of Women's Clubs compared the results of their urban and rural home equipment surveys, they found that neither community was behaving in the prescribed maimer. Christine

Frederick was similarly disgusted with Mrs. Consumer. Stating baldly that

"There should be vastly more household equipment sold," Frederick could not understand why large numbers of women were still "unpersuaded of the comfort and economies in various devices. Urban household budget studies of the period explain why few Americans made discretionary purchases. Most families had little discretionary income, many lived on the edge of poverty. Few expected to pursue lives of affluence and comfort. In their rejection of the Lady Duff-Gordon tea gowns, rural women were demonstrating that they did, in fact, want what city women wanted—practical value for their money. A conservative approach to the acquisition of modern conveniences and a resistance to products they didn't desire or need were less rural traits than national traits, perhaps ones overlooked by the intellectuals of the day.

Those intellectuals also saw an America in which traditional communities were being disrupted by outside influences. The Lynds looked at Muncie and saw the intrusion of advertising, routinized manufacturing.

^^Frederick, Selling Mrs. Consumer, 177.

^®Horowitz, Morality of Spending, 169. -288- movies, the radio, the credit system, and automobiles/® This theme of evil as originating always outside the garden is one that has long run through

American letters/^ Certainly, historians who have studied the early twentieth century rural community have focused on change originating from the outside, although not necessarily in an alarmist fashion, writing of agricultural reform as emanating from the city, focusing on the efforts of an

"agricultural establishment" comprised of city-based agricultural professionals

(many in government) and big business/® USDA Extension agents and national advertisers competed to bring modem conveniences into the farm home, with varying degrees of success/®

This dissertation looks, instead, at the messages emanating from within the rural community. In their letters to federal agencies, in their essays submitted to farm journals, in their response to social surveys and to marketing surveys, rural women were talking back to the reformers and the manufacturers and the advertisers and the goverrunent. This piece of the conversation, the part controlled and directed by progressive farm women.

i®Ibid., 148.

^^Ibid., 167. See also, Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967).

^®Danbom, Resisted Revolution, 24-25; Neth, "Preserving the Family Farm," 13-14 and 127-128.

^®Jellison, "Entitled to Power," 80-145. Jellison demonstrates that advertisers were more alert to rural women's attitudes towards their work and, therefore, more successful in their efforts. -289- would suggest that, while there was strong sentiment in the rural

community, there was no homogeneity of opinion. Farm families were

neither fully resistant nor fully accepting of the changes of the twentieth

century. Moreover, though they were clearly intrigued by the accoutrements

of industrialism, they differed as to how crucial such acquisitions were to

living the good life. Rural women picked and chose what they bought and

what they expressed a desire to buy. Significantly, this aspect of the

conversation tended to be communicated more with dollars than with words

and it was one that companies like J. Walter Thompson and Sears and

Roebuck were very anxious to hear. Farm women were economically literate;

their letters indicate a lively awareness of their power as consumers. From

all evidence, the rural community—or at least that portion invited to

participate in the discussion about the good life—welcomed consumer goods

into the countryside. And they did so very much on their own terms.

It is no mere happenstance that the conversation studied in this

dissertation hinged directly on the comforts of the industrial age. The promises of Progressivism came packaged in the household technologies and entertainments of a new era. Every modem convenience acquired was, in a sense, a promise kept. Rural letters and essays and surveys suggest that enough conveniences were flowing into enough farm houses as to make the promises of Progressivism seem both valid and possible. Moreover, these bits and pieces of modernity can be seen to symbolize the attitudes of -290- progressive rural families to reform. Just as they felt no compunction to buy

all the goods and appliances offered (in the order recommended), farm

families felt no hesitation about ignoring those aspects of social change that

seemed siUy or beside the point Try as experts might to convince families

that rationalizing domestic labor was more important that broadening contact

with the outside world, they never were able to convince people to buy

bathtubs before telephones, electric current before automobiles.^^ On the

other hand, precisely because the rural community was able to choose which

programs it wanted from the catalog of Progressive reform, it saw no need to

reject the modem era and refuse to participate.

Recently in the New York Times, Edward Cardan reported on

modernization in Pilana, India. A small village, with Brahmins living on one

side of the main road and untouchables on the other, Pilana stands mostly in

another century. "As they have for generations, the rythmns of village life

hew to the commands of the wheat fields." But Pilana has also been

discovered by marketers, who have noticed that income generated by rural people is tax free, that they have money for factory-made clothing, television sets, refrigerators, dining room tables and chairs, pricey soaps.

Nihali, an older untouchable woman, is watching all this

^’'Jellison, "Entitled to Power," 139-140. Jellison demonstrates that Extension projects seen as extending family resources, such as sewing and food preservation classes, were much more successful than those promising only the saving of time, such as home improvement. -291- commercialism with a jaundiced eye. Though she refuses to go to the shops, her daughters do, as do her daughters-in-law. '"I use a neem twig to brush my teeth,' she said, referring to a tree that is widely regarded in South Asia as possessing medicinal properties. 'But my children use Colgate.'"^®

According to J. Walter Thompson, so did the cliildren of Putnam

County, New York and Randolph County, Indiana.

^®Edward A. Cardan, "Village Life in India is Invaded by Big City Tastes," New York Times (16 April 1992): A-4. APPENDIX 1

CIRCULAR OF QUESTIONS COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION

As a means of securing the opinions of the people themselves on some of the main aspects of country life, a set of questions was distributed, as follows:

I Are the farm homes in your neighborhood as good as they should be under existing conditions?

n Are the schools in your neighborhood training boys and girls satisfactorily for life on the farm?

m Do the farmers in your neighborhood get the returns they reasonably should from the sale of their products?

IV Do the farmers in your neighborhood receive from the railroads, highroads, trolley lines, etc., the services they reasonably should have?

V Do the farmers in your neighborhood receive from the United States postal service, rural telephones, etc., the service they reasonably should expect?

VI Are the farmers and their wives in your neighborhood satisfactorily organized to promote their mutual buying and selling interest?

Vn Are the renters of farms in your neighborhood making a satisfactory living?

Vm Is the supply of farm labor in your neighborhood satisfactory?

DC Are the conditions surrounding hired labor on the farms in your neighborhood satisfactory to the hired man?

X Have the farmers in your neighborhood satisfactory facilities for

-292- -293- doing their business in banking, credit, insurance, etc.?

XI Are the sanitary conditions of farms in your neighborhood satisfactory?

Xn Do the farmers and their wives and families in your neighborhood get together for mutual improvement, entertainment and social intercourse as much as they should?

What, in your judgment, is the most important single thing to be done for the general betterment of country life?

(Note—Following each question are the subquestions: (a) Why? (b) What suggestions have you to make?)

About 550,000 copies of the circular questions were sent to names supplied by the United States Department of Agriculture, state experiment stations, farmer's societies, women's clubs, to rural free deliverymen, country physicians and ministers, and others. To these inquiries about 115,000 persons have now replied, mostly with much care and with every evidence of good faith. Nearly 100,000 of these circulars have been arranged and some of the information tabulated in a preliminary way by the Census Bureau. In addition to the replies to the circulars, great numbers of letters and carefully written statements have been received, making altogether an invaluable body of information, opinion, and suggestion.

From: Congress, Senate, Report of the Countrv Life Commission, 60th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Doc. No. 705, 9 February 1909, 26-27.

Note: The circulars and many of the letters and statements—the altogether valuable body of information—were ordered destroyed as "waste paper" by D. F. Houston, Secretary of Agriculture under Woodrow Wilson. (See Clayton S. Ellsworth, "Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission," Agricultural History 34 (October 1960), 170.) Other letters and transcripts from the 30 public hearings held by the Commission can be found in tire Liberty Hyde Bailey Papers, Cornell University. APPENDIX 2

REPORT OF THE GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS TENTH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE

Regions Reporting:

1 New York/New England 2 New Jersey/Delaware 3 Pennsylvania 4 Virginia/North & South Carolina/ Georgia/ Florida/ Alabama / Mississippi / Louisiana 5 West Virginia 6 Michigan/Indiana/Kentucky/Tennessee 7 Kansas/ Oklahoma 8 Wisconsin/ Minnesota/ North & South Dakota 9 Iowa/Nebraska/ 10 Colorado/M ontana/W yoming 11 Oregon/Washington/Idaho

No Reports: Illinois/ Utah/Nevada/ California/Texas/ Arizona/ New Mexico

-294- -295-

Problemsns Regions Reporting

scarcity of ready money (barter economy) 1 under capitalization (no cushion for failure) 10 middlemen siphon off profits 1 no household help 1, 3, 8, 9,10 crowded/uncomfortable housing 6 isolation & loneliness 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 no churches or Sunday schools 6,10 poor schools/teachers/ no access to schools 6,9 no library 6 lack of social life/recreation/ vacations 3,6,8 lack of access to women's organizations 6, 8 lack of publications useful to homemakers 6 monotonous routine/ unremitting labor 3, 6, 8 little chance to earn pin-money 1 husband allows wife no money 1 lack of free time to leave farm 1, 3, 6, 8 illiteracy of lower classes 2 lack of competent labor 4 bearing & rearing large families 4 impure water/no drainage 4 difficulties with multi-racial population 4 lack of household amenities 4,6,9 bad roads 6 -296- Good Things Regions Reporting

enough to eat 1, 3, 6 guaranteed housing 1 guaranteed work 3 availability of labor 4 healthy, peaceful environment 1, 3, 6 children removed from temptation 3 freedom & independence 3, 6 household amenities/ electricity 4, 8 magazine & newspaper subscriptions 1, 3, 8 clubs. Grange, church, sociables [Grange most significaht] 2, 3, 4, 9,11 community rest rooms or recreation centers 9 good churches 7 Farmers Institutes 3, 9 compulsory education/ school improvement assns 2, 4,10 good roads/ automobile 2, 4, 7, 9,11 trolley connections with towns 2 rural free delivery 4, 7, 8, 9,11 telephones 2, 7, 8, 9,11 rural visiting nurse 4 State Agricultural Colleges (including Home Economics)/ State Normal Schools 2, 4, 7, 8, 9,11 prohibition 7 libraries/mail access to books 7, 8 electricity 7,11 scientific agriculture/technology 11 -297-

Wish Lists Regions Reporting

porches & piazzas 1, 6 bathrooms/kitchen sinks 1, 6 windows 6 running water 1 extension courses (scientific agriculture & domestic science) 1, 3, 8 compulsory education/ school consolidation 5, 4, 6 manual training/domestic science for children 5, 6 extend rural free delivery cheapen telephones promote industries which use farm products have milk routes take milk at doors secure direct market for farm products lower express rates provide a parcel post 1,1 create a sure market for home manufactures have govt source of obtaining good books easily better roads 3 better transportation 3 more women's clubs 3, 8 community recreation centers 7, 8

GFWC Efforts Regions Reporting

traveling libraries 2,1 0 classes in home industries 2 -298- APPENDIX 3 RURAL AMENITIES

Table 16a.—1920 census-based figures on auto and telephone use

STATE Total Autos: # Autos: Per Phones: # Phones: number of farms cent of all farms Per cent farms reporting farms reporting of all farms

Totals 6,448,343 1,979,564 30.7 2,498,493 38.7

Alabama 246,009 15,906 6.2 38,407 15.0 Arizona 9,975 4,534 45.5 1,638 16.4 Arkansas 232,604 15,401 6.6 52,869 22.7 California 117,670 62,453 53.1 37,309 31.7 Colorado 59,934 26,356 47.3 22,022 36.7 Connecti­ 22,655 6,796 30.0 11,738 51.8 cut Delaware 10,140 3,693 36.4 2,763 27.2 Florida 54,005 8,761 16.2 4,524 8.4 Georgia 310,732 47,173 15.2 29,861 9.6 Idaho 42,106 16,651 39.5 13,837 32.9 niinois 237,181 125,584 52.9 173,562 73.2 Indiana 205,126 95,238 46.4 136,140 66.4 Iowa 213,439 156,081 73.1 183,852 86.1 Kansas 165,286 102,517 62.0 126,753 77.9 Kentucky 270,626 28,532 10.5 73,145 27.0 Louisiana 135,463 9,494 7.0 8,599 6.3

Source: Based on table in Emily F. Hoag, "The Advantages of Farm Life: A Study by Correspondence and Interviews with Eight Thousand Farm Women, 1923," TMs, Record Group 83, BAE Records, Manuscript File 1917-35, "Farm Life Through the Eyes of Women," National Archives, Washington, D.C. -299-

Table 16b.—1920 census-based figures on water and lighting on farms

STATE Total W ater W ater Gas or Gas or num ber of piped into piped into electric electric farm s houses: # houses: lights: # lights: Per farm s Per cent of rarm s cent of all reporting all farm s reporting farm s

Totals for 6,448,343 643,899 10.0 452,620 7.0 all states

A labam a 256,009 2,987 1.2 8,345 3.3 Arizona 9,975 1,986 19.9 592 5.9 Arkansas 232,604 1,780 .8 2,643 1.1 C alifornia 117,670 65,928 59.0 30,519 25.9 C olorado 59,934 6,806 11.4 3,925 6.5 C onnecti­ 22,655 9,524 42.0 3,963 17.5 cut Delaware 10,140 752 7.4 397 3.9 Florida 54,005 3,341 6.2 2,042 3.8 G eorgia 310,732 5,615 1.8 5,826 1.9 Idaho 42,106 5,240 12.4 5,982 14.2 Dlinois 237,181 26,676 11.2 23,273 9.8 Indiana 205,126 23,476 11.4 20,584 10.0 Iowa 213,439 33,251 15.9 32,552 15.3 Kansas 165,286 15,339 9.3 14,390 8.7 Kentucky 270,626 5,139 1.9 5,925 2.2 Louisiana 135,463 2,185 1.6 1,471 1.1 -300- Table 16c.—1920 census-based figures on auto and telephone use

STATE Total Autos: # Autos: Per Phones: # Phones: num ber of farm s cent of all farm s Per cent farm s reporting farm s reporting of all farm s

Totals for 6,448,343 1,979,564 30.7 2,498,493 38.7 all states

Maine 48,227 11,686 24.2 23,632 49.0 Maryland 47,908 16,049 33.5 11,755 24.5 M assachu­ 32,001 8,181 25.6 16,537 51.7 setts M ichigan 195,447 78,919 40.2 97,874 49.8 Minnesota 178,478 101,847 57.1 110,568 62.0 M issis­ 272,101 14,946 5.5 28,260 10.4 sipp i M issouri 263,004 81,392 30.9 163,643 62.2 M ontana 57,677 20,749 36.0 9,781 17.0 N ebraska 124,417 94,004 75.4 95,060 76.4 N evada 3,163 1,436 45.4 1,122 35.5 N ew 20,523 4,797 23.4 10,164 49.5 H am p­ shire N ew 29,702 11,731 39.4 9,484 31.9 Jersey N ew 29,844 5,546 18.6 3,359 11.3 Mexico N ew York 193,195 68,003 35.2 91,973 47.6 N orth 269,763 41,839 15.5 33,029 12.2 C arolina N orth 77,690 44,010 56.6 36,349 46.8 D akota -301- Table 16d.“1920 census-based figures on water and lighting on farms

STATE Total W ater W ater Gas or Gas or num ber of piped into piped into electric electric farm s houses: # houses: lights: # lights: Per farm s Per cent of farm s cent of all reporting all farm s reporting farm s

Totals for 6,448,343 1,979,564 30.7 2,498,493 38.7 all states

Maine 48,227 18,020 37.4 4,625 9.6 Maryland 47,908 6,702 14.0 3,330 7.0 Massachu­ 32,001 11,893 52.8 9,062 28.3 setts Michigan 195,447 29,729 15.1 15,695 8.0 Minnesota 178,478 11,392 6.4 13,539 7.6 Missis­ 272,101 2,983 1.1 2,896 1.1 sippi Missouri 263,004 11,901 4.5 14,361 5.5 Montana 57,677 3,053 5.3 2,013 3.5 Nebraska 124,417 20,691 16.6 12,062 9.7 Nevada 3,163 580 18.3 385 12.2 New 20,523 10,765 52.5 2,322 11.3 Hamp­ shire New Jersey 29,702 7,047 23.7 4,551 15.3 New 29,844 1,460 4.8 422 1.4 Mexico New York 193,195 45,487 23.5 24,882 12.9 North 269,763 4,423 1.6 7,815 2.9 Carolina North 77,690 4,684 6.0 4,518 5.8 Dakota -302-

Table 16e.—1920 census-based figures on auto and telephone use

STATE Total Autos: # Autos: Per Phones: # Phones: num ber of farm s cent of all farm s Per cent farm s reporting farm s reporting of all farm s

Totals for 6,448,343 1,979,564 30.7 2,498,493 38.7 all states

Ohio 256,695 119,511 46.6 159,478 62.1 Oklahoma 191,988 49,017 25.5 71,613 37.3 Oregon 50,206 20,561 41.0 25,351 50.5 Pennsyl­ 202,250 69,865 34.5 87,887 43.5 vania Rhode 4,083 1,198 29.3 1,685 41.3 Island South 192,693 30,709 15.9 10,943 5.7 C arolina South 74,637 51,780 69.4 44,327 59.4 D akota Termessee 252,774 22,446 8.9 56,880 22.5 Texas 436,033 99,697 22.9 140,234 32.2 U tah 25,662 8,246 32.1 6,295 24.5 Vermont 29,075 7,611 26.2 16,752 57.6 Virginia 186,242 28,557 15.3 33,482 18.0 W ashing­ 66,288 27,626 41.7 27,952 42.2 ton W est 87,289 10,405 11.9 37,789 43.3 V irginia W isconsin 189,295 93,798 49.6 111,798 59.1 W yom ing 15,749 6,180 39.2 4,449 28.3 -303-

Table 16f.--1920 census-based figures on water and lighting on farms

STATE T otal W ater W ater Gas or Gas or num ber of piped into piped into electric electric farm s houses: # houses: lights: # lights: Per farm s Per cent of farm s cent of all reporting all farm s reporting farm s

Totals for 6,448,343 1,979,564 30.7 2,498,493 38.7 all states

Ohio 256,695 41,551 16.2 37,745 14.7 Oklahoma 191,988 6,640 3.5 7,010 3.7 Oregon 50,206 12,914 25.7 5,463 10.9 Pennsyl­ 202,250 46,402 22.9 30,669 15.2 vania Rhode 4,083 1,451 35.5 700 17.1 Island South 192,693 3,443 1.8 5,170 2.7 C arolina South 74,637 9,157 12.3 6,445 8.6 D akota T ennessee 252,774 4,890 1.9 4,554 1.8 Texas 436,033 38,580 8.8 8,228 1.9 Utah 25,662 6,179 24.1 11,125 43.4 Vermont 29,075 18,301 62.9 3,328 11.4 V irginia 186,242 9,474 5.1 7,874 4.2 W ashing­ 66,288 18,967 28.6 9,178 13.8 to n W est 87,289 4,974 5.7 12,900 14.8 V irginia Wisconsin 189,295 13,465 7.1 16,574 8.8 Wyoming 15,749 1,035 6.6 717 4.6 -304- Table 17. Bathrooms in farm homes, 1920

Heart States No. of Farms Per cent with No. with baths baths

Illinois 237,153 27.52 65,265 Indiana 205,124 26.11 53,558 Iow a 213,312 39.92 85,154 Kansas 165,287 32.05 52,958 Michigan 196,647 29.31 57,637 Minnesota 178,588 22.90 40,897 Missouri 263,124 21.38 56,256 Nebraska 126,309 38.83 49,046 North Dakota 77,693 15.66 12,167 O hio 256,699 27.79 71,337 O klahom a 191,731 20.93 40,129 South Dakota 74,564 28.20 21,027 Wisconsin 189,196 18.79 35,550

Totals 2,375,427 27.05 642,553

Source for Tables 17-20: Survey of 3,200 homes of Successful Farming subscribers, TMs, Record Group 16, General Correspondence Files, Box 749, File "Farm Homes," National Archives, Washington, D.C -305- Table 18. Farm homes heated by furnaces, 1920.

Heart States Per cent N um ber of Per cent N um ber of heated by farms heated intending to farm s furnace by furnace install intending to furnaces install furnaces

Illinois 27.11% 64,292 16.15% 38,300 Indiana 22.77% 46,707 17.61% 36,122 Iowa 44.70% 95,350 23.61% 50,363 Kansas 10.55% 17,438 20.24% 33,454 M ichigan 24.92% 49,004 27.04% 53,173 M innesota 19.55% 34,914 32.29% 57,666 M issouri 7.00% 18,419 18.43% 48,494 N ebraska 20.86% 26,348 29.41% 37,147 N orth 14.28% 11,095 43.83% 34,053 D akota Ohio 29.54% 75,829 27.27% 70,002

O klahom a — — 10.95% 20,995 South 15.96% 11,900 37.61% 28,044 Dakota Wisconsin 22.77% 43,080 26.69% 50,496

Totals 22.20% 527,345 24.52% 582,455 -306- Table 19. Farms having gasoline engines, 1920.

Heart States No. of Farms Per cent owning No. farms with gasoline engines gasoline engines

Illinois 237,153 54.00 128,063 Indiana 205,124 49.00 100,511 Iowa 213,312 72.00 153,585 Kansas 165,287 51.00 84,296 Michigan 196,647 50.00 98,324 Minnesota 178,588 64.00 114,296 M issouri 263,124 37.00 97,356 Nebraska 126,309 64.00 80,838 North Dakota 77,693 72.00 55,939 Ohio 256,699 47.00 120,649 Oklahoma 191,731 29.00 55,602 South Dakota 74,564 53.00 39,519 Wisconsin 189,196 59.00 111,626

Totals 2,375,427 54.00 1,282,731

'"Number of Farms' based on 1920 census. Among those farms having gasoline engines, we find an average of 1.37 engines per farm, the average horse power of which is 2.59. This horse power is undoubtedly a little high because a few 16 or 20 horse power engines tend to bring the average up out of proportion to their number." -307-

Table 20. Farms having manure spreaders, 1920

Heart States No, of Farms Per cent owning No. farms with m anure m anure spreaders spreaders

Illinois 237,153 53.58 127,067 Indiana 205,124 56.45 115,792 Iowa 213,312 73.38 156,528 Kansas 165,287 44.14 72,958 Michigan 196,287 43.57 85,679 Minnesota 178,588 59.58 106,403 Missouri 263,124 32.62 85,831 Nebraska 126,309 63.33 79,991 North Dakota 77,693 42.85 38,291 O hio 256,699 52.67 135,203 Oklahoma 191,731 5.88 11,274 South Dakota 74,564 50.80 37,879 Wisconsin 189,196 47.85 90,530

Totals 2,375,427 49.94 1,186,228 -308-

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscript Collections

Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Liberty Hyde Bailey Papers. File 21/2/541. Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, John M. Olin Library. N.Y. State College of Home Economics Records. File 23/2/749. Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, John M. Olin Library.

Duke University, Durham, N.C. J. Walter Thompson Company Archives. Research Department, Boxes 1 and 2. Special Collections Department, William R. Perkins Library.

GFWC Headquarters, Washington, D.C. President's Records. Mary Sherman, File 02100. Also, Program Records. Sherman, 1924-28, File 07100. Women's History and Resource Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs.

GFWC Convention Proceedings. Thirteenth Biennial Convention, 1916; Eighteenth Biennial Convention, 1926. Twelfth Biennial Council, 1927. Women's History and Resource Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs.

National Archives, Washington, D.C. U.S. Department of Agriculture. General Correspondence, Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1906-1970. Record Group 16.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Manuscript File, 1917-1935. Record Group 83.

U.S. Children's Bureau. File 4, Hygiene, 1914-1920,1921-1924,1925- 1928,1929-1932. Record Group 102. -309-

National Magazines and Journals, 1900-1930

Annals Of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Chautauquan CoUier's Country Life Delineator Farmer's Wife Good Housekeeping Harper's Bazaar Harper's Weekly Independent Journal of Home Economics Ladies' Home Journal Literary Digest New Republic Review of Reviews Women's Home Companion

Farm Journals, 1899-1902

Maine Farmer Massachusetts Ploughman Michigan Farmer Southern Cultivator and Dixie Farmer Southern Planter

Farm Journals, 1920-1926

Capper's Farmer Country Gentleman Farm Journal

U.S. Department of Agriculture Reports and Memos

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Yearbook of Agriculture, 1900-1930. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1900-1930.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Extension Service. Report of a Study Made as a Part of the Appraisal of Home Demonstration Work by Home Demonstration Leaders in the Northeastern States. Open-file report. -310- Extension Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, April 1940.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Extension Service. Supervisory Problems and Needs in Home Demonstration Work, Western Section (as suggested by State Home Demonstration Leaders, Country Home Demonstration Agents, and County Agricultural Agents in the Western States and Territories). Open-file report. Extension Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, May 1937.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Extension Service. Trends in Home Making Extension Service Programs; 1910-1950; A Progress Report on Home Demonstration Work. Open-file report. Extension Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, January 1953.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Extension Service, Cooperative Extension Work. Basic Factors Governing Home Demonstration Work, Central States, by Grace E. Frysinger. Open-file memo. Extension Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1930.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Extension Service, Cooperative Extension Work. Meeting and Overcoming Difficulties Encountered in Establishing Home Demonstration Agents, by H. C. Ramsower. Open-file report. Extension Service. Washington: D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 15 May 1929.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. State Relations Service, Office of Extension Work, North and West. Suggested Program for Rural Home Demonstration Work with Special Reference to Conservation. Open- file memo. States Relations Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1 February 1918.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. State Relations Service, Office of Extension Work, North and West. Memorandum for Home Demonstration Agents, by Florence Ward. Open-file memo. State Relations Service. Washington, D.C: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1 August 1918.

Dissertations

Altman, Karen Elizabeth. "Modernity, Gender, and Consumption: Public Discourses on Woman and the Home." Ph.D. diss.. University of Iowa, 1987. -311- Bowers, William L. "Farmers and Reformers in an Urban Age: The Country Life Movement and the 'Rural Problem'." Ph.D. diss.. University of Iowa, 1968.

Damon-Moore, Helen Mary. "Gender and the Rise of Mass-Circulation Magazines: The Ladies' Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post, 1883-1910." Ph.D. diss.. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1987.

Jellison, Katherine K. "Entitled to Power: Farm Women and Technology, 1913-1979." Ph.D. diss.. University of Iowa, 1991.

Kirkpatrick, Melissa B. "Reparishing the Countryside: Progressivism and Religious Interests in Rural Life Reform, 1908-1934." Ph.D. diss., American University, 1991.

Kleinegger, Christine Catherine. "Out of the Bams and Into the Kitchens: Farm Women's Domestic Labor, World War I to World War II." Ph.D. diss.. State University of Binghamton, 1986.

Neth, Mary. "Preserving the Family Farm: Farm Families and Communities in the Midwest, 1900-1940." Ph.D. diss.. University of Wisconsin- Madison, 1987.

Smulyan, Susan Renee. "'And Now a Word from Our Sponsors...': Commercialization of American Broadcast Radio, 1920-1934." Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1985.

Wagner, Maryjo. "Farms, Families, and Reform: Women in the Farmers' Alliance and Populist Party." Ph.D. diss.. University of Oregon, 1986.

Books-Primary

Bailey, Jospeh Cannon. Seaman A. Knapp: Schoolmaster of American Agriculture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1945.

Baker, O. E., Ralph Borsodi, M.L. Wilson. Agriculture in Modem Life. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1939.

Baker, Gladys. The Country Agent. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1939.

Bolsterli, Margaret Jones, ed. Vinegar Pie and Chicken Bread: A Woman's Diary of Life in the Rural South, 1890-1891. Fayetteville: University of -312- Arkansas Press, 1982.

Brown, James Seay, Jr. Up Before Daylight: Life Histories from the Alabama Writers' Project 1938-1939. University, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1982.

Brunner, Edmund deS. and Irving Lorge. Rural Trends in Depression Years: A Survey of Village-centered Agricultural Communities, 1930-1936. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937.

Business Men's Commission on Agriculture. The Condition of Agriculture in the United States and Measures for its Improvement New York: National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., and Washington: Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, 1927.

Clark, Thomas D. Pills, Petticoats, & Plows: The Southern Country Store. Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944.

Cole, William E. and High Price Crowe. Recent Trends in Rural Planning. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1937.

Comish, Newel Howland. The Standard of Living: Elements of Consumption. New York: MacMillan, 1923.

Croly, Herbert The Promise of American Life. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1909. Reprint, 1989.

Eastman, E. R. These Changing Times: A Story of Farm Progress During the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century. New York: MacMillan, 1927.

Frederick, Christine. Selling Mrs. Consumer. New York: Business Bourse, 1929.

Galpin, Charles J. The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community. Madison: Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin, Research Bulletin 34, May 1915.

Hoyt, Elizabeth E. Consumption in Our Society. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1938.

Kallen, Horace M. The Decline and Rise of the Consumer: A Philosophy of Consumer Cooperation. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1936.

Martin, O. B. The Demonstration Work: Dr. Seaman Knapp's Contribution -313- to Civilization. San Antonio: Naylor, 1941.

Pitkin, Walter B. The Consumer: His Nature and His Changing Habits. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1932.

Reese, Madge J. A Ten-Year Review of Home-Management Extension, 1914- 1924. USD A Circular no. 17. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1927.

Rowell, George P. The Men Who Advertise. New York: Arno Press, 1870. Reprint, 1978.

Svobida, Lawrence. Farming the Dust Bowl: A First Hand Account from Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986.

Taylor, Carl C. Rural Sociology: A Studv of Rural Problems. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1926.

True, Alfred Charles. A History of Agricultural Extension Work in the United States, 1785-1923. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1928.

Waite, Warren C. Economics of Consumption. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1928.

Wallace, Henry C. Our Debt and Duty to the Farmer. New York: Century Company, 1925.

Ward, Florence E. Home Demonstration Work Under the Smith-Lever Act, 1914-1924. Circular no. 43. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1929.

Zimmerman, Carle C. Consumption and Standards of Living. New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1936.

Books-Secondary

Baker, Paula. The Moral Frameworks of Public Life: Gender, Politics, and the State in Rural New York, 1870-1930. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Banta, Martha. Imaging American Women: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. -314- Baritz, Loren. The Good Life: The Meaning of Success for the American Middle Class. New York: Harper & Row, 1982.

Barron, Hal S. Those Who Staved Behind: Rural Society in Nineteenth- Century New England. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modem History Series, eds. Robert Fogel and Stephan Thernstrom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Bender, Thomas. Toward and Urban Vision: Ideas and Institutions in Nineteenth Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.

Benson, Susan Porter. Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986, 1988.

Betten, Neü and Michael J. Austin. The Roots of Community Organization, 1917-1939. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.

Blumin, Stuart M. The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760-1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Boydston, Jeanne. Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Buenker, John D. and Edward R. Kantowicz. Historical Dictionary of the Progressive Era, 1890-1920. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Bulmer, Martin, Kevin Bales and Kathryn Kish Sklar. The Social Survey in Historical Perspective, 1880-1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Campbell, Christiana McFadyen. The Farm Bureau and the New Deal. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962.

Cockbum, Cynthia. Machinery of Dominance: Women, Men, and Technical Know-How. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988,1985.

Cohn, Jan. Creating America: George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989.

Converse, Jean M. Social Research in the United States: Roots and -315-

Emergence, 1890-1960. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

Cotton, Barbara R., ed. Symposium on the History of Rural Life In America. Davis, CA: Agricultural History Society, 1984.

Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Danbom, David B. The Resisted Revolution: Urban America and the Industrialization of Agriculture, 1900-1930. Ames: The Iowa State University Press, 1979.

Daniel, Pete. Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Daniel, Pete. Standing at the Crossroads: Southern Life in the Twentieth Century. New York: Hill and Wang, 1986.

Douglas, Louis H, ed. Agrarianism in American History. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1969.

Douglas, Susan J. Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

Dyson, Lowell K. Farmers' Organizations. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Emmet, Boris and John E. Jeuck. Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950.

Escott, Paul D. and David R. Goldfield, eds. Major Problems in the History of the American South, Volume II: The New South. Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1990.

Ewen, Stuart. All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

Ferleger, Lou, ed. Agriculture and National Development Views on the Nineteenth Century. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990.

Fink, Deborah. Agrarian Women: Wives and Mothers in Rural Nebraska, 1880-1940. Studies in Rural Culture, ed. Jack Temple Kirby. Chapel -316-

Hill: University of North. Carolina Press, 1992.

Fite, Gilbert C., ed. Agriculture and Education. Davis, CA: Agricultural History Society, 1986.

Fite, Gilbert C. American Farmers: The New Minority. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.

Fite, Gilbert C. Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984.

Fite, Gilbert C. The Farmers' Frontier, 1865-1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966.

Flowers, Linda. Throwed Away: Failures in Progress in Eastern North Carolina. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.

Forty, Adrian. Objects of Desire: Design & Society from Wedgewood to IBM. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Fox, Richard Wrightman and T.J. Jackson Lears, eds. The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983.

Friedberger, Mark. Farm Families & Change in 20th-Century America. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988.

Gardner, James B. and George Rollie Adams, eds. Ordinary People and Everyday Life: Perspectives on the New Social History. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1983.

Gjerde, Jon. From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway, to the Upper Middle West. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modem History Series, eds. Robert Fogel and Stephan Thernstrom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Goodrum, Charles and Helen Dalrymple. Advertising in America: The First 200 Years. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990.

Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Green, Harvey. Fit for America: Health, Fitness, Sport & American Society. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. -317- Green, Harvey. Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983.

Groneman, Carol and Mary Beth Norton, eds. "To Toil the Livelong Day": America's Women at Work, 1780-1980. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Haber, Samuel. Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Midway Reprint, 1974.

Hagood, Margaret Jarman. Mothers of the South: Portraiture of the White Tenant Farm Woman. New York: W.W. Norton, 1977.

Hahn, Steven. The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountrv, 1850-1890. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Hahn, Steven and Jonathan Prude. The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation: Essays in the Social History of Rural America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.

Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, James Leloudis, Robert Korstad, Mary Murphy, Lu Ann j^ones, and Christopher B. Daly. Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987.

Hamilton, David E. From New Day to New Deal: American Farm Policy from Hoover to Roosevelt, 1928-1933. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

Harris, Neil. Cultural Excursions: Marketing Appetites and Cultural Tastes in Modem America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Horowitz, Daniel. The Morality of Spending: Attitudes Toward to Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940. New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History Series, ed. Thomas Bender. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

Jay, Robert The Trade Card in Nineteenth-Century America. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987.

Jensen, Joan M. Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750-1850. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. -318-

Jensen, Joan M. Promise to the Land: Essays on Rural Women. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.

Kirby, Jack Temple. Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.

Kolodny, Annette. The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.

Kramer, Mark. Three Farms: Making Milk, Meat, and Money from the American Soil. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Kreidberg, Marjorie. Food on the Frontier: Miimesota Cooking from 1850 to 1900. S t Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1975.

Ladd-Taylor, Molly. Raising a Baby the Government Way: Mothers' Letters to the Children's Bureau, 1915-1932. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986.

Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Wav for Modernity, 1920-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.

Marti, Donald B. Historical Directory of American Agricultural Fairs. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Marti, Donald B. Women of the Grange: Mutuality and Sisterhood in Rural American, 1866-1920. Contributions in Women's Studies, no. 124. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Martin Greif, ed. Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes. New York: Universe Books, 1975.

Massey, Ellen Gray. Bittersweet Country. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973. Reprint, 1985.

Matthews, Glenna. "lust a Housewife": The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

McDannell, Colleen. The Christian Home in Victorian America, 1840-1900. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

McMurry, Sally. Families & Farmhouses in 19th Century America. New York: Oxford Uniyersity Press, 1988. -319- Mintz, Steven and Susan Kellogg. Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life. New York: Free Press, 1988.

Muncy, Robyn. Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Norris, James D. Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 1865-1920. Contributions in Economics and Economic History, no. 110. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.

Opie, Robert. Packaging Source Book: A Visual Guide to a Century of Packaging Design. Secaucus: Chartwell Books, 1989.

Osterud, Nancy Grey. Bonds of Community: The Lives of Farm Women in Nineteenth-Century New York. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.

Peterson, Trudy Huskamp, ed. Farmers, Bureaucrats, and Middlemen: Historical Perspectives on American Agriculture. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1980.

Pollay, Richard W., ed. Information Sources in Advertising History. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1979.

Pope, Daniel. The Making of Modern Advertising. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Rawick, George P. From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. Westport CN: Greenwood, 1972.

Ross, Dorothy. The Origins of American Social Science. Ideas in Context, eds. Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, Quentin Skinner, and Wolf Lepenies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Sachs, Carolyn E. The Invisible Farmers: Women in Agricultural Production. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983.

Schackel, Sandra. Social Housekeepers: Women Shaping Public Policy in New Mexico, 1920-1940. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992.

Scott, Anne Firor. Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991. -320- Scott, Roy V. The Reluctant Farmer: The Rise of Agricultural Extension to 1914. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970.

Shammas, Carole. The Pre-Industrial Consumer in England and America. New York: Clarendon Press/ Oxford, 1990.

Staten, Jay. The Embattled Farmer. Golden CO: Fulcrum, 1987.

Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.

Strasser, Susan. Never Done: A History of American Housework. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.

Stratton, Joanna L. Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.

Susman, Warren I. Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.

Talbot, George. At Home: Domestic Life in the Post-Centennial Era, 1876- 1920. Milwaukee: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976.

Tedlow, Richard S. New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America. New York: Basic Books, 1990.

Trachtenberg, Alan. The Incorporation of America: Culture & Society in the Gilded Age. New York: Hill & Wang, 1982.

Tullos, Allen. Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Upton, Dell and John Michael Vlach, eds. Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

Wedell, Marsha. Elite Women and the Reform Impulse in Memphis, 1875- 1915. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.

West, Elliott Growing Up with the Country: Childhood on the Far Western Frontier. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989.

Whisnant, David E. All That is Native & Fine: The Politics of Culture in an -321- American Region. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.

Wiebe, Robert H. The Search for Order, 1877-1920. New York: Hill & Wang, 1967.

Wilcox, Virginia M., ed. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988.

Wright, Gwendolyn. Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and Cultural Conflict in Chicago, 1873-1913. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Wright, Gavin. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War. New York: Basic Books, 1986.

Wuner, John R. At Home on the Range: Essays on the History of Western Social and Domestic Life. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.

Zuckerman, Mary Ellen, ed. Sources on the History of Women's Magazines, 1792-1960. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Articles and Papers

Abbott, Richard H. "The Agricultural Press Views the Yeoman, 1819-1859." Agricultural History 42 (1968): 35-48.

Anderson, Clifford B. "The Metamorphosis of American Agrarian Idealism in the 1920's and 1930's." Agricultural History 35 (1961): 182-188.

Andrews, William D. and Deborah C. "Technology and the housewife in nineteenth-century America." Women's Studies 2 (1974): 309-328.

Babcock, Richard. "Farming: big business, big medium." In Advertising todav/yesterday/ tomorrow. Printer's Ink, 309-311. New York: McGraw Hill, 1963.

Baker, Gladys L. "Women in the U.S. Department of Agriculture." Agricultural History 50 (1976): 190-201.

Baker, Paula. "The Farmer as a Social Problem: Reform, Professionalization, and the Country Life Movement, 1880-1930." Address, 1985 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Mirmeapolis, -322-

Mirmesota, April 18-21.

Bowers, William L. "Country-Life Reform, 1900-1920: A Nelgected Aspect of Progressive Era History." Agricultural History 45 (1971): 211-221.

Brown, Minnie Miller. "Black Women in American Agriculture." Agricultural History 50 (1976): 202-212.

Bush, Corlann Gee. "'He Isn't Half So Cranky as He Used to Be:' Agricultural Mechanization, Comparable Worth, and the Changing Farm Family." In "To Toil the Livelong Pay": America's Women at Work, 1780-1980, ed. Carol Groneman and Mary Beth Norton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Buttel, Frederick H. & Philip McMichael. "Sociology and Rural History: Summary and Critique." Social Science History 12 (Summer 1988): 93- 120.

Clanton, Gene. "Populism, Progressivism, and Equality: The Kansas Paradigm." Agricultural History 51 (1977): 559-581.

Clark, Thomas D. "The Country Newspaper: A Factor in Southern Opinion, 1865-1930." Journal of Southern History 14 (February 1948): 3-33.

Clevenger, Homer. "The Teaching Techniques of the Farmers' Alliance: An Experiment in Adult Education." Journal of Southern History 11 (November 1945): 504-518.

Colman, Gould P. "Government and Agriculture in New York State." Agricultural History 39 (1965): 41-50.

Currin, Jean McCulley and Dan Selakovich. "The Progressive Era: A Case Study in Change." Social Studies 57 (1966): 248-253.

Daniel, Pete. "The Crossroads of Change: Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures in the Twentieth Century South." Journal of Southern History 50 (1984): 429-456.

Duram, James C. "The Farm Journals and the Constitutional Issues of the New Deal." Agricultural History 47 (1973): 319-328.

Dykstra, Robert R. "Town-Country Conflict: A Hidden Dimension in American Social History." Agricultural History 38 (1964): 195-204. -323- Dyson, Lowell K "Radical Farm Organizations and Periodicals in America, 1920-1960." Agricultural History 45 (1971): 111-120.

Edwards, Everett E. "Rodney H. True and His Writings." Agricultural History 18 (1944): 23-34.

Ellsworth, Clayton S. "Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission." Agricultural History 34 (Oct 1960): 155-172.

Farrell, Richard T. "Advice to Farmers: The Content of Agricultural Newspapers, 1860-1910." Agricultural History 51 (1977): 209-217.

Ferleger, Louis. "Self Sufficiency and Rural Life on Southern Farms." Agricultural History 58 (July 1984): 314-329.

Fuller, Wayne E. "The Rural Roots of the Progressive Leaders." Agricultural History 42 (1968): 1-13.

Fuller, Wayne E. "The South and the Rural Free Delivery of Mail." Tournai of Southern History 25 (November 1959): 499-521.

Gates, Warren J. "Modernization as a Function of an Agricultural Fair: The Great Grangers' Picnic Exhibition at Williams Grove, Pa., 1873-1916." Agricultural History 58 (July 1984): 262-279.

Glazer, Sidney. "The Rural Community in the Urban Age: The Changes in Michigan Since 1900." Agricultural History 23 (1949): 130-134.

Gordon, Jean and Jan McArthur. "American Women and Domestic Consumption, 1800-1920: Four Interpretiye Themes." In Making the American Home: Middle Class Women & Domestic Material Culture, 1840-1940, eds. Marilyn Ferris Motz and Pat Browne. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1988.

Gordon, Jean and Jan McArthur. "Interior Decorating Advice as Popular Culture: Women's Views Concerning Wall and Window Treatments, 1870-1920." In Making the American Home: Middle Class Women & Domestic Material Culture, 1840-1940, eds. Marilyn Ferris Motz and Pat Browne. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1988.

Groman, George L. "W. A. White's Political Fiction: A Study in Emerging Progressivism." Midwest Quarterly 8 (1966): 79-93. -324- Hadwiger, Don F. and Clay Cochran. "Rural Telephone in the United States." Agricultural History 58 (July 1984): 221-238.

Hall, Tom G. "Agricultural History and the 'Organizational Synthesis': A Review Essay." Agricultural History 48 (1974): 313-325.

Haney, Wava G. and Jane B. Knowles. "Women and Farming: Changing Roles, Changing Structures." Signs 12 (1987): 797-800.

Harbaugh, W. H. "The County Agents and Progressivism." Address, 1987 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 2-5.

Hargreaves, Mary W. M. "Women in the Agricultural Settlement of the Northern Plains." Agricultural History 50 (1976): 179-189.

Hicks, John D. "The Legacy of Populism in the Western Middle West." Agricultural History 23 (1949): 225-236.

Hicks, John D. "The Western Middle West, 1900-1914." Agricultural History 20 (1946): 65-77.

Hill, Larry D. and Robert A. Calvert. "The University of Texas Extension Services and Progressivism." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 86 (1982): 231-254.

Hoffman, Elizabeth and Gary D. Libecap. "Institutional Choice and the Development of U.S. Agricultural Policies in the 1920s." Journal of Economic History 51 (June 1991): 397-411.

Horton, Donald C. and E. Fenton Shepard. "Federal Aid to Agriculture Since World War I." Agricultural History 19 (1945): 114-120.

James, Fehx. "The Tuskegee Institute Moveable School, 1906-1923." Agricultural History 45 (1971): 201-209.

Jensen, Joan M. "Crossing Ethnic Barriers in the Southwest: Women's Agricultural Extension Education, 1914-1940." Agricultural History 60 (Spring 1986): 169-181.

Johnson, A. N. "The Impact of Farm Machinery on the Farm Economy." Agricultural History 24 (1950): 58-62.

Johnson, Keach. "Iowa Dairying at the Turn of the Century: The New -325-

Agriculture and Progressivism." Agricultural History 45 (1971): 95- 110.

Jones, Allen W. "The South's First Black Farm Agents." Agricultural History 50 (1976): 636-644.

Jones, Allen W. "Voices for Improving Rural Life: Alabama's Black Agricultural Press, 1890-1965." Agricultural History 58 (July 1984): 209-220.

Jones, Lu Ann. "'Mama Learned Us to Work': An Oral History of Virgie St. John Redmond." Oral History Review 17 (Fall 1989): 63-90.

Kaye, Frances W. "The Ladies' Department of the Ohio Cultivator, 1845-1855: A Feminist Forum." Agricultural History 50 (1976): 414-423.

KoUmorgen, Walter M. "Immigrant Settlements in Southern Agriculture." Agricultural History 19 (1945): 69-78.

KoUmorgen, Walter M. and Robert W. Harrison. "The Search for the Rural Community." Agricultural History 20 (1946): 1-8.

KuUkoff, AUan. "The Transition to Capitalism in Rural America." William & Mary Quarterly 96 (January 1989): 120-144.

Larson, Olaf F. and Thomas B. Jones. "The Unpublished Data from Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life." Agricultural History 50 (1976): 583-599.

Lemmer, George F. "The Agricultural Program of a Leading Farm Periodical, Colman's Rural World." Agricultural History 23 (1949): 245-254.

Lemmer, George F. "The Early Agricultural Fairs of Missouri." Agricultural History 17 (1943): 145-152.

Malin, James C. "The Background of the First BiUs to Establish a Bureau of Markets, 1911-12." Agricultural History 6 (July 1932): 107-129.

Malin, James C. "Mobility and History: Reflections on the Agricultural Policies of the United States in Relation to a Mechanzied World." Agricultural History 17 (1943): 177-191.

Marti, Donald B. "Sisters of the Grange: Rural Feminism in the Late Nineteenth Centuiy." Agricultural History 58 (July 1984): 247-261. -326-

McGaw, Judith A. "Women and the History of American Technology." Signs 7 (1982): 798-828.

Merk, Frederick. "Eastern Antecedents of the Grangers." Agricultural History 23 (1949): 1-19.

Moore, John L. "Bad Days at 'Big Dry': A Montana Cattle Rancher Takes the Pulse of His Drought-Striken Land and Discovers it Has None." New York Times Magazine (14 August 1988): 26-27.

Nordin, Dennis S. "A Revisionist Interpreation of the Patrons of Husbandry, 1867-1900." Historian 32 (1970): 630-643.

Osterud, Nancy Grey and Lu Ann Jones. "'If I must say so myself: Oral Histories of Rural Women." Oral History Review 17 (Fall 1989): 1-23.

Paoletti, Jo B. "Clothing and Gender in America: Children's Fashions, 1890- 1920." Signs 13 (1987): 136-143.

Parsons, Stanley B., Karen Toombs Parsons, Walter Killilae, and Beverly Borgers. "The Role of Cooperatives in the Development of the Movement Culture of Populism." Journal of American History 69 (March 1983): 866-885.

Pederson, Jane Marie. "The Country Visitor: Patterns of Hospitality in Rural Wisconsin, 1880-1925." Agricultural History 58 (July 1984): 347-364.

Person, H. S. "The Rural Electrification Administration in Perspective." Agricultural History 24 (1950): 70-89.

Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell. "The Traits and Contributions of Frederick Jackson Turner." Agricultural History 19 (1945): 21-23.

Pinkett, Harold T. "The American Farmer, A Pioneer Agricultural Journal, 1819-1834." Agricultural History 24 (1950): 146-151.

Pinkett, Harold T. "Government Research Concerning Problems of American Rural Society." Agricultural History 58 (July 1984): 365-372.

Prescott, Gerald. "Wisconsin Farm Leaders in the Gilded Age." Agricultural History 44 (1970): 183-199.

Printer's Ink, "Women in Advertising." In Advertising today/ yesterday/ tomorrow. Printers Ink, 316-319. New York: McGraw Hill, 1963. -327- Purdy, Virginia C. "Uncle Sam and Aunt Sammy: Federal Approaches to Farm Women." Paper presented at the New Mexico State University Conference on American Farm Women in Historical Perspective, Los Cruces, New Mexico, 2-4 February 1984.

Richardson, Anna E. "The Woman Administrator in the Modem Home." In "Women in the Modem World." Annals of the American Academy 143 (May 1929).

Rosenberg, Charles E. "The Adams Act: Policies and the Cause of Scientific Research." Agricultural History 38 (1964): 3-12.

Rosenberg, Charles E. "Science, Technology, and Economic Growth: The Case of the Agricultural Experiment Station Scientist, 1875-1914." Agricultural History 45 (1971): 1-20.

Ross, Earle D. "The Manual Labor Experiment in the Land Grant College." Tournai of American History 21 (March 1935): 513-528.

Ross, Earle D. "Roosevelt and Agriculture." Toumal of American History 14 (December 1927): 287-310.

Ross, Earle D. "The United States Department of Agriculture During the Commisionership: A Study in Politics, Administration, and Technology, 1862-1889." Agricultural History 20 (1946): 129-143.

Ross, Earle D. and Robert L. Tontz. "The Term 'Agricultural Revolution' as Used by Economic Historians." Agricultural History 22 (1948): 32-38.

Saloutos, Theodore. "The Agricultural Problem and Nineteenth-Century Industrialism." Agricultural History 22 (1948): 156-174.

Saloutos, Theodore. "The Immigrant Contribution to American Agriculture." Agricultural History 50 (1976): 45-67.

Schafer, Joseph. "Some Enduring Factors in Rural Polity." Agricultural History 6 (Oct 1932): 161-180.

Schultz, Theodore W. "Our Welfare State and the Welfare of Farm People." Social Service Review 38 (June 1964): 123-29.

Schwieder, Dorothy. "Education and Change in the Lives of Iowa Farm Women, 1900-1940." Agricultural History 60 (Spring 1986): 200-215. -328-

Scott, Roy V. "Early Agricultural Education in Minnesota: The Institute Phase." Agricultural History 37 (1963): 21-34.

Scott, Roy V. "Farmers' Institutes in Louisiana, 1897-1906." Toumal of Southem History 25 (Febmary 1959): 73-90.

Searles, Patricia. "'A thoroughbred girl': images of female gender role in turn-of-the-century mass media." Women's Studies 10 (1984): 261-281.

Shannon, Fred A. "The Status of the Midwestem Farmer in 1900." Tournal of American History 37 (December 1950): 491-510.

Shideler, James H. "Flappers and Philosophers, and Farmers: Rural-Urban Tensions of the Twenties." Agricultural History 47 (1973): 283-299.

Shideler, James H. "Henry C. Wallace and Persisting Progressivism: A Comment." Agricultural History 41 (1967): 121-125.

Sies, Mary Corbin. "The Domestic Mission of the Privileged American Suburan Homemaker, 1877-1917: A Reassessment" In Making the American Home: Middle-Class Women & Domestic Material Culture, 1840-1940, eds. Marilyn Ferris Motz & Pat Browne. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1988.

Smith, Wilson. " 'Cow College' Mythology and Social History: A View of Some Centennial Literature." Agricultural History 44 (1970): 299-310.

Sturgis, Cynthia. "'How're You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?': Rural Women and the Urban Model in Utah." Agricultural History 60 (Spring 1986): 182-199.

Swanson, Merwin. "The 'Country Life Movement' and the American Churches." Church History 46 (1977): 358-373.

Swanson, Merwin. "Professional Rural Social Work in America." Agricultural History 46 (1972): 515-526.

Swierenga, Robert P. "Towards the 'New Rural History': A Review Essay." Historical Methods Newsletter 6 (June 1973): 111-122.

Thompson, D. O. "A Pioneer Adventure in Agricultural Extension: A Contribution from the Wisconsin Cut-Over." Agricultural History 22 (1948): 124-128. -329- Waggoner, Paul E. "Research and Education in American Agriculture." Agricultural History 50 (1976): 230-247.

Wik, Reynold M. "Henry Ford's Tractors and American Agriculture." Agricultural History 38 (1964): 79-86.

Wilson, Joan Hoff. "Hoover's Agricultural Policies, 1921-1928." Agricultural History 51 (1977): 335-361.

Winters, Donald L. "The Persistence of Progressivism: Henry Cantwell Wallace and the Movement for Agricultural Economics." Agricultural History 41 (1967): 109-120.

Worley, Lynda F. "William Allen White: Kansan Extraordinary." Social Science 41 (April 1966): 91-98.