The Midwestern Farm Essay, Research Paper

Cary, John. The Social Fabric. Reading, Mass. Longhan Inc. 1999.

The Midwestern Farm

First let me start off by saying that the Author could have tried to make this essay a little more interesting. Yes, he had to talk about the dail chores of the men, women and children, but he made it so dull. Life in the Midwest was not dull, it was a time of excitement and intrigue and he could have incorporated this into his essay to add some spice.

Although, the author did give straight up facts about life on the Midwestern farm. These facts included childbearing, women s place in the household, men s chores and other people s places in society. I am very partial to this article. Some parts I like and others I did not.

The author starts off the essay talking about how immigrants are making the population increase in dramatic numbers. He then proceeds on talking about how farming technology is improving. The technology that he talks about is still used today, but it is much improved. The immigrants that came over did not have the new and could not afford the technology that was being used by the bigger farmers. They still had to use the basics: shovel and hoe. This new technology also led to being able to take care of more land at one time and debt. The bankers realized that farmers could not afford the new technology, so banks put out special loans for farmers.

After a brief discussion with the technology aspects he starts on how the railroads and trains opened up many new pathways for farmers, which let them become more industrialized. This also let them become more commercialized and specialized.

Finally he talked about the role of the women, men and children on the farm. It seemed through this essay that women had a lot more chores than men. The women had to take care of the children, chicken coupe, milking, dinner, household chores and many other things. The men took care of the land and the cows. It may seem that women had a lot more work, but men had the more physical aspect of the jobs. They both worked and were very tired at the end of the day. Male children usually worked with the father. Sometimes the male child would help the mother with milking, but this was looked down upon. Female children helped the mother, but if there were no male children they would have to go help the father. Sometimes male and female work overlapped and they would end up working together, usually doing butchering work.

The author portrayed in a very good light what it was like back then on the farms. It was not fun or exciting work, and he did a good job on emphasizing upon this. It was however a lot of work and very demanding. The days were long and the nights were short.