It is easy to look at an old photograph of a Midwestern farm and see something peaceful: a barn, a windmill, a team of horses, fields stretching toward the horizon.
What the photograph does not show is the work.
In the early 1920s, a farm ran on human muscle and animal power. Cows were milked by hand. Water was pumped and carried. Horses pulled plows, cultivators, wagons, and mowers. Corn might still be picked one ear at a time.
And the work never really stopped.
Spring meant planting. Summer meant cultivating, haying and threshing. Fall meant harvest, butchering and preserving food. Winter meant feeding livestock, cutting wood, and keeping water from freezing.
At the same time, farmers were entering a difficult economic period as wartime demand faded and prices fell.
To understand the farm crisis, drought, and Depression years that followed, it helps to understand what ordinary farm life already demanded.
Read: Life on a Midwestern Farm in the Early 1920s
