Farming has traditionally been a family affair, a close partnership between husband and wife. Kids played an important role, beginning with simple chores and an increasing work load as they got older, stronger, and able to handle physically demanding tasks. And it wasn't just boys - farm girls were often in the barns and fields participating as well.
Although women have always played a key role in agriculture, their roles have changed there as well in just about everything else during our lifetimes.
My own rural childhood was pretty typical of that era with one exception. We lived so close to the edge of Monroe that I attended city schools, the old North, instead of the one-room Iliff School in our rural district. The "city kids" had indoor plumbing; we didn't. I was surprised when the "city folks" called the evening meal "dinner." To me, dinner was the hearty noon meal. The evening meal was "supper." So at an early age, I experienced both worlds, farm and town.
We had the typical herd of Holsteins, perhaps a bit larger than many as we had that then-"state-ofthe-art" 150-foot barn that Grandpa Waelti had built at the turn of the century. And we had the usual herd of hogs and flock of chickens, all typical of that era in this neck of the woods.
Farm women worked as hard and as long hours as the men. Their work was especially tedious prior to indoor plumbing and modern appliances enabled by post WWII prosperity and favorable farm prices. Washing clothes with those old ringer machines had to be a miserable task. Water was carried in from the well, water heated and food cooked on the old wood-burning stove. The constant hard physical labor required of combination grain-dairy-hog farming, through all seasons required three heavy, substantial meals per day. Simple "soup n' sandwich" didn't cut it, except for a between meal snack.
In addition, farm women tended the chickens, a substantial garden, and often an orchard - all this with the attendant child-rearing and on and on. Even though witnessing it, I don't know how they did it. My mother liked raising chickens and, in addition to everything else, had an "egg route" in town where she delivered eggs. I think she considered that her social outlet - she enjoyed visiting with the "town women."
Farm women often did the bookkeeping as well.
As now, farm youth organizations were Future Farmers of America (FFA), and 4-H. Farm girls were encouraged to join 4-H, and often had livestock projects. The FFA organization, connected to Vocational Agriculture classes in high school, was another matter, exclusively for boys during that era - almost, anyway.
One of my high school classmates, Dave Burt, had an older sister, Sally, who grew up on a farm and loved farm life. Upon entering Monroe High School, she wanted to take Vo-Ag and join FFA. Nope, she was shunted into Home Ec. Her father, an open-minded, progressive guy, unknown to Sally, prevailed on our vo-ag instructor who many readers of this column will remember, Robert E. Davenport. He was a dramatic character who would emphasize a point by jumping up on a table and waving his arms. Students would count the times he said "lo and behold" during his lectures.
Lo and behold, Bob Davenport was astute enough to recognize a good thing when it came along. To Sally's surprise and delight, she was admitted, becoming the only female in MHS, and probably the state of Wisconsin, to be in FFA. Sally, and not incidentally, Davenport's ag program, received a lot of publicity and was hailed in newspapers as path-breaking. Sally tells me now that she didn't relish the publicity; she wished that girls joining FFA would be common practice.
Sally's wishes would eventually materialize, but not for awhile.
After three years in the Marines, I hit the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in 1958. In the College of Ag's undergraduate program, as I recall, there were about three females. There may have been more in College of Ag graduate programs of Bacteriology and Biochemistry, and maybe Dairy and Food Science, but not in the undergraduate program. I had female instructors in UW's math department, and one in the economics department, none of whom held professorial rank. But there were none in the Agricultural Economics Department.
The world changed during the decade of the 1960s and early 1970s. By the time I joined the University of Minnesota faculty in the late 1960s, it was common to see female students in all departments of colleges of agriculture around the nation.
With females in undergraduate programs coming through the pipeline, there would soon be females in graduate programs, followed by females in the professorial ranks of all college of agriculture departments ranging from animal science to agricultural economics. There have to date been female deans of colleges of agriculture, including at Wisconsin.
And Sally's wish for FFA came to pass. Perhaps it was a confluence of motivations, a sense of fairness, and maybe pure pragmatism. A shrinking farm population means a smaller number of farm boys as potential members. Membership to girls is not only fair, but recognizes the reality that to open it up is to increase vitality of the organization.
And surely, female FFA members have proven their mettle. When I was Head of the Agricultural Economics Department at New Mexico State University, I had the privilege of handing out awards to winners of the Farm and Ranch Management contest at the state FFA awards day ceremonies. In this and other competitions, female members more than hold their own.
This, along with the increasing number of women actually farming and managing farms, illustrates how the role of women in agriculture has permanently changed.
Sally was just years ahead of her time.
Next week: Women and education in the developing world.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
Although women have always played a key role in agriculture, their roles have changed there as well in just about everything else during our lifetimes.
My own rural childhood was pretty typical of that era with one exception. We lived so close to the edge of Monroe that I attended city schools, the old North, instead of the one-room Iliff School in our rural district. The "city kids" had indoor plumbing; we didn't. I was surprised when the "city folks" called the evening meal "dinner." To me, dinner was the hearty noon meal. The evening meal was "supper." So at an early age, I experienced both worlds, farm and town.
We had the typical herd of Holsteins, perhaps a bit larger than many as we had that then-"state-ofthe-art" 150-foot barn that Grandpa Waelti had built at the turn of the century. And we had the usual herd of hogs and flock of chickens, all typical of that era in this neck of the woods.
Farm women worked as hard and as long hours as the men. Their work was especially tedious prior to indoor plumbing and modern appliances enabled by post WWII prosperity and favorable farm prices. Washing clothes with those old ringer machines had to be a miserable task. Water was carried in from the well, water heated and food cooked on the old wood-burning stove. The constant hard physical labor required of combination grain-dairy-hog farming, through all seasons required three heavy, substantial meals per day. Simple "soup n' sandwich" didn't cut it, except for a between meal snack.
In addition, farm women tended the chickens, a substantial garden, and often an orchard - all this with the attendant child-rearing and on and on. Even though witnessing it, I don't know how they did it. My mother liked raising chickens and, in addition to everything else, had an "egg route" in town where she delivered eggs. I think she considered that her social outlet - she enjoyed visiting with the "town women."
Farm women often did the bookkeeping as well.
As now, farm youth organizations were Future Farmers of America (FFA), and 4-H. Farm girls were encouraged to join 4-H, and often had livestock projects. The FFA organization, connected to Vocational Agriculture classes in high school, was another matter, exclusively for boys during that era - almost, anyway.
One of my high school classmates, Dave Burt, had an older sister, Sally, who grew up on a farm and loved farm life. Upon entering Monroe High School, she wanted to take Vo-Ag and join FFA. Nope, she was shunted into Home Ec. Her father, an open-minded, progressive guy, unknown to Sally, prevailed on our vo-ag instructor who many readers of this column will remember, Robert E. Davenport. He was a dramatic character who would emphasize a point by jumping up on a table and waving his arms. Students would count the times he said "lo and behold" during his lectures.
Lo and behold, Bob Davenport was astute enough to recognize a good thing when it came along. To Sally's surprise and delight, she was admitted, becoming the only female in MHS, and probably the state of Wisconsin, to be in FFA. Sally, and not incidentally, Davenport's ag program, received a lot of publicity and was hailed in newspapers as path-breaking. Sally tells me now that she didn't relish the publicity; she wished that girls joining FFA would be common practice.
Sally's wishes would eventually materialize, but not for awhile.
After three years in the Marines, I hit the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in 1958. In the College of Ag's undergraduate program, as I recall, there were about three females. There may have been more in College of Ag graduate programs of Bacteriology and Biochemistry, and maybe Dairy and Food Science, but not in the undergraduate program. I had female instructors in UW's math department, and one in the economics department, none of whom held professorial rank. But there were none in the Agricultural Economics Department.
The world changed during the decade of the 1960s and early 1970s. By the time I joined the University of Minnesota faculty in the late 1960s, it was common to see female students in all departments of colleges of agriculture around the nation.
With females in undergraduate programs coming through the pipeline, there would soon be females in graduate programs, followed by females in the professorial ranks of all college of agriculture departments ranging from animal science to agricultural economics. There have to date been female deans of colleges of agriculture, including at Wisconsin.
And Sally's wish for FFA came to pass. Perhaps it was a confluence of motivations, a sense of fairness, and maybe pure pragmatism. A shrinking farm population means a smaller number of farm boys as potential members. Membership to girls is not only fair, but recognizes the reality that to open it up is to increase vitality of the organization.
And surely, female FFA members have proven their mettle. When I was Head of the Agricultural Economics Department at New Mexico State University, I had the privilege of handing out awards to winners of the Farm and Ranch Management contest at the state FFA awards day ceremonies. In this and other competitions, female members more than hold their own.
This, along with the increasing number of women actually farming and managing farms, illustrates how the role of women in agriculture has permanently changed.
Sally was just years ahead of her time.
Next week: Women and education in the developing world.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
