I love the adventuresome can-do spirit of the mother who submitted a letter to THE FARMER’S WIFE in October 1921 reporting her family’s wildly successful vacation in a covered wagon. With three children in tow, the family traversed three hundred miles to experience the adventures of their pioneering ancestors. The author even took along a […]
Hello, again History Lovers, In March of 1923, The Farmer’s Wife–A Magazine For Farm Women published a letter from Mrs. Haring who enthusiastically shares her tips on how to teach children to work and to enjoy doing it. She starts when the children are young and always adds an “element of fun” to the tasks […]
Hello History Lovers! I’m Elaine, a twenty-first-century farmer’s wife and lover of domestic history. I collect old cookbooks and read them like novels to piece together the history of rural women in America. I recently stumbled upon a cache of farm magazines and newspapers from the nineteen-teens through the 1930s. These publications enrich and add […]
Imagine being able to sell your high-quality, homemade butter for a dollar a pound when the going rate at the local grocer was fifty to sixty cents. That’s what Mrs. Foster was able to do in 1921 giving her a little extra “pin money”. She even took home first prize in the county’s Better Butter […]
Hello Friends! The third story in The Farmer’s Wife series How We Keep Christmas demonstrates how much friends and neighbors meant to rural folks. Mrs. Melby of North Dakota shares how three families gathered together each year on Christmas Eve to celebrate the holiday. The festivities included a program put on by the children, a […]
Hello, again History Lovers! In 1923 The Farmer’s Wife–A Magazine For Farm Women began a series regarding the healthcare of rural babies and children written by Dr. Walter R. Ramsey a leading pediatrician of his time. The Editors encouraged mothers to read the articles, cut them out and paste them in a scrapbook, and to […]
Hello, again History Lovers! In contrast to my previous post regarding a farm family who wired their home and farm buildings for electricity, today’s post is a letter from a Maryland farm woman who writes to The Farmer’s Wife–A Magazine For Farm Women to share how beneficial the small improvements made to her kitchen were. […]
Hello History Lovers! The tradition of January White Sales was the inspiration of a Philadelphia department store mogul John Wanamaker in 1878. As a way of stimulating sales during a slow time of year, the White Sale offered customers excess bedding at discounted prices. Of course sheets at that time came in only one color–white–hence […]
Hello Friends! The final story in my How We Keep Christmas series has given me much food for thought. The challenges faced by this young family in 1922 have made my heart ache yet filled my heart with an extra measure of gratitude for the blessings my family and I enjoy. While pondering I have […]
I came across a recipe for Raisin Cake in a narrow column of advertisements in the October 1926 issue of The Farmer’s Wife magazine. The recipe was sponsored by the Crescent Manufacturing Company of Seattle, Washington, makers of the wildly successful imitation maple flavoring branded Mapleine. Growing up my mother always made homemade pancake syrup […]
An Irish Christmas Blessing May you be blessed with the spirit of the season Which is peace, The gladness of the season Which is hope, And the heart of the season Which is love. ~Unknown The Tradition While preparing oyster stew for my family some years ago, I called my mother and asked why we […]
Hello, again History Lovers, Today’s article is another example of the hard work and ingenuity farm women demonstrated while supplementing their family farm income. Mrs. Alta Dunn uses her cooking and baking skills to establish a catering business in a small western town. Quality products and fair pricing are of supreme importance to her. Mrs. […]
“A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.” ~Welsh Proverb As a young man of sixteen, Oscar Tschirky immigrated to America from Switzerland with his mother in 1883 to join his older brother in New York City where they hoped to make a better life. Within a day of his […]
Hello, again History Lovers, After falling head over heels in love with the automobile, Americans began road-tripping. And it wasn’t long before rural entrepreneurs found a way to market farm products to passersby. Farmers built stands and started selling homegrown produce from roadside markets, very much like farmer’s markets of today. Some were small with […]