The Legacy of Farm Women

Three days ago, I had an interview at Carriage Hill MetroPark. In order to prepare for the interview, I went to the library. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Mahn Center for Special Collections on the fifth floor of Alden Library. Prior to last quarter, I didn't think that there was anything on the fifth floor of the library aside from the government records. Never have I been more glad that I was wrong. Dead wrong. In order to prepare for my interview, I stopped by the archives. Walking into the Reading Room, I sat down with letters, diaries and pictures spread across the table in the far corner. This may not normally be considered a cultural event. Picking up a diary from Athens County from 1830, I was astonished. The secondary sources I had read characterized rural farm women as either victims of a strict patriarchy or as advocates of the patriarchal cult of domesticity. The reality of the female experience on farms is that they were proud of their contributions, intra or extra domestic. Reading diaries and the chains of letters between mother and daughter or sister to sister, one can immediately grasp how vital kin network chains of communication were to rural women. What I learned from this cultural experience is that female labor was as vital to reaping economic success as their male counterparts.