Life on a Farm

Zack

First Sergeant
Joined
Aug 20, 2017
Location
Los Angeles, California
Most soldiers who fought during the Civil War were farmers. For those living in the North or on small farms without slaves in the South, what was there daily life like before the war? Did women ever work in the fields? How did farm life change during the war? Would small family farms be incorporated into the war machine or was it only bigger, commercialized farms? Who worked on those big, commercial farms? To what extent were farms industrializing in the 1850s? How many animals did they usually have? Who did what chores? How did the long hours of farm labor affect "dating" or "courtship" habits? Also - do cows have to give birth yearly in order to produce milk or is it a matter of one birth and then daily milking?

Really, I'm just looking for good resources on what day-to-day life was like on a 19th Century farm. Obviously it varies place to place and family to family.


This website lays out a daily routine that lines up with that described in ACROSS FIVE APRILS (obviously neither period nor a history book).

Wake up around 5:30am. Mother rekindles the fire while children milk cows, get water, and retrieve eggs. Father harnesses the animals and/or chops wood and does maintenance. After breakfast the men worked in the fields with the women did chores and prepped lunch/dinner. On some days one or more family members would go into town for supplies. Then a quick lunch/dinner and back to work. Finally, "supper" as a family and then reading, writing, studying the bible, playing, and whatever else before extinguishing the fires and going to bed.
 
Pre-1860 on the frontier, whether slave owning or free, small farmers would join together for events like cabin/barn raising, corn shucks, ect. So besides accomplishing labor intensive events, they would fill as social events as well.

Then again often for both free and slave, their was church on Sunday.
 
The same as plantations essentially as 1000 acres in production, produces for the most part "x" product, whether 25 40 acre farms, 10 100 acre farms or 1 1000 acre farm........what changes is profitability per farm for the farmer.

The 40 acre farmers will be poorest, the 100 in middle, and the 1000 acre farmers on top.....short of a diaster year, but over time the more profitable farms through the increased profit will become more resistent to a disaster year, leaving the poorest most likely to go belly up in a bad year.

Though if comparing slave to free in surviving a bad spell, the slaveowners farm also has capital in the slaves it can sell off to survive a bad year....while the non slave owners has little but the land to sell.....and without land you are no longer a farmer.....the more capital one has, the longer storm one can generally weather as in most business.
 
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Most soldiers who fought during the Civil War were farmers. For those living in the North or on small farms without slaves in the South, what was there daily life like before the war? Did women ever work in the fields? How did farm life change during the war? Would small family farms be incorporated into the war machine or was it only bigger, commercialized farms? Who worked on those big, commercial farms? To what extent were farms industrializing in the 1850s? How many animals did they usually have? Who did what chores? How did the long hours of farm labor affect "dating" or "courtship" habits? Also - do cows have to give birth yearly in order to produce milk or is it a matter of one birth and then daily milking?

Really, I'm just looking for good resources on what day-to-day life was like on a 19th Century farm. Obviously it varies place to place and family to family.
You might want to read "The Expansion of Everyday Life, 1860-1876," by Daniel E. Sutherland. He devotes a chapter to "Working on the land," which discusses many aspects of farm life in various areas of the country.
 
A good source would be any book about everyday life in America before the Civil War. There are also some writer's guides, which can be very specific. Some websites for Living History farms are also good sources. Another I just thought of is "Pioneer Life in Southwest Missouri". by Wiley Britton.
 
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