Work of Children on Illinois Farms
Author: Dorothy May Williams Burke
Publisher:
Published: 1926
Total Pages: 64
ISBN-13:
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Author: Dorothy May Williams Burke
Publisher:
Published: 1926
Total Pages: 64
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Robert L. Switzer
Publisher: Center for American Places
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781935195344
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSwitzer's memoir covers four generations of life on the family farm in Illinois. The tale is enhanced with photographs plus watercolors and woodblock prints by the author's wife and son. Frank E. Barmore adds information about the nineteenth-century history of this family farm, the Barmore family, and the settling of that area of Illinois.
Author: Pamela Riney-Kehrberg
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2023-01-13
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 0700635181
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAs the United States transformed itself from an agricultural to an industrial nation, thousands of young people left farm homes for life in the big city. But even by 1920 the nation’s heartland remained predominantly rural and most children in the region were still raised on farms. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg retells their stories, offering glimpses—both nostalgic and realistic—of a bygone era. As Riney-Kehrberg shows, the experiences of most farm children continued to reflect the traditions of family life and labor, albeit in an age when middle-class urban Americans were beginning to redefine childhood as a time reserved for education and play. She draws upon a wealth of primary sources—not only memoirs and diaries but also census data—to create a vivid portrait of midwestern farm childhood from the early post–Civil War period through the Progressive Era growing pains of industrialization. Those personal accounts resurrect the essential experience of children’s work, play, education, family relations, and coming of age from their own perspectives. Steering a middle path between the myth of wholesome farm life and the reality of work that was often extremely dangerous, Riney-Kehrberg shows both the best and the worst that a rural upbringing had to offer midwestern youth a time before mechanization forever changed the rural scene and radio broke the spell of isolation. Down on the farm, truancy was not uncommon and chores were shared across genders. Yet farm children managed to indulge in inventive play—much of it homemade—to supplement store-bought toys and to get through the long spells between circuses. Filled with insightful personal stories and graced with dozens of highly evocative period photos, Childhood on the Farm is the only general history of midwestern farm children to use narratives written by the children themselves, giving a fresh voice to these forgotten years. Theirs was a way of life that was disappearing even as they lived it, and this book offers new insight into why, even if many rural youngsters became urban and suburban adults, they always maintained some affection for the farm.
Author: Megan Birk
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2015-06-15
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 0252097297
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom 1870 until after World War I, reformers led an effort to place children from orphanages, asylums, and children's homes with farming families. The farmers received free labor in return for providing room and board. Reformers, meanwhile, believed children learned lessons in family life, citizenry, and work habits that institutions simply could not provide. Drawing on institution records, correspondence from children and placement families, and state reports, Megan Birk scrutinizes how the farm system developed--and how the children involved may have become some of America's last indentured laborers. Between 1850 and 1900, up to one-third of farm homes contained children from outside the family. Birk reveals how the nostalgia attached to misplaced perceptions about healthy, family-based labor masked the realities of abuse, overwork, and loveless upbringings endemic in the system. She also considers how rural people cared for their own children while being bombarded with dependents from elsewhere. Finally, Birk traces how the ills associated with rural placement eventually forced reformers to transition to a system of paid foster care, adoptions, and family preservation.
Author: United States. Children's Bureau
Publisher:
Published: 1925
Total Pages: 54
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: United States. Children's Bureau
Publisher:
Published: 1965
Total Pages: 76
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Illinois. Dept. of Labor
Publisher:
Published: 1928
Total Pages: 456
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: United States. Children's Bureau
Publisher:
Published: 1925
Total Pages: 728
ISBN-13:
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