(Wo)Manpower on the Farm: How the Rural Electrification Administration improved the lives of women

Though women in the early 20^th century had fewer rights than their male counterparts on the farm, they were doing at least as much of the work. Women were responsible for childrearing, cooking, cleaning, and gardening, as well as various other farm tasks. Their lives were physically intense and difficult. Because of this, women started leaving the farm for jobs in the city.

Working as a stenographer or secretary was much less physically demanding than working on the farm. According to an interview with Louisan Mamer (Bringing light to rural America, 1998), women on the farm were living shorter lives than women in the cities due to the impossible demands on them. She said, “Look in the old cemeteries and you'll see that there were maybe two wives for one farm man. This heavy load of doing everything by hand the hard way, and bearing a lot of children, was killing women far earlier than they die today.” As Gallant mentioned, often the work of men on the farm was seasonal, with periods of rest, but women worked year-round. (Gallant, 2015)

As the work of farmers was so critical to the survival of the everyone, something had to give before women refused to stay on the farm. Utah Agricultural College (now Utah State University) realized that keeping women on the farm required two main changes: the work of a homemaker needed to be viewed as a legitimate and important profession, requiring education, and these women needed modern conveniences to cut down on their work load. (Sturgis, 1986). Degrees in Home Economics helped the first requirement, and a push for Rural Electrification met the other requirement.

And women were some of the main instigators that helped pave the way for the Rural Electrification Administration. Oftentimes they were the ones attending the meetings and encouraging other families to pay the $5 cooperative fee to help utility companies get electricity to their communities. (Gallant, 2015). The Rural Electrification Administration was good for everyone on the farm, but it undoubtedly changed the lives of the women more than anyone else. As life became significantly easier for women on the farm, more women were willing to give up lives in the city, as long as they had the conveniences of things like washing machines, electric stoves, and refrigerators.

References

Bringing light to rural America. (1998). Rural Cooperatives, 65(2), 33.

Gallant, F. (2015, September 2). Rural Electrification was a Woman’s Movement. Retrieved from http://remagazine.coop/rural-electrification-was-a-womens-movement/.

Sturgis, C. (1986). "How're You Gonna Keep 'Em down on the Farm?": Rural Women and the Urban Model in Utah. Agricultural History, 60(2), 182-199. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3743439

The Power of Marketing brought Power to the Farm

Lester Beall

Power on the Farm, Rural Electrification Administration, 1941

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/5020

Electricity had completely transformed the day-to-day lives of city dwellers by the 1930’s. According to Kitchens and Fishback (2015), while more than 90% of every major city in the United States had electricity in 1930, only 10% of farms were electrified. In 1935, an executive order by Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Rural Electrification Administration. This gave utility cooperatives access to loans from the government to create an infrastructure that would introduce electricity to the rural population. While electricity was proven to improve the quality of life, many of the rural farmers didn’t understand the value of electricity at first. The rural population was often illiterate and didn’t have access to current news. This is where an important marketing strategy would come into play.

Lester Beall was a successful graphic designer who was approached in 1935 to get the word out to rural Americans that electricity would change their lives. (Pompeson 2012). His use of color, red, white, and blue, spoke to a sense of patriotism. His bold pictures with very little verbiage was meant to get a message to people whether or not they could read. In the picture I have included here, a farmer is shown working on a complex electrically powered machine. It would appeal to a farmer because it shows a task that would normally be very manually intensive, sharpening a knife, can be done much more simply with the help of electricity. The man in the picture looks relatable, but also sophisticated. The only words on the poster say, “Power on the Farm,” thus it could be understood by those who had marginal reading skills. This example is eye-catching and worked. Beall was contracted to make three sets of posters in total to advertise the Rural Electrification Administration. (Golec 2013).

These bold and compelling posters were used at county and state fairs, and while the message spoke to illiterate farmers, they also attracted the attention of a more elite crowd of government officials and experts. And they worked: within 15 years, more than 90% of rural farms had electricity. (Kirtchens & Fishback 2015). The power of marketing worked to bring light to rural communities across the United States.

               

References

Golec, M. J. (2013). Poster power: rural electrification, visualization, and legibility in the United States. History & Technology, 29(4), 399-410. doi:10.1080/07341512.2013.876249

Kitchens, C., & Fishback, P. (2015). Flip the Switch: The Impact of the Rural Electrification Administration 1935–1940. The Journal of Economic History, 75(4), 1161-1195. doi:10.1017/S0022050715001540

Pompeson, P. (2012). Lester Beall and the Rural Electrification Administration. Inside Out: A MoMA/MoMa PS1 Blog. Retrieved from https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/03/22/lester-beall-and-the-rural-electrification-administration/

Rural Electrification Administration

"More Power to the Farmer" brochure, Rural Electrification Administration, United States Department of Agriculture, around 1940. Louisan E. Mamer Rural Electrification Administration Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

As people began inventing systems to harness electrical power, lives were transformed. Though electricity posed its own hazards, it was a much safer source of power than candles, fire and gas. In addition to bringing safe and convenient lighting into homes, electricity transformed the modern-day farm in a number of different ways. For the first time, farmers could see their animals and crops at night without the ever-present danger of fire. (Rovang, 2015). Prior to electrical appliances, women on the farm went from spending dawn until dusk doing housekeeping tasks like washing clothes by hand, and cooking over a wood stove, to having more time to work alongside men and have more time for hobbies. (Empowering Women, 2015). Bringing electricity to farms also was found to keep people in the farming business.

Unfortunately for farmers in rural settings (which was definitely the setting for most farms), electricity didn’t reach them until long after the folks living in city. According to Wallace (2016), most city houses had electricity by the 1920’s. Conversely, by 1932, only 10% of rural homes had electricity. The main reason for this was the cost of providing electricity to rural houses was so much higher than in the city, due to an increased distance between each house. This made a huge difference to the standard of living for people in rural communities versus people in cities. People who had farmed for generations started to leave the profession for the conveniences of electricity in cities.

Since this was during the time of the Great Depression and World War II, farming was vital to help fill the demand for food. According to the article, “Light on the Farm” in American History Illustrated (1985), Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an order for organizations to get low cost loans that could be paid over 30 years to develop utility systems that could provide electricity to reach rural areas. The farmers themselves worked together to create cooperatives and provided the labor needed to introduce electricity to their own farms. (Wallace, 2016). It didn’t happen overnight, but eventually farms were able to incorporate the seemingly miraculous transformation electricity offered.

References

Empowering women. (2015). Illinois Heritage, 18(2), 38-40.

Light on the farm. (1985). American History Illustrated, 20(8), 32.

Rovang, S. (2015). Envisioning the Future of Modern Farming: The Electrified Farm at the  1939 New York World's Fair. Journal Of The Society Of Architectural Historians, 74(2), 201-222. doi:10.1525/jsah.2015.74.2.201

Wallace Jr., H. D. (2016, Feb 12). Power from the people: Rural Electrification brought more than lights. Retrieved from http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/rural-electrification.