Week 8 - Prosperity
Week Eight - Prosperity
My father and his two brothers were farmers in North Dakota starting in the early 1900's. It was a time of drought, low farm prices, and economic depression. My father Eugene and one brother, Elmer, had filed for land under the Homestead Ac, an act granting 160 acres of land to each farmer, for a small registration fee, providing they cultivated it, improved it, and stayed on the land for five years. My uncle married Amanda, who also had Homestead land, giving him 320 acres to farm. The third brother Anton, never owned land of his own, working for Elmer until the situation grew intolerable for him, and he left unannounced to join the Army during WWI.
Times were tough. The Northern Plains states, which had experienced plenty of rain and great weather conditions when my uncle first arrived in 1901, subsequently suffered from drought and poor crops, loss of cattle, for a period of about 10 years. Farmers who purchased tractors and threshing machines during the good times were no longer able to pay for them, and many lost their farms. North Dakota suffered an huge exodus of farmers during that time.
The farmers who stayed and toughed it out, wanted their families in the "Old Country"
to feel they had made the right decision in coming to America, where hired publicists had hyped
there was untold wealth to be made from the fertile soil. When itinerant photographers, very popular during this time period (1900-1920's) came through, local farmers availed themselves of the opportunity to show off their purported "prosperity" and send pictures to their relatives in the homeland.
These pictures were taken on my uncles farm. They are typical of pictures taken during this time
period. Everything imaginable was gathered, including people, horses, equipment, to make a show
of how prosperous they'd become. My father appears in these pictures, portraying a life of plenty.
My father never "proved up" his Homestead land. He left sometime before 1925. My uncle made
a go of it somehow, staying on the farm and eventually moving into the largest nearby town, leaving the farm to his son. Both father and son held part time jobs to make ends meet, my uncle as a bailiff, the son with a milk route. Both passed away and are buried near the site of the original farm.
Prosperity is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. To those waiting for word that their immigrant families had made good, the pictures were proof it was true. The reality, however, was another story.
My father and his two brothers were farmers in North Dakota starting in the early 1900's. It was a time of drought, low farm prices, and economic depression. My father Eugene and one brother, Elmer, had filed for land under the Homestead Ac, an act granting 160 acres of land to each farmer, for a small registration fee, providing they cultivated it, improved it, and stayed on the land for five years. My uncle married Amanda, who also had Homestead land, giving him 320 acres to farm. The third brother Anton, never owned land of his own, working for Elmer until the situation grew intolerable for him, and he left unannounced to join the Army during WWI.
Times were tough. The Northern Plains states, which had experienced plenty of rain and great weather conditions when my uncle first arrived in 1901, subsequently suffered from drought and poor crops, loss of cattle, for a period of about 10 years. Farmers who purchased tractors and threshing machines during the good times were no longer able to pay for them, and many lost their farms. North Dakota suffered an huge exodus of farmers during that time.
The farmers who stayed and toughed it out, wanted their families in the "Old Country"
to feel they had made the right decision in coming to America, where hired publicists had hyped
there was untold wealth to be made from the fertile soil. When itinerant photographers, very popular during this time period (1900-1920's) came through, local farmers availed themselves of the opportunity to show off their purported "prosperity" and send pictures to their relatives in the homeland.
These pictures were taken on my uncles farm. They are typical of pictures taken during this time
period. Everything imaginable was gathered, including people, horses, equipment, to make a show
of how prosperous they'd become. My father appears in these pictures, portraying a life of plenty.
My father never "proved up" his Homestead land. He left sometime before 1925. My uncle made
a go of it somehow, staying on the farm and eventually moving into the largest nearby town, leaving the farm to his son. Both father and son held part time jobs to make ends meet, my uncle as a bailiff, the son with a milk route. Both passed away and are buried near the site of the original farm.
Prosperity is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. To those waiting for word that their immigrant families had made good, the pictures were proof it was true. The reality, however, was another story.
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