Farm Life ─ A Century Of Change For Farm Families And Their Neighbors

The twentieth century was a century of change for farm families and their neighbors. In 1900, 42 percent of the American population worked in agriculture. In 2000, there were so few farmers that the U.S. Census Bureau considered removing them as a separate occupational group. The survivors have retained their connection to farming, and even particular farms and rural neighborhoods, sometimes through many generations. What compels one family to stay while a score of others depart? And is it important to the rest of us?
Absolutely. First, as the saying goes, "If you eat, you're involved in farming." Less fundamentally, but still compellingly, the journey of the farmer rides in tandem with the journey of the American citizen, the farm family with the American family. Farm Life shares this family story through the voices of real people - dairy farmers and others - in the heart of America's Dairyland.

Frank Smoot is director of publications at the Chippewa Valley Museum in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and is coauthor of The Frankenstein Film Sourcebook.