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I couldn't take some of the pressure that he takes. But I'd rather be the woman than the man. She recognized her role, "On a farm, the woman's the helping hand and a partner. She also took a variety of part-time jobs to help make ends meet on the farm or to buy additional equipment. "Young" Bill's wife Dorothy was perfectly capable of getting on a tractor and discing a field if need be. "That keeps him on the land Just like the animals. "A farmer is someone who likes to work and enjoys seeing stuff grow," he said. Two days a week, his wife Dorothy dropped her son and daughter at her mother-in-law's house and put in an eight-hour shift at a factory.īut Bill, Jr., didn't complain. So, each evening, Bill drove 18 miles to a feed mill to work. But his total net income that year was less than $2,000. In 1965, Bill, Sr., said, "Ten years ago, two families could live off a 335-acre farm like ours, but no more." Bill, Jr., was renting 90 acres of cropland near his father's home place. They were aware of the world events, but were more concerned with keeping the family and the family farm together. And everyone lived with an uneasy Cold War in between when life seemed to teeter on the brink of all-out nuclear attack.įor the Hammer family, there were more immediate concerns, as it may have been for most farm families during this time. This period began in 1950 with the Korean Conflict. Life in rural America was dominated by hot and cold wars. There were several years of severe drought during the 50s, but the development of center pivot irrigation systems helped alleviate some of that pain for those who could afford them. An explosion in agricultural research resulted in better crops and better pesticides. After the earlier Depression and World War II, agricultural machinery manufacturers found eager buyers for more and more sophisticated machines. The farmers who were able to stay were making pretty good money during these two decades. But, the rate of decline leveled off and by 1980 when LOOK was predicting only one million farmers left there were, in fact, around 2.5 million still on farms. Farm numbers did shrink, especially over these two decades. Farming in the 1950s and 60s had serious challenges, and millions of farmers left for jobs in town or the city.īut, in many ways, the 50s and 60s were both the best of times and the worst of times. By 1980, experts say, there may be only a million farms left." Today fewer than 3.5 million farms feed 53 percent more people. Thirty years ago, there were about 7 million farms. LOOK wrote "For Bill, there is no better life than a farmer's life, but whether he can remain on the farm is problematical. In the mid-60s, the big question was whether or the family farm and son Bill, Jr., would be able to stay in farming. In 1965, LOOK magazine ran an article entitled "Growing Up on a Farm, the Vanishing Life." For ten years before and 30 years after, photographer Archie Lieberman followed the lives of one community Scales Mound, Illinois, population 399 in 1965 and especially one family the Bill Hammer, Sr., family.