Putting the Barn Before the House

Women and Family Farming in Early Twentieth-Century New York

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States
Cover of the book Putting the Barn Before the House by Grey Osterud, Cornell University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Grey Osterud ISBN: 9780801464645
Publisher: Cornell University Press Publication: April 15, 2012
Imprint: Cornell University Press Language: English
Author: Grey Osterud
ISBN: 9780801464645
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication: April 15, 2012
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Language: English

Putting the Barn Before the House features the voices and viewpoints of women born before World War I who lived on family farms in south-central New York. As she did in her previous book, Bonds of Community, for an earlier period in history, Grey Osterud explores the flexible and varied ways that families shared labor and highlights the strategies of mutuality that women adopted to ensure they had a say in family decision making. Sharing and exchanging work also linked neighboring households and knit the community together. Indeed, the culture of cooperation that women espoused laid the basis for the formation of cooperatives that enabled these dairy farmers to contest the power of agribusiness and obtain better returns for their labor. Osterud recounts this story through the words of the women and men who lived it and carefully explores their views about gender, labor, and power, which offered an alternative to the ideas that prevailed in American society.

Most women saw "putting the barn before the house"—investing capital and labor in productive operations rather than spending money on consumer goods or devoting time to mere housework—as a necessary and rational course for families who were determined to make a living on the land and, if possible, to pass on viable farms to the next generation. Some women preferred working outdoors to what seemed to them the thankless tasks of urban housewives, while others worked off the farm to support the family. Husbands and wives, as well as parents and children, debated what was best and negotiated over how to allocate their limited labor and capital and plan for an uncertain future. Osterud tells the story of an agricultural community in transition amid an industrializing age with care and skill.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Putting the Barn Before the House features the voices and viewpoints of women born before World War I who lived on family farms in south-central New York. As she did in her previous book, Bonds of Community, for an earlier period in history, Grey Osterud explores the flexible and varied ways that families shared labor and highlights the strategies of mutuality that women adopted to ensure they had a say in family decision making. Sharing and exchanging work also linked neighboring households and knit the community together. Indeed, the culture of cooperation that women espoused laid the basis for the formation of cooperatives that enabled these dairy farmers to contest the power of agribusiness and obtain better returns for their labor. Osterud recounts this story through the words of the women and men who lived it and carefully explores their views about gender, labor, and power, which offered an alternative to the ideas that prevailed in American society.

Most women saw "putting the barn before the house"—investing capital and labor in productive operations rather than spending money on consumer goods or devoting time to mere housework—as a necessary and rational course for families who were determined to make a living on the land and, if possible, to pass on viable farms to the next generation. Some women preferred working outdoors to what seemed to them the thankless tasks of urban housewives, while others worked off the farm to support the family. Husbands and wives, as well as parents and children, debated what was best and negotiated over how to allocate their limited labor and capital and plan for an uncertain future. Osterud tells the story of an agricultural community in transition amid an industrializing age with care and skill.

More books from Cornell University Press

Cover of the book What Universities Can Be by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Stagestruck by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Raptors by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Stories of the Soviet Experience by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Confronting Dystopia by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Buoyancy on the Bayou by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted" by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Mr. X and the Pacific by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book The Expense of Spirit by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Erotic Exchanges by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Invisible Weapons by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book A Living Wage by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book The Impossible Border by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Spheres of Intervention by Grey Osterud
Cover of the book Anthropologies of Unemployment by Grey Osterud
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy