Farming and Rural Life
Although Native Americans have farmed in Wisconsin since the Woodland Period (about 3,000 years ago), the European settlers who arrived in the 19th century were not at first drawn to farming. Instead the lure of underground mineral wealth attracted the first few thousand settlers to the lead region of southwest Wisconsin in the 1820s. Everything began to change in the 1830s when government surveyors began laying out townships and making detailed examinations of the Wisconsin landscape. Armed with copies of the surveyors' notes, land seekers and speculators began to purchase land from government land offices, paving the way for Wisconsin's... more...
Original Documents and Other Primary Sources
| Juliet Severance argues for farm women's education, 1886 |
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| Farming developments in Sauk County (1917) |
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| An overview of Wisconsin agriculture in 1909 |
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| A Sauk Co. farmer recalls turning from wheat to dairy in the 1850s. |
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| A Made-to-Order Farm to lure settlers northward, 1921 |
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| An Immigrant Who Became a Northwoods Missionary |
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| The early days of commercial cranberry growing in Wisconsin. |
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| A man recalls his years on a hop farm in Sauk County |
| A gas powered tractor for small-scale farmers |
| Three new flour mills open in Superior in 1893 |
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| An 1888 milling catalogue from the Allis Company |
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| A post-season report on farm laborers, 1960 |
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| Folklore and folktales collected by Charles E. Brown |
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| A pamphlet on farming in Northern Wisconsin, 1904 |
| Advertisements for farm equipment |
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| Photographs of cranberry harvesting, 1895-1977. |
| Ma Ingalls describes family life in 1861 |
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| "Aunt Nellie" offers advice to farm women, 1912-1918 |
| Stonefield, home of Gov. Nelson Dewey and the State Agricultural Museum |
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| Tobacco farming takes off in southern Wisconsin |
Primary Sources Available Elsewhere
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| The tendency of youth to leave farm life, 1898 |
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| A survey of Wisconsin's agricultural history, 1922 |
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| A look at Wisconsin's farm cooperatives |
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| Wisconsin Blue Books |
| Explore farming and rural life in Wisconsin |
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| Giant crops from Wisconsin's fertile soil, 1911-1917 |
Related Links
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