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Fostering on the Farm
Child Placement in the Rural Midwest
By Megan Birk UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-252-09729-4
CHAPTER 1
The Rural Ideal
Constructing a Myth
"Say what you will about the general usefulness of boys, it is my impression that a farm without a boy would very soon come to grief. What the boy does is the life of the farm."
—Home Life for Childhood (October 1923): 4, RJDL
Children gauged their experiences on placement farms in different ways. Some became giddy with the prospect of kittens and chickens, or interested when the oats, corn, and wheat were planted. Many wrote back to the institution with summaries of their new lives. A boy from the Michigan State Public School reported, "I have got a potato patch of my own to sell and buy me a Sunday suit ... I had a patch of popcorn, but I planted it so deep it never came up. I don't go to school. I went a month and half last winter. I will commence as soon as the work is done and go all winter. I like farming real well ... we have our harvesting all done now. The crops all look nice." He helped the farm and the farm helped him.
A boy might represent the life of the farm, but during the second half of the nineteenth century the farm also meant a chance at a new life for the boy or girl. Children placed on farms were expected to learn the dignity of labor and skills to support themselves as adults. In addition to these skills, farm families could also provide children a "normal" family life consisting of parents, school, religious services, and healthy work. The dilemma of a failed row of popcorn contrasted sharply with imagery of children covered in industrial soot from a hard day of factory toil. Fretting about deeply planted seeds also contradicted the conditions of those living in the confines of a county poor farm, surrounded by sick and impoverished adults, or children crammed together in institutions. The farm was the foil to these negative scenarios. Conditions inside institutions prompted one reformer to refer to the poor farm as the "great nursery of pauperism and crime." The servile, dirty, and charity-dependent child would, it was assumed, grow up to be a drain on society, continuing the problem of dependency into further generations. For child welfare workers, the worry about systemic dependency and a belief in environmental determinism encouraged them to embrace the reputation of the farm as a place of normalcy to raise and educate children. The commonly held idea that farm families represented the best of American life significantly influenced the development of placing out.
The notion that any farm was better for a child than an institution developed as a result of the American mythology that glorified agriculturalists. This myth influenced child welfare policy by encouraging farms as part of institutions, locating institutions in rural settings, and, most important, relying on farmers to provide homes for dependent children. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Midwest, which was often lauded for its boring normalness. As historians of the region like Andrew Cayton have pointed out, the region, while sometimes the most challenging to label with regional identifiers, has long had a reputation for niceness. This nice, normal, rural background made it the most popular place to find farm placement homes for children. Government officials and charity workers believed in the abilities of Midwestern rural residents to help care for dependent children because their assumed good moral natures allowed them to accept these children as part of their family and teach them positive values. There is no single child welfare policy that unifies the region; rather, its appeal as a location full of placement homes in waiting made it different from any other region in the nation. Solicitations seeking farm homes for children linked the positives of farm placement to the needs of dependent children:
I have today about 120 boys and 54 girls that are almost entirely dependent on the farmers for homes, and I am happy to say we get the best results from those who go out to be farmers ... All are anxious to get out into farm homes. If you ask for a boy to pick up stones, drop corn, or to do chores of any kind, the whole 120 want to go, and you can see how eager these little souls are to be busy. Why don't some of our intelligent farmers write to me ... I want families that will make good, moral, and industrious men out of these boys.
This reliance on a farm setting contrasted other types of child labor in its efforts to create what anthropologist Dorinda Welle refers to as "'industrious,' rather than 'industrial,'" children. They supported the notion that "the well-regulated rural family, fits for life in a more complete sense than the ordinary institution does." To give children these positive influences, hundreds of workers from institutions and associations fanned out across the Midwest undertaking the job of placement based on their understanding of a rural ideal.
The perpetuation of rural America as the foundation of democratic principles grew in popularity after the Civil War when urban growth, industrialization, and immigration all increased. The idolatry of American farmers was further reinforced as the federal government opened new land for Homesteaders to spread yeomanry to the plains and beyond; farmers would civilize the West. Other policies demonstrating a federal deference to farming included the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 that expected farming by Native Americans, the Hatch Act also from 1887 that expanded the Department of Agriculture, and the Kinkaid Amendment of 1904 that expanded acreage of the Homestead Act. The focus on the farm as a provider of care for children reflected larger conceptualizations of the American rural myth. The agricultural lifestyle represented the ideal for many Americans, particularly during the late nineteenth century as more people moved away from land ownership; rural people embodied the self-sufficient egalitarian tradition held up as a foundational principle of American government. From the first decades of the country's founding, when Crevecoeur recalled seeing "wives and children ... now fat and frolicsome, gladly help their father to clear those fields whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed and clothe them all," people associated the farm lifestyle with prosperity and vigor. Simply getting children into a rural setting, at a time when rural areas shared community and economy with agriculture, might help them achieve higher standing. Placement into farm homes was a way to indoctrinate dependent children into the American work ethos through productive labor and supported the stereotype that rural people embodied special virtues.
Constructing the Rural Ideal
Thomas Jefferson became perhaps the most famous promoter of the small family farm and the notion that what farmers lacked in material possessions they made up for in morality. Jefferson linked agrarianism with citizenship by arguing that the ownership of a small farm helped families appreciate their liberties and continue to work as independent economic units. Additionally, he believed that farming served as a source of "human virtues and traits most congenial to popular self-government." He continued, "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds." Those seeking to transform dependent children into productive citizens adopted his ideas joining farming and self-sufficiency. Antebellum agricultural reformers embraced not just Jefferson but George Washington as well, further strengthening the bond between farmers and the foundations of American self-governance. Historian Richard Hofstadter reinforces this notion when he links both the moral and the physical health of yeoman farmers to American civic virtue. In this light, farm parents served as providers, protectors, and moral discipliners for a class of children who desperately needed such examples to block the influence of poverty and vice, whether it came from their own families or from the institutions where they lived. Those who placed children on farms did not simply do so as a nostalgic recognition of American traditionalism; they saw farm training for dependent children as an affordable and useful avenue to self-sufficiency.
Historian David Danbom classifies two types of agrarian myths popular in the late nineteenth century: rational and romantic. The rational agrarian myth repeated stories about hard work and self-sufficiency, while romantic mythology sought to celebrate the morality and spiritual benefits of a rural environment. Both types were used to support the placement of children onto farms. Dependent children were thought to need lessons to develop a work ethic as well as the steady, moral teachings of farm people to take the place of lessons not learned from their own parents. The farm could also help erase the stigma of pauperism. Rural residents—and farmers specifically—were selected to help dependent children because of long-standing beliefs about the good moral natures of farmers and their storied place in the formation of American democracy. According to Hofstadter, "The yeoman, who owned a small farm and worked it with the aid of his family, was the incarnation of the simple, honest, independent, healthy, happy human being. Because he lived in close communication with the beneficent nature, his life was believed to have a wholesomeness and integrity impossible for the depraved populations of cities." Giving this wholesome environment to dependent children came in exchange for their labor on the farm.
Jeffersonian enthusiasts were not alone in their appreciation of farm life; popular culture also took up the practice of celebrating simple rural life. Fiction writers enjoyed success linking Midwestern rural images of fine farms, open spaces, and fresh air to the needs of children. Some of these accounts specifically discussed conditions for placement children. Indiana native James Whitcomb Riley introduced his legendary orphan character, Annie—based on a dependent child who lived in his own childhood home during the Civil War: "Little orphan Annie's come to our house to stay, / an' wash the cups and saucers up an' brush the crumbs away, / An' shoo the chickens off the porch an' dust the hearth an' sweep, / An' make the fire an' bake the bread an' earn her board and keep." During this time the Riley family owned both a farm and a home in town, and the real-life Annie, a girl named Mary Alice, did tasks for the household as would be expected of most placed-out children. Riley held no illusions about why Annie lived with his family; she was there to work. Other popular tales of placed-out children happily working on placement farms include Kate Douglas Wiggins's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which featured an energetic orphan well-placed in the country, where her abundance of energy could be appreciated and directed properly, and Anne of Green Gables (although Canadian), the story of a girl accepted into her rural placement home despite the family's request for a boy who could provide labor.
Other less well-known fictional placement children taught adults important lessons about piety. Abby Blake, the heroine of C. E. Bowen's Bound Out at Farm Service, arrived at her placement farm to find herself working for a couple who spoiled their biological child and regularly missed church services; they were not the archetype for the rural ideal. Even when the wife cuts off Abby's prized braids, the orphan reminds herself of the good fortune of her placement and how the lessons she learned at the orphanage helped her serve this family. In the end, Abby single-handedly taught the spoiled child to read the Bible and brought the entire family back into a faith-based lifestyle. This character embodied the belief that any farm placement provided children with an opportunity to better themselves and others. Edmund Morris's Farming for Boys told the tale of one young orphan educated alongside a farmer's biological sons so that he might appreciate how hard work ensured success. This story epitomized one of the goals of rural placement: dependent children should learn to earn their keep because they always needed to work harder than others to succeed. None of them could count on family connections so their success would need to be earned. Other authors such as Willa Cather celebrated farm life even as her characters struggled under the yoke of hard work and geographic isolation before finding salvation in the fresh air and constant labor.
This type of morality tale was repeated in farm journals and circulating publications. The Ohio Farmer published stories meant to inspire children to hard work and honesty, sometimes through poor-orphan-turned-successful-adult narratives. In one recounting, a boy living with a farmer is tested with a fifty-cent piece left on the floor, and after he dutifully returns it, an uncle appears to whisk him away to California and the farmer is left feeling justified in his testing of the young boy's integrity. Author of The Child, Herbert Collingsworth, used his own experience as a placement parent as the basis for a successful book and syndicated columns. Having failed once at farming, Collingsworth tried again after he and his wife accepted a young man who arrived at their home having been rejected by a local farmer because of a bad arm, which rendered him unable to do enough work. After taking in this child, the Collingsworths took in six more children and moved onto a small farm where the children could participate in the garden produce business and reap small profits for their efforts. Thanks to the popularity of his books, Collingsworth weighed in on the importance of balancing work and affection in placements: "One farmer will take a boy or girl and work them until there is no vitality left. Another will heap kindness until the youngster grows up spoiled ... Either case is a tragedy." The story of the Hope Farm and the Collingsworth family appeared to be an ideal pairing of dependent children and rural benefits.
Other authors used imagery and metaphor to connect children to the land. By comparing children to agricultural products, botanist Luther Burbank gave additional reinforcement to children's advocates who wanted to place children in the countryside. Burbank compared children and plants in this way: "A child absorbs the environment. It is the most susceptible thing in the world to influence, and if that force be applied rightly and constantly when the child is in its most receptive condition, the effect will be pronounced, immediate, and permanent ... Rightly cultivated these children may be made a blessing to the race, trained in the wrong way ... they will become a curse to the State." One Michigan woman took the metaphor further when she compared farm boys to a hardy stock of thoroughbred turkeys as she proffered advice on their proper raising, citing the importance of farm boys as "genuine American bred" and the "best American stock." The overwhelmingly positive portrayals of children and the benefits derived from rural life reinforced American mythology and encouraged the notion that farm placement served a greater good for all interested parties.
In addition to the written word extolling the value of the farm experience, paintings and illustrations in publications such as Harper's Weekly lauded the pastoral imagery of quaint family-based production. Religious leaders like Protestant theologian Arthur Holt spoke of his "vision of a just society ...: only the small community could maintain the intimacy of primary relationships, direct communications, minor class distinctions, identification of self-interest with the public interest, and widespread community participation." These impressions of rural life convinced people that the best way to prepare dependent children for a successful future was to place them in the middle of a "just society."
However, other authors demonstrated a familiarity with the more difficult aspects of farm life, particularly as it related to children. For example, in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck claimed to be on the run from a bad placement with a cruel farmer. Other interpretations, such as those by Hamlin Garland, focused on the brutality of farm life. Garland gained a reputation for his expressions of rural misery and criticized other writers who "omit the mud and the dust and the grime, they forget the army worm, the flies, the heat, as well as the smells and drudgery of the barns ... Milking the cows is spoken of in the traditional fashion as a lovely pastoral recreation, when as a matter of fact it is a tedious job ... We hated it in the summer when the mosquitoes bit and the cows slashed with their tails, and we hated it still more in the winter time when they stood in crowded malodorous stalls." In Son of the Middle Border, Garland described a return trip to the Midwest, where he rectified his softened memories with the harsh reality of conditions for farm families. As he described it, "All the gilding of farm life melted away ... no splendor of cloud no grace of sunset could conceal the poverty of these people, on the contrary they brought out ... the gracelessness of these homes and the sordid quality of the mechanical daily routine of these lives."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Fostering on the Farm by Megan Birk. Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS.
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