OPPORTUNITIES FOR FARM WOMEN
While rural life is often supposed to be fatally deficient in facilities
for growth because of its isolation, the women living on our farms are
thought to be the especial victims of this lack of social opportunity.
No doubt there is much of truth in the popular opinion. Modern city life
unquestionably tends to enliven, to sharpen, to put a razor-edge on
capacity. Naturally the women as well as the men of the city are thus
stimulated. An instance of the opportunities constantly presented to the
city women is the rapid multiplication of women's clubs, which,
especially in smaller towns, are absolutely revolutionizing the life of
womankind. But have not the women of the country some resources of a
similar character? Can they not in some way break the bonds of
isolation? Are there not for them some of the blessings that come from a
highly organized society? Are there not, in the country also,
opportunities for the co-operation of mind and heart for common service?
I think all these questions can be answered in the affirmative. It is
at least worth while to endeavor to describe several means by which the
woman of the farm can keep pace with her urban sister, and under
conditions not so discouraging as many may suppose.
Probably no movement has had such a profound significance for the farm
women of America as has the Grange movement. We have already discussed
the general aspects of Grange work. It must be remembered that the
farmer's wife is practically equal with her husband in Grange law and
practice. She votes, she may hold office, even the higher executive
offices. A delegate to the State Grange is always two--a man and his
wife if he has one. The wife serves on committees and votes as she
pleases. This equality extends throughout the order. The woman bears her
share of work; she reads papers; she directs the social phases of the
Grange; she talks on farm topics if she wants to; she debates school
affairs; she visits neighboring Granges. All this means education, and
education of a very valuable sort, the effects of which permeate so
thoroughly those communities where the Grange has long been established
that one hardly realizes the work that has been accomplished. For it is
not at all an exaggeration to assert that a positive revolution often
comes about from the planting of a Grange in a neighborhood where no
such organization has ever existed. It finds most of the women
diffident, many of them with restricted views, few of them with the
instinct for social service developed beyond the needs of friendly
neighbors. In the Grange these women find new acquaintances, learn the
power of concerted action, meet the responsibility of office, get to
their feet for a few words--unheard-of courage! Such speech is usually
brief and perhaps not ready, but it is likely to be cogent, because it
is born of experience and "stops when through." County and perhaps State
Granges add their experiences. And so on through the years these shy,
reserved, possibly narrow, lives come to flower. And the Grange has
furnished the dynamic. Strong leaders among farm women have been
developed by the opportunities the Grange has afforded them. And
thousands of other women in all parts of the country have by this same
means grown out of their narrowness, "discovered themselves," and become
comparatively cultured, well read, able to take a woman's place in this
day of woman's power as a public factor. It is safe to say that the
Grange has been the greatest single influence in America with respect to
the development of the women of the farm.
Another factor in the life of farm women which has arisen in more recent
years is the farmers' institute. The audiences in some cases are largely
of men, but as a rule the attendance of women averages one-third to
one-half. Until very recent years the women joined with the men in all
sessions of the institute, and their presence was recognized by
appropriate subjects on the programme, frequently presented by women
themselves. Several years ago Minnesota and Wisconsin initiated separate
meetings for women, held simultaneously with the main meeting, for
purposes of instruction in domestic science. Michigan, a little later,
developed the "women's section" of the farmers' institute. This is held
one afternoon of the usual two-day session of the institute in a hall
separate from the general meeting, and only women attend. Two topics are
presented for discussion, one by a woman sent by the state, the other by
a woman from the town or a neighboring farm. Topics concerning
child-training, making housework easier, home life on the farm, and even
themes relating to the problems that center about the sex question, are
thoroughly discussed. Women take part much more freely than they do in
the general sessions of the institute. Across the border, in Ontario,
the women have formed separate institutes, as they have also in Indiana.
All this means a new opportunity for the farm woman. The Grange is an
organization, and its members gain all the development that comes from
engaging in the work required to maintain a semi-literary and social
organization. The institute, on the other hand, is an event, and there
cluster about it all the inspiration and suggestion that can come from
any notable convention for which one will sacrifice not a little in
order to attend. Institute work for women is in its beginnings.
So far we have found that existing institutions for women in rural
districts bring together merely the women of the farm. In the women's
section of the institutes half the audience is usually from the town.
This meeting occurs, however, but once a year, and the social effect of
the commingling of city and farm women can prove only suggestive of the
desirability of further opportunity for similar gatherings. At a
Michigan institute some years ago this desire fructified, and the
product was a "Town and Country Club." This club secured a majority of
its membership, of some ninety, from among women residing on farms. Its
meetings are bi-weekly. It is to be hoped that this sort of club may be
organized in large numbers. It represents another step in the
emancipation of the farm woman, because it brings her into contact with
her city sister--and contact that is immediate, vital, inspiring,
continuous, and mutually helpful. It may be thought unnecessary to form
a new set of clubs for the purpose indicated, but the fact seems to be
that the ordinary women's club even in small towns has failed to reach
the woman who makes her home upon the farm.
Another feature of this idea of the Town and Country Club is the "rest
room" for farmers' wives. In a number of cases where this has been
tried, the women of the village or town provide a room as near the
shopping center of the town as possible, where the country women can
find a place to rest, to lunch, and to leave their children. These rooms
are fitted up in a neat but inexpensive manner with the necessary
conveniences, and are entirely free to those for whom they were
intended. If these rooms are well managed, they offer not only a very
practical form of assistance to the women of the farm, but they may be
the means of developing a form of co-operation between the women of the
village and the farm, and eventually leading to some permanent scheme of
mutual work. Possibilities of this sort of thing are easily recognized.
In the realms of higher education the girl who is to stay upon the farm
has not been wholly neglected. In Kansas, Iowa, Connecticut, Illinois,
Ohio, and Michigan, at least, and in connection with the agricultural
colleges of those states, courses for women (including domestic science)
have been provided. They are well patronized by girls from the farm.
Many of these girls do not marry farmers; many of them do. And their
college training having thus been secured in an atmosphere more or less
agricultural, they must inevitably take rank among their sisters of the
farm as leaders in demonstrating what farm life for women may be.
Nor should it be forgotten that the tremendous movement of recent years
which has so multiplied standard reading-matter, both periodicals and
books, has reached the farm. A census of country post-offices will
reveal the fact that the standard magazines go regularly to thousands
of farm homes. Agricultural papers, religious papers, and even dailies
find multitudes of intelligent readers among farmers.
With the advent of better highways, electric car lines, rural free
delivery, and the rural telephone, each of which is looming on the
horizon as an important feature of American farm life; with the Grange
or similar organization in every school district; with the development
of courses for women at all our colleges of agriculture, and the logical
complement of such courses in the form of college extension--farmers'
institutes, reading-courses, traveling libraries, lecture and
correspondence courses--we shall find farm life taking on a new dress,
and perhaps farmers' wives may come to enjoy the envy of those women who
are unfortunate enough not to have married farmers.