Those Days: An American Album (Richard Critchfield, 1986)

(419 pages)

I think I learned more about the day-to-day lives of my great grandparents and grandparents in this book than anywhere else. The author is a novelist who had the idea of writing up something of a family history - only he had the idea early enough to capture wonderful source materials from his grandparents and parents while they were still around, and his professional skill allowed him to put it together in book format that stayed interesting (one exception, below).

His parents' families were centered in Iowa and North Dakota, and most of the book's action ends up in North Dakota. But it mirrors (and greatly expands upon) so much of what I've heard about those generations in NW Iowa - details of farming; details of the way the households operated; activities in towns as those towns matured; all set against some pretty empty land that was filling up pretty quickly. Town baseball team. First car; first tractor. Threshing crews. Blizzards. Horses.

The author's father farmed for some years and the descriptions are great; then he was able to go to med school and he became the country doc.  Lots of descriptions here of making house calls, etc. The family moved into town so descriptions of that type of life.

The author's father developed a drinking problem and also was unfaithful to his marriage; for my taste, the author took too much time explaining all this, I didn't really care.  But it was an important factor in the family history, I suppose. 

This was a lucky find, much enjoyed.   

Death of the Dream - Farmhouses in the Heartland (William G. Gabler, 1999)

(128 pages)

Gift from my parents a couple decades back - I had seen it at their home and requested a copy. The book is based on a PBS series documenting (mostly through photos, though I've not seen the documentary) the types of homes built on prairie farms in late 19th century and on into the 20th century. This book is focused on south-southwest Minnesota and the homes look just like those common on the farms I grew up around in the 1960s.

Beautiful photography; evocative; sad - as happened with the home I grew up in and my grandparents' "house on the hill" - after no one lived there any more, the homes fell apart in a pretty consistent pattern. The photos in this book were taken when the homes were in this falling-apart condition.  We have similar photos of the two homes I mention ("house on the hill" being more similar in design to the SW Minnesota homes in this book). There are a few photos included of select homes in their "prime", with family members included.

Much enjoyed, including the 38-page text beginning chapter that provides good background on the arrival of the settlers and the construction of these homes.

I'm glad to own this.

Farmall Century 1923-2023 - The Evolution of Red Tractors in the Golden Age of International Harvester (Lee Klancher), 2023)

I very much enjoyed routine tractor work - whether in the field or driving the corn sheller from job to job - during my on-the-farm days - from the late 1960s through 1979.  But I definitely was not the gearhead type and remain not-knowledgeable about pretty much anything mechanical, including tractors.

Yet - my dad's 2022 death at age 93 and the subsequent auctioning of all of the farm goods triggered a higher degree of interest for this kind of thing, or nostalgia, or whatever it is.  I'm enjoying seeing various social media feeds and photos of old days tractors. (Dad owned Farmalls until a John Deere 4020 showed up later - so we supported Farmall.)

So I bought this book - thinking it was more of a coffee table item but it turns out that there also is a great deal of interesting history. Much enjoyed.

The foreword portion was captivating - it included a passage about farmers' proclivity for tinkering with their machines - dad certainly did this with the corn sheller, to the point where Charlie put together a mock patent office filing going through his innovations.

The early portion of the book is dedicated to the development of reapers and the like - tractors aren't even on the scene. This part is more interesting to me than lots of the later tractor detail - I never understood very well what was involved in the "threshing" crews that my parents and grandparents talked about; let alone the incredible amount of labor to get anything done during the phases prior to that.  It's easy to see how mechanization depopulated the rural areas.

McCormick family, competitors, reaper wars, early 20th century antitrust, lots of patent litigation, Rockefeller involvement, branding, educating consumers.

Interesting characters - including a John Steward wounded at Vicksburg, started out with John Wesley Powell's second Grand Canyon expedition (1871). Abraham Lincoln hired one of the attorneys involved in the reaper patent litigation for some of his own matters.  

Later hiring a consumer goods artist to design the attractive "letter series" Farmalls - these were the Ms and Super Ms that we were familiar with (followed by the "number series" tractors, such as our 400 diesel). Now that I think about it and see the photos - the design was pretty cool! Designer even put together art-deco type (or was it midcentury modern?) dealership buildings, a few of which have survived.

Replacing horses - early tractors with not much more power than a couple horses. A huge market.

Steam, kerosene, gasoline, diesel, etc.

Lots of pulley work in the early going.  Development of the PTO (something I took for granted).

Did not realize how many Fordson tractors were sold through Ford - it was a great little machine, sold at a low price and a genuine threat to IH (though priced so low that this probably contributed to Ford shifting away from it).

Eventually we get to the F-20, M and then the larger tractors.

I had no idea how much IH was involved in WWII.

Great photography throughout - this will sit on the coffee table for easy access.

The Rural Life (Verlyn Klinkenborg, 2003)

This is a collection of essays that were published elsewhere - broken up into monthly segments.

I liked it well enough, but it turns out that most of the stories are set on the author's farm in upstate New York.  (He grew up in Iowa and has memories there that overlap with mine, but very little of that in this book. Unfortunately.)

Mostly this helps remind one to be attentive to one's surroundings - he does a great job with that.