As stated at the beginning of the semester, about 80 percent of the American labor force was employed in agriculture at the start of the 19th Century. Even at the time of the Civil War, about 55 percent of the US labor force was still in agriculture. The country would not shift from being mainly agrarian to mainly industrial and commercial until after the Civil War. The 1870s and 1880s witnessed the rise of big business and the first truly giant corporations: the major railroads. For the period we are concerned with though, this is a good 50 years off.

Preparing the Field

The first job in field preparation was to plough the fields twice: once quite a bit before planting and once more immediately before you planted. The goal of cultivation was to break the soil first, and then plough under all the weeds that sprouted to ensure your crops didn't have to fight them for survival.

Pictured here is a Carey Plow used in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries in New England and the Mid-Atlantic regions. To give you an idea of how far behind mechanically Southern agriculture was, this type of plow was still in use in the South from the 1820s to the Civil War after the North developed better plows. The third wire from the left points at the share, the metal (iron at first, then steel) blade that cut the ground as the plough was pulled by horses or oxen. The leftmost wire points at the mouldboard, which dumped the dug up soil off to the side, leaving you with a trench on the left and a mound on the right.

On the left is an A Harrow, dragged behind a horse or oxen team to tear up weeds on the surface of the soil. On the right is a team drawn roller you might use to pack in loose sandy soils. The A Harrow design pictured here was in use in some places all the way up to the 20th Century.

Cotton

This is a cotton plant growing in the botanical gardens off to the side of the US Capitol in Washington, DC. (If you're facing the statue of US Grant, look off to the right to find it.) On the lower part of the plant, you can see some buds of cotton both open and closed.

From the Museum of American History, this is a Whitney cotton gin patented 03/14/1794 used to clean out the seeds from cotton fibers. Yes, that's a cotton gin you see being used on the cover of Wright's book.

Harvesting Wheat

As you can see in the picture next to the wooden grain cradle, this was used like a big scythe (think Grim Reaper) to cut grain. Like a scythe, you hold the long end with your left hand and grip the short nightstick-like handle with your right hand for control and swing.

This is a Whiteley Self-Rake Reaper from 1877. The wheel assembly on which the whole contraption rolls along is hooked up to the teethed blades at the front of the wooden platform as well as the big spinning arms. As the reaper rolls along, the teeth cut the grain at the base of the stalk while the arms spin and whack the top of the grain, knocking it down and sweeping it onto the ground behind where the farmer is sitting (see that seat on the left behind the sweeping arms?).

Reapers, whether handheld or mechanized, were followed by shockers (Ever wondered what the Wichita State Shockers were named after?) who gathered the cut wheat sheaves. The shockers would then tie the sheaves into bundles to dry in the fields before being threshed. Lots of times in pictures or paintings these tied up bundles can be seen in harvested fields.