Seeing the Details, Part 2

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

After writing my last blog post titled "Seeing the Details" about a 19th-century photograph in the Plowline: Images of Rural New York Collection, I received an email from Steve Kellogg, Supervisor at the Field Blacksmith Shop at The Farmers' Museum. The email was very enlightening and conveyed some great information regarding pressed hay in the 19th century that I thought I would share with you.

Detail, 19^th Century Farm Scene, 1880-1890, by W.H. Bell, F0003.2011.  Plowline: Image of Rural New York.  The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

As it turns out the two "sleds" that I noted in the foreground (seen in the detail above) are the "bobs" to a farm bobsled. Steve notes in his email that the bobsleds were used in winter for farm hauling and, in this case, were probably used to haul pressed hay.

Most notable from his email is the following information, which really sheds some light on why farmers in the image were pressing hay in the winter months: 

"The hay was cut in mid-summer and had been in the barn for months. Why are they baling it when it clearly was already stored in the haymow loose? Judging by the A-frame, chain, and hay hook the baled hay is very hard to move by hand."

Detail, 19^th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

Steve also notes the following about how the pressed hay was used:

"You pressed the hay to ship it by Canal or Train to NYC. Rectangular bales fit efficiently into a rail car. New York City had a lot of livestock, and a voracious appetite for good hay in midwinter. You would make more money selling it in winter than you could selling it in the summer. Therefore pressed hay was an excellent crop to sell in midwinter. The photo not only documents the farm family using expensive equipment, but also producing a high-value export at the same time."

I found this information very helpful in explaining why this type of work would be done in winter as opposed to summer, and I hope you find it an interesting comment on hay pressing and sales in the late 19th century as well.

Many thanks to Steve Kellogg - who also has a blog - for the follow-up email and information!

Seeing the Details

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

19th Century Farm Scene, 1880-1890, by W.H. Bell, F0003.2011.  Plowline: Image of Rural New York.  The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Recently, I used the photograph above with a group of students to discuss looking at agricultural photographs. It proved to be a fruitful and valuable discussion, better than I could have hoped for. Before the session I had spent quite some time looking at this photograph, discovering the details and thinking about the purpose and background of this 19th century image. Here I will discuss a little bit about what I discovered through looking closely at the details and a little research.

When we added this image to the Plowline: Images of Rural New York Collection last January, I thought I had created a fairly comprehensive description.  It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago, that I found there was a lot more to learn about this photograph.  Let’s take a look!

What do you notice first when you look at the photograph? I noticed the barn, five men, the stack of loose hay, the hay on the wagon that the two men stand on, the team of horses and the sleigh. Those seem to be the main features of the photograph for me. When looking a little closer, I noticed there are two sleds turned upside down in the foreground; bales of hay and of course, snow. Here’s what I didn’t notice or think too much about until I was preparing for the class last month. 

As I was thinking about this photo one night at home, I thought “wait, how did they make those hay bales in the photo?” That thought led me to wonder when the hay baler was invented.

Detail, 19th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

I came into work the next morning and immediately took out the photo. I looked closely at the “wagon” of loose hay the two men are standing on and realized that THAT was how they made those hay bales.

Detail, 19th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

It wasn’t a wagon at all. I immediately started researching when the hay baler was invented, and found that the predecessor to the baler (a term coined in the 1920s or 1930s) was a “hay press” and it was invented around 1870. That was a fairly new machine the men were using. There were different types –horse powered and another type that was invented in 1881 which was controlled by a pressure gauge. I am still not sure which type this is as it is difficult to discern what is in the faded recess behind the hay press, horses and men. It could be the pressure gauge press, but there are also clues that this may be a horse powered press.

This led me to thinking more about something else I had researched when the photo came to us - that prominent sleigh so nicely placed in the foreground.  It looks like a very nice sleigh and with a little research; I discovered it’s a VERY nice sleigh.  The sleigh is an “Albany Cutter.” Not only is it an Albany Cutter, but it’s a four seat Cutter! This was the primo sleigh of the time period. It was the “Cadillac” of the day. Upon further research, I learned that just as cars are updated from year to year, so was the cutter. Paint features upon it let people would know approximately when a person purchased the sleigh. This was a very nice thing to own.

Detail, 19th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

These two objects led me to question: why there was such a nice sleigh and hay press with loose hay upon it (not to mention all the other hay and bales we see) outside in the winter? What was the purpose of this photo? The more I looked at the photo and thought about these details the more I realized that this was not a photograph taken by a photographer who just happened by this nice farm scene during a leisurely drive in the county. This was a photo to show prominence, ownership, success. The nice sleigh, the newly-invented hay press, all that hay suggesting a fair amount of land was owned, the strong team of horses - all these show that the farmers were doing pretty well for themselves at the time and they wanted to have a record to show it. Of course, with all these things discovered – I still have a multitude of questions about what I don’t see in the photo or have knowledge of. What type of farm was this- gentleman or dairy, perhaps otherwise? What did the house look like? Who ARE all these men in the photograph? Where exactly was this farm in Cortland County, New York? When was that barn built? How much land was part of the farm? Did they lumber, sugar, ice harvest in the winter and spring months (maybe that’s what they are alluding to with those two small upside-down sledges)?

When we look closely and think about the details in a photograph, the purpose of the photograph, the photographer’s and subject’s intent, and what we DON’T see in the photo we can learn a lot more than we initially might from a simple quick glance. It can be quite a rewarding experience.

“Thrashin’ Day”

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York


Recently The Farmers’ Museum purchased three photographs for the Plowline: Images of Rural New York collection which really piqued my interest. The photographs show threshing equipment and the process - something I knew nothing about until these photographs entered my office. As it turns out it is quite a fascinating and somewhat complicated subject. Threshing machines made of wood were used as far back as the Civil War. The greatest advances to the machines took place in the latter part of the 19th century when J.I. Case, the Masseys and McCormick & Deering starting producing and selling the giant machines like those we see in these photographs. Most threshers and threshing companies were located in the “western” part of the country (not necessarily what we think of the West now, however), as that is where the large grain farms were located. However, I was surprised to learn that the thresher in one of the photographs was manufactured by the Pioneer Company, out of Shortsville, New York, located in Ontario County.

Hart Parr Tractor and Pioneer Thresher, by unidentified photographer, 1931, F0017.2011(01). Plowline: Images of Rural New York. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

 Threshing was a large and costly job in which an entire year’s crop was put through the machine in one day. Since the machines took a large capital investment, they were acquired in three different ways. Generally one or two local farmers who owned a machine would assist all the local farmers with the duty of threshing grain and those local farmers would pay the owner(s) a fee for use. Sometimes the neighborhood or town farmers went in together and purchased the thresher, all owning a portion of the equipment (and upkeep). This meant that literally the entire community would help thresh everyone’s crop. Neighborhood threshing was the norm. In the west, custom threshing crews were assembled to run the engine and thresher and the farmer provided the rest of the crew from the neighborhood. The custom threshing crews traveled from farm to farm with the machine, from south to north helping each farmer process his annual crop. The threshing crews were quite large as well, requiring up to twenty to twenty-five men to harvest and transport the crop from the field and to storage, run the machines, pitch the grain into the thresher, bag the grain and heave the straw in a pile or on a wagon, as well as other jobs dependent of the time period. The process of threshing can be seen in the two Plowline photos below.

W.E. Vile’s Thresher and Oliver Tractor, by unidentified photographer, 1930-1940, F0017.2011(02). Plowline: Images of Rural New York. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Threshing, by unidentified photographer, 1942, F0017.2011(03).  Plowline: Images of Rural New York. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Another aspect of “Thrashin’ Day” was the community dinner that was served by the farmer’s wife and daughters for whom the work was being done.  This small group of women would cook up a meal for the large group of men and boys completing the job. It was an effort that the women and girls took great pride in (and served as an act of competition among the women as well). The meal preparation started at or before the break of dawn, if not the day before. The meal consisted of sweet summertime drinks, many kinds of roasted meats, vegetables from the farm, fresh baked breads, and an assortment of freshly baked fruit pies, cakes and cookies. As you might assume, the farmer whose wife was an excellent cook and baker had no problem recruiting help the next time he needed it.

Threshing machines vastly increased productivity and the prosperity of the farmer within a few short years by allowing him to expand his crop and harvest.  When using hand tools such as a sickle less than an acre could be harvested per day, the scythe increased this four-fold. (Threshing was then left for the winter months,) With the threshing machine a farmer could process his entire crop in one day with a suitable sized team, and the entire job was complete. 

Plowline: Images of Rural New York

By: Erin Richardson, Curator

Today, The Farmers' Museum launches a new collecting initiative. This Farmers' Museum project is possible through generous support of the Gipson Family.  Plowline: Images of Rural New York will acquire original photographic works that document changes in rural life, farm families and agricultural practice for the history of photography - from the 1840s through the present. The collection is not limited by photographic format - daguerreotypes, tintypes, 35mm slide shows, real photo postcards, home movies, and born-digital works can all be part of the collection. 

Dante Tranquille. Horses in a field near West Winfield, NY. May 11, 1955. Museum Purchase.

 Dante Tranquille. Potato Harvest, probably Herkimer County, NY. October 16, 1968. Museum Purchase.

Why are we starting to collect photography now?  That is a complicated question.  The Farmers' Museum has a few photographs already, but it has never been a focus of our collecting activities.  In case you haven't noticed, farm equipment has gotten progressively larger over the decades. When the museum was founded in 1942, the curators were collecting plows and harrows. Those pieces of equipment, while bulky, can be easily stored and moved around by one person.  Today, tractors and automated equipment are very, very large and can be very difficult to house and care for (as most farmers today already experience with their own equipment).  Although we will still be selectively collecting 20th and 21st century agricultural tools and equipment, this new photography collection will allow us to more thoroughly document New York State agriculture.

Unidentified Photographer (Dezemo Family). $200 cow. George Dezemo and Myrtle.  Name Daisy. Walton, Orange County, NY, ca 1945. Museum Purchase.

The best part is that as acquisitions are made, they will be posted to the Plowline website. You can search or browse through the photographs. We've already collected nearly 1000 images this year in preparation for the launch. More than 500 are already available for browsing.

Unidentified Photographer (Cornell University, Department of Dairy Industry). Barns Exterior: Well located, Fairfield Dy. Co. ca 1910. Gift of Eric Hallstead.

If you have photographs in your family's collection, or think there is a collection out there we should know about, please contact me via phone (607)547-1521 or email: e.richardson@nysha.org. I would love to hear from you. And, if you are heading to The Farmers' Museum for Tractor Fest, stop by my tent and learn more about the collection.



2010 - Lift Off!

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

This year will mark my second full year as Curator at TFM. Since I arrived in May of 2008, I’ve been completing projects scheduled before I arrived, assessing what needs to be done and making priority lists for the future. This year, though, I feel more at home (partly due the house my fiancée and I purchased right in the Village of Cooperstown) more a part of the team, rather than the “new curator.” Here are a few things I’ll be working on in 2010: Historic Village

Pharmacy Restoration. Like Dr. Jackson’s Office last year, the Pharmacy will receive some TLC from the curatorial and facilities departments. We emptied the pharmacy of its collection objects, herbs and glassware to ready it for the plaster-repair crew to begin next week. This project is slightly less intense than Dr. Jackson’s office. The Pharmacy is just receiving an interior face-lift rather than a complete overhaul and new exhibition. Stay tuned for photographic updates! Bump Tavern: This is often considered to be the gem of our building collection at the museum. Bump was one of the first non-craft buildings to come to the museum (in 13 pieces!) and although it receives a lot of maintenance, it hasn’t had serious attention in about 10 years. In a multi-year project, Bump’s exhibition rooms will get a face lift, some new printed interpretation and new paint. Come out to see our newly polished gem Memorial Day weekend. New collection initiatives

Thanks to a very supportive donor, TFM will undertake two major collections projects in 2010.

The first is to create a new collection of rural photography that will document changes in agricultural practice and farm family life in Central New York from 1840 to the present. Think you have some photographs in your family’s collection that might fit into this new initiative? Stay tuned for further updates! Above: Dagerreotype of Patience Clark Armstrong, Plainfield Center, Otsego County, NY ca 1850-1875. The Farmers' Museum Collection, Museum Purchase, F0003.2006(02)

We’ll also be launching a new collections website, an on-line database, in conjunction with the New York State Historical Association Research Library. This new project will provide incredible access to many of our 20,000 objects with contextual information from the NYSHA Research Library’s collection. Over the next 12 months, you’ll be able to explore our collection of woodworking tools, for example, and also find related library materials like trade catalogs, cabinetmaker account books, business records and other manuscript material. I can’t wait for these exciting projects! Share