A Good Day's Work: An Iowa Farm in the Great Depression

Dwight W. Hoover describes his boyhood on a 100-acre Iowa family farm in the 1930s. I grew up on a 100-acre dairy farm in Wisconsin a few years later, and to some extent his account resonated with me. Our family, like his, tried and failed to come to grips with the "get big or get out" realities of American agriculture. The Iowa Highway Commission delivered a major blow with its decision to "construct a state highway through my father's farm," destroying the family's orchard. Our family, like his, moved from horse power (mule power in our case) to tractors. It was important to grow more cash crops and re-fence to allow "full utilization of the tractor's potential." His chapter on the factors involved in this conversion is one of the most interesting and insightful of the entire book: the increase in the need for cash, changes in crops, the elimination of work stock, the arrangement of fences and fields, and the use of farm buildings. He hated many of the farm chores: manure hauling, castration and the killing. But, "pumping water was no more boring than working out in a gym, and at least the exercise was outdoors in clean air." He writes with some pleasure of the 4-H and Future Farmers of America programs, and his competitions at the local fairs. At the end of the day, he leaves farming as a teenager. There's a bit of regret in his telling of his story, but he clearly enjoyed his professor's life more. This is a useful book for anyone interested in the conversion from animal to tractor power on mid-western farms. The "Wall Street Journal" reviewed this book with Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression (I purchased them both because of the coincidence of my own upbringing). Mildred Armstrong Kalish describes a warmer, perhaps happier culture, but the two books describe a similar life style. Perhaps, most revealing, both authors left the farm when they were able to do so as teenagers. Robert C. Ross 2008

Dwight Hoover has written an engrossing story of farm life during the Depression in Iowa. What I found especially fascinating was learning of the gradual phasing out of work horses over many years--it wasn't a sudden conversion to gas-powered vehicles. As a person raised in a big city (Chicago) that made sense as I thought about it. I remember as a little girl in the late'40s/early 50s a horse and cart parked on our street in the city. The book takes us through typical days and especially, typical seasons of farm life, describing in detail planting, cultivation and harvesting of crops. Using vivid details and choosing carefully what stories to tell, the author gives us a complete picture of what life was like when he was growing up.

I grew up in a small town in Iowa during the 60s & 70s. Lately I have read several books on growing up in Iowa and found this one to be one of the best. The author explains in great detail of what Iowa farm life was like during the Great Depression. Hard work, isolation and the dependence on the entire family just to get by is just some of what the author covers. A good read for anyone interested in early farm life.

Although Mr. Hoover's book evoked no memories for me (I was born and raised in Chicago), I was completely absorbed and enchanted. He brings alive a different time and place so vividly that he carries his reader there with his descriptions and stories. Although he apparently means this book as a gift to his grandsons, it is equally a gift to all of us who can get lost in its pages!

A Good Day's Work Dwight W. Hoover This book brought back many memories for me of visiting my older sister living on a farm in Indiana during the fifties. I also loved to hear my mother telling stories of growing up on a farm in Indiana in the early 1900's. There is much about farm life described by the author that is similar over these decades. He describes the hard work, the co-operation, family bond and the community spirit that seems to me to be a common thread throughout farm life. This book caused me to think about the family values and personal ethics that are less a part of our lives today as not only farming but other occupations have changed in the United States. The hard work, long days and financial uncertainty remain for those family farmers trying to continue the traditional way of farming in the mid-west. The author shares the right amount of antidotal stories that causes the reader to feel he/she knows this farm family. Sharing their experiences through the writing of one of the members of the Hoover family makes this book a joy to read.