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In Iowa during the 1860s to the early 1900s, a marked shift occurred in women’s roles within the household as rural communities across the state began to develop into small towns and cities. Previously, Iowa’s rural areas consisted of farms distanced from one another. Families living on farms worked many hours each day, as breaking prairie ground to begin farming or tending crops on established farms were difficult tasks requiring farmers to be in the fields much of the day. Women worked within and around the home as long and as diligently as men did with the crops. If a farmer was short-handed in the fields, then the women of the family would help while still running the house, preparing meals, and caring for children. Advances in technology such as the automobile and radio, for instance, would bring some of the benefits of town living to rural areas. However, life for women in Iowa during this time was often full of hardship. In addition to the ongoing demands of house and farm work mentioned above, women contended with challenges such as serious illness, birth control, and isolation, and each of these challenges was made more difficult because of their gender.

Arriving In Iowa

Many individuals and families migrated to Iowa from new, nearby Midwestern states or the more established and distant Eastern United States. It was uncommon for women to make this journey alone and if a woman did travel alone to Iowa, then family members were often expecting their arrival. Other single women undertook this journey for themselves, either seeking a new life after a divorce or the death of a husband. After relocating to Iowa, some single women worked as hired help in the homes of their relatives or served as schoolteachers before marriage.^[1] Generally, however, this grand adventure was taken after marriage, with women arriving either with their husbands or following months later after a homestead had been established.^[2] There were several different modes of transportation available to migrating families and individuals, including riverboat, railway, and covered wagon. Riverboats and railroads were the smoothest travel options as these tripsrequired less time and allowed some leisure for travelers. Riverboats often had rooms below for travelers, making the journey a pleasant experience if they could afford it. If the family was unable to afford room fees, they stayed on the riverboat’s top deck, exposed to the elements.As Riley points out in her essay, “The Frontier in Process: Iowa Trail Women as a Paradigm,” the space limitations of boats and trains prevented settlers from bringing essential items such as household goods, farm implements, seed, or even much clothing. And because boat and rail fares were expensive, particularly if more than two or three members of the family were making the trip, many families chose to travel by covered wagon.^[3]

Wagon travel to Iowa was not without its own struggles. Often, travelers attempted to bring as many of the family’s belongings as possible, finding room in the wagon for such items as a cooking stove and musical instruments for entertainment during the journey. These wagons could range in weight from 1,500 to 2,000 pounds, with each possible inch of space used for storage. Women were tasked with creating the top coverings of the wagons as well as sewing in the inner pockets to hold and provide easy access to smaller items such as cooking utensils.^[4] However, items stored inside, especially large instruments and cooking stoves, if not foldable, were the first to go if the wagon became too heavy for the animals pulling it along the trail. Should these items end up left behind, women’s duties became even more difficult, as their responsibilities included preparing meals for the group, childcare, laundry, and other tasks that came up along the journey. Depending on their starting point, the journey could last weeks or even months, and so many families attempted to pack as many provisions as possible. Riley describes these women as talented, as they used “reflector ovens, prairie stoves, or just campfires [and] concocted meals which ranged from adequate to wonderfully unforgettable.”^[5] Also, according to Riley, these women were resourceful, cooking with only their packed provisions, what they scavenged on the trail, and the meat of prairie animals, such as bison, hunted down by the men in their group.^[6] Unfortunately, much of the hunted meat went to waste if travelers were unable to store it or did not have space within their wagon.

In addition to worries of food security, deadly illnesses such as cholera, an infection caused from the consumption of contaminated food and water, threatened travelers, leaving women to nurse their families and to take on extra work. In Elizabeth Hampsten’s collection of Midwestern women’s writings, one of the toughest jobs that women migrating to Iowa faced was dealing with family deaths. One traveling group lost all their men to cholera, and, anticipating no opportunities for themselves or their children at their destination, turned their wagons around and traveled back to their starting point, where there might be a home and a support system waiting.^[7] Nevertheless, this often-perilous journey was one that many Iowans opted to take for the chance of a new life or land.

The trek to Iowa also offered pleasant surprises, as people along the way tended to be kind to weary travelers. When travelers passed homes or reached settled areas, they had more opportunity to rest and to purchase food or wares unavailable along the journey. Ellis Parker Butler captures the generosity of Iowans and the difficulty of the journey in his short story Bread, showcasing how a family exhausted by wagon travel encounters acts of kindness: “The Father stopped the weary horses at many houses, shacks, and dugouts; and always there was a woman to come to the wagon with a slice of bread for Martha, and one for Eben, for that was the Iowa way.”^[8] Upon arrival in Iowa, traveling families either occupied a home abandoned as previous occupants migrated even further west; paid to stay in boarding houses for a brief time; were taken into the homes of family members; or lived in covered wagons while building their own homes. After a family was established in one location, they would either remain there or decide to move on to a different Iowa county or to another state.

Isolation and Socialization within Rural Communities

To offset the isolation women could experience once they arrived in Iowa, organizations such as the Grange provided economic support to farming families, helped to improve farming practices, and offered opportunities for socializing. However, finding the time for social life was a major challenge in rural communities, as there was much work that needed to be completed, especially for new homesteaders. The first plowing of the fields was difficult and time consuming: “The soil stuck to the wood or iron blade making work slow because the plowman was forced to stop often and remove the gluey coat of dirt.”^[9] Additionally, many women lost contact with family members after migrating, especially if they had lived in several different states while making their journey or in different towns once in Iowa. Mail was not delivered directly to homes until 1901; prior to that time, residents had to pick up letters and packages at the nearest post office. As the men of a household were frequently outside the home, either in the fields or in town, women often turned to their children for companionship. And during and after the nineteenth century, it was unacceptable in Iowa and throughout much of the United States for a woman to work outside of the home following her marriage.^[10]

Church services, however, were a prime opportunity for socializing in both rural areas and towns, as many of the same persons would attend church each Sunday, allowing for relationships and a church community to form. Even new, small Iowa towns tended to have several different Christian churches, including congregations founded by Roman Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, and, in southern and southwestern Iowa, by Mormons.^[11] Which church each family chose to attend, then, could depend as much on their feelings toward the community as on the beliefs of the denomination. If, for example, one was unhappy with any members in their church, it was simple enough to visit different congregations in search of a new church home.

Outside of church services, if women wanted to make a social call or go into town, often they had to walk miles, or, if they could afford one, to ride in a horse-drawn wagon. Yet because women had so many responsibilities in and around the house and farm, men tended to be the ones making social visits to nearby homes, as, for instance, either an eligible bachelor or a neighbor in search of help with his home or farm. Over time, changes in transportation in rural communities such as horse-drawn winter sleds or, later, increasingly popular automobiles, did not change this pattern. Dorothy Schwieder has pointed out that in small, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century communities in Iowa, “most establishments tended to be male-dominated and to serve mostly male patrons,” giving women less reason to accompany men on trips to town.^[12] Because Iowa towns typically played to the interests of men, men’s visits were often enjoyable, while women tended to rush through their shopping for groceries or for fabric to make family clothing and then had to wait for their husbands if their home was a far distance. If the town had a shop such as a millinery, or a store making and selling women’s hats, then women could go in to learn of new fashion trends from the Eastern United States and to socialize with other women of the community. As very few women worked in businesses, a shopping trip was a firm reminder that town was mostly a man’s world. As time progressed and communities grew, women began to work in town as waitresses, seamstresses, or shop assistants, but in these positions, women remained in the background of their communities.

Visits with relatives also brought opportunities for social interaction. A young woman could travel beyond the family farm when attending gatherings at church, in town, or in a neighbor’s home. A young woman could ride and attend with a family member or a male suitor, as such events were important for the securing of beneficial marriages.

Social events and travel were not the only options for finding a suitable marriage partner. Relationships were also formed and maintained through letters to family members, neighboring women, potential suitors, or traveling husbands. Women writing such letters could recount the happenings of the day or whatever struck their fancy. In letters written to friends, women tended to share town news and gossip rather than to comment on their own daily activities. Once delivered, letters tended to be passed around families as a form of entertainment. Such letters gave readers a glimpse into the writer’s life while tending not to mention any potentially serious or sensitive issues. Anything meant to be kept private was simply not written down or was sent in a separate letter with the request that it not be read aloud. While correspondence allowed women to show the positive sides of their lives and to share detail regarding an issue on which they sought advice, scholar Elizabeth Hampsten has noted that in letters, “[w]omen’s descriptions of men are apt to be blurred, just out of focus or to one side.”^[13] Therefore, despite these women’s tendency to keep difficult or unpleasant aspects of their lives from public view, their letters can convey the isolation and loneliness they frequently felt due to their location and relationships.

Family Dynamics

In Iowa and throughout the United States during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, men dominated households as their actions and ideas impacted the rest of the family, especially their wives. In the case of one woman, Viola Keyes Pierce, her husband, Warren, was at one point the only male within her immediate and extended family, as her brothers and father had all died during the US Civil War or from health problems encountered while traveling to or once having settled in Iowa. In circumstances such as this, one man’s actions directly affected all female relatives, indicating just how much power a single man held in a family.^[14] As Iowa’s early laws were strongly biased against women, a woman’s life could very easily be controlled by her husband. Once married, all a women’s possessions and property immediately became her husband’s, and any money she earned was not her own but was contributed to the family. Additionally, if a woman misbehaved in her relationship with her husband, “a man might whip his wife with a switch as large as his finger, but not larger than his thumb, without being guilty of an assault.”^[15]

It was, therefore, difficult to separate a woman’s identity from that of her husband when all her rights fell under his control, making it important to select one’s husband carefully. At this point in Iowa’s history, women tended to marry in their early 20s. Emily Gillespie, a young Iowan woman of that time, carefully selected her husband, turning down many a suitor who did not fit her mother’s tastes, claiming of one suitor, “ Mother doesn’t like me to go with him, only because he is not rich,” or that another suitor, “is a fine young man but too young,” or that the suitors are either too old or practice undesirable habits, such as drinking alcohol or gambling.^[16] Gillespie chose to wait fairly late and married when she was almost 25 years old, choosing a husband whom she believed possessed the traits she was looking for and, therefore, would treat her well. Unfortunately, even with the careful selection of her husband, Gillespie ended up in an unhappy marriage with a husband who later developed the damaging habits she had tried so hard to avoid. While it was possible to obtain a divorce, such settlements usually did not favor women and left them with the care of any children. As Jennie Lansley Wilson wrote in the late nineteenth century, for a woman, “marriage was the act through which she ceased to have a legal existence;” there was no guarantee that a divorce would be granted or that a woman would be able to pursue the law to her benefit.^[17] In addition, a woman could also find herself at the mercy of one or more sons after the passing of her husband. When travelling through Dubuque in the late 1870s, Englishman James Broderick noted in his diary that one woman sought help from professionals within her community as her sons’ quarreling was leading to the loss of both the family farm and business in town.^[18]

Another reason that marriages were significant was that men could also exercise control over women’s bodies. In 1873, the Comstock Act made birth control illegal in the United States, often putting women in the position to manage family planning. While the main birth control method of the time was abstinence, women offered one another advice, such as sleeping in a separate bed or keeping close track of one’s fertility cycle. Since abortion was illegal and infant mortality high, families tended to include from four to fourteen children. Men of the time usually saw their role as producing and providing for their children, and so the daily care of children was usually the wife’s work. In 1936, however, the Comstock Act was repealed. By taking her time and selecting the “ideal” husband, a woman might enjoy more participation from her spouse in raising children and helping run the home smoothly. Even then, if serious problems developed later in the marriage, women still had little legal or social control of their lives.

Rural Tasks and Chores

On farms and in homes located in rural areas, women were expected to manage the household and were responsible for chores such as cooking, childcare, and taking care of small livestock. Additionally, women frequently helped by working in the fields. A woman’s position within the rural household can be seen as a significant cog in a well-oiled agricultural machine, and should she be unable to fulfill her work, the home and farm could stop running at full speed. This is especially seen in a woman’s task of cooking. During the summer and early fall when crops required the most labor, women frequently spent entire days cooking plentiful, nutritious meals for family members and field hands. Without well-prepared meals, the laborers might go hungry and lack the energy to complete the field work, thus reducing the farm’s harvest.^[19]

While men usually raised larger livestock, such as hogs and cattle, women in rural areas often had the job of raising chickens and milking cows. By taking care of chickens, for instance, women were bringing in another source of income for the family, as extra egg production or meat from the chickens could be sold to other families within the community. Even though women did not have had the same opportunities as men to work within town or outside of the home, they could earn between 20 to 40 percent of a farm family’s income.

Young farming families were often unable to hire helping hands. The result was that the whole family would help with the crops, which added more work for women in young farm families compared to women in more established rural homes. In the story “A Start in Life,” Iowa author Ruth Suckow shows that regardless of a family’s place within a community, a clean home was seen as a happy home, and this was especially the case for well-off farm families.^[20] In Suckow’s story, a teenage girl is hired to help in the home of a young, wealthy farming family by performing household chores such as washing dishes, sweeping, keeping the fire going, and watching over their young children. This story makes plain the load of work even well-off farm women faced and the tensions this labor could create between hired workers and employers.

As the children grew older, there would be more tasks assigned to them either in the fields, within the home, or at a family business. For the girls of a family, this meant taking on sewing, family laundry, and cleaning the home. Generally, regardless of the task or amount of work, home labor was unpaid, as it was considered part of the maintenance of the family farm.^[21] The sign of a successful mother and marriage was the raising children to become productive members of the community. When the parents retired from the family farm, they often moved into town. By this point, each son would have had enough experience to either run the family farm or business or to start their own farm or business; women, traditionally, were expected to marry and manage a household.

                            Modernization and Women’s Shifting Roles

Beginning in the late 1870s, women’s roles shifted as small communities across the state began to develop into towns and cities, allowing women more freedom to travel and opportunities for employment. In Iowa’s bustling cities alongside the Mississippi River, the advancement of industries created more business opportunities for women. Some women, especially widows, ran boarding houses or offered meals to travelers as a source of income. The need for lodging services in river towns grew as the number of travelers on riverboats and railroads increased. More so than in the past, there was also opportunity for women to run or work at businesses in town with their husbands and sons. As industries came to Iowa, factory work became a possibility, with mainly unmarried women working in mills or sewing shops. These young women worked either for their own income or to send money home to their families living in or outside of Iowa. Unlike many rural women whose labor on farms went unpaid, “the factory girl paid part of her earnings to a boarding-house, her surrogate family support system, for her upkeep.”^[22] If these young women worked in boarding houses as hired girls, then they usually did not pay rent as they were already working to earn their keep. These opportunities for work outside the home were more widely advertised as newspapers, radio, and movie theatres became common in Iowa. Also, postal services began delivering to homes around 1901, reducing rural women’s isolation with a reliable system for receiving mail directly and quickly. The automobile, another major technological advancement, made travel into town much quicker than before. With an automobile, no longer was it necessary for women to wait for their husbands to prepare a wagon for the trip to town or to buy boots or special shoes such as gaiters to walk in bad weather. If an advertised new appliance could improve work efficiency within the household, then it was likely that rural women would purchase, for instance, electric mixers or more powerful sewing machines to lighten their workloads and, as a result, increase productivity on the farm.^[23] These technological advances swayed women’s opinions as to what was needed within a modern home in rural areas and towns alike; as a result, the assistance of a hired girl became less common.

       Time saved on household tasks created opportunities for Iowans to make more frequent social calls. On April 16th of 1877, for instance, James Broderick noted during his year-long visit to Iowa much difficulty in finding friends at home: “Called at Mrs. Waters, but she was out.” And again, on April 18th, “We called on Mrs. Waters, John Woodward’s Granddaughter, but she was not in.” In fact, each time Broderick went to call on Mrs. Waters, she was out visiting someone else, and he found the same thing when attempting to pay social calls to several other wives during his time in Iowa.^[24] Broderick’s diary entries demonstrate how the modernization of homes, farms, towns, and cities impacted women’s lives in Iowa by easing their previously strict and busy schedules, allowing more opportunities for social life outside the home.

Sources

Broderick, James Lonsdale, and Loren N. Horton. The Character of the Country: the Iowa Diary of James L. Broderick, 1876-1877. Iowa City: Iowa State Historical Department, 1976.

Butler, Ellis Parker. “Bread.” In Prairie Gold, edited by Johnson Brigham, 37-43. Chicago: Reilly and Britton Co., 1917. Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39957

“Early Agriculture.” The Goldfinch, 2, No.3 (February 1981): 1-6, https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/goldfinch/article/id/30734/

 Hampsten, Elizabeth. Read This Only to Yourself: the Private Writings of Midwestern Women, 1880-1910. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.

Gillespie, Emily Hawley, and Judy Nolte Lensink. “A Secret to be Buried”: the Diary and Life of Emily Hawley Gillespie, 1858-1888. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989.

Riley, Glenda. “The Frontier in Process: Iowa’s Trail Women as a Paradigm.” In Iowa History Reader, edited by Marvin Bergman, 37-60. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2008. Project Muse.

Riley, Glenda. Frontierswomen, The Iowa Experience. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1981.

Schwieder, Dorothy. Iowa The Middle Land. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996.

Suckow, Ruth. “A Start in Life.” American Mercury III, no. 9 (1924): 15-23, HathiTrust Digital Library https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106019601092?urlappend=%3Bseq=21%3Bownerid=9007199271912471-25

Wilson, Jennie Lansley. Legal Status of Women in Iowa. Des Moines: Iowa Printing Company, 1894.