The McCormick Reaper
Have you ever seen a McCormick reaper? I couldn’t help but smile at the special childhood memory brought to mind recently when local historian Manton Bailie, lifelong resident and farmer in rural community of Mesa, Washington, showed me some old farm equipment in rusty retirement at this place. When Manton told me about playing on […]
A Most Beautiful Implement
Have you seen the stone bas-relief roundel in Ritzville? Use of agrarian folksayings, recounting tales of Old and New World seasonal farm labors, and harvest work songs are now the domain of cultural historians and ethnologists, but burgeoning interest in such topics is evident in sustainability and food sovereignty movements throughout the world. Recent “Grain […]
Agrarianism as Essential Discipline
Aesthetic understanding through agrarian art and literature remains an essential discipline. Many folks will recognize the colorful flowing Great Depression farm art of Thomas Hart Benton. American regionalist painters like Benton and Marion Greenwood sought to portray the tensions of rural social and economic change wrought by the Great Depression and global farm commodity markets. […]