Youngsters loading a hay wagon. Undated photograph by Mack Derick of Orleans, Vermont.
Hay has long been an important agricultural crop in Vermont. Our collection of University of Vermont Extension publicity photographs contains numerous images documenting hay harvesting practices during the middle of the twentieth century. We have little information about most of the photos, like the example above that only has a note recording the identity of the photographer. However, notes on the back of two sets that we included in a recent exhibit, “Working in Vermont,” provided clues that helped us track the stories behind the photographs.
Haying on the Nelson Farm
In August 1941, a photographer from the United States Department of Agriculture documented a hay harvest on the Miles Nelson farm in Woodstock. Three of these photos are in the UVM Extension collection. According to the Peace Field Farm website, the USDA conducted a photo study called “Vanishing Vermont” on the Nelson farm from 1941 to 1943. The photographer followed the farm crew as they harvested hay with horses at a time when many farmers were seeking to improve efficiency with tractors and other machinery. Nelson served as UVM Extension’s Windsor County agricultural agent from 1942-1947.
Farm workers, including hired man J. Hewitt on the wagon and Marjorie as teamster, load hay on the Miles Nelson farm in Woodstock, Vermont, August 1941.
Hewitt and Marjorie bring a small load of hay into the barn on the Nelson farm.
Hewitt grabs hay with a horse fork, an innovation that allowed the farm to get more hay into the barn without adding more workers.
Volunteers on Vermont Farms
During World War II, when there was a serious shortage of farmhands in Vermont, members of the Volunteer Lands Corps (VLC) stepped up to help Vermont farmers. Two photos from the Extension collection that show women haying are credited to the New York Times. The photos were used to illustrate Vermont author Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s article about the first year of Vermont’s VLC program (“Youth at the Plow,” July 26, 1942). She wrote, “Hot, heavy and dusty work, in the barn and in the fields, that has to be done by somebody if cattle and horses are to be fed, falls to the lot of farm recruits.” These 1942 recruits included college students from urban areas. The volunteers received room, board and $21 per month to work for the summer.
Volunteer Land Corps members working in a recently cut hay field.
A Volunteer Land Corps member works with hay in a barn loft.
Learn more
Yale, Alan. While the Sun Shines: Making Hay in Vermont, 1789-1990. Montpelier, Vt.: Vermont Historical Society, 1991.
Root, Arthur. Report on the Volunteer Land Corps, summer 1942.
Hay Harvesting in the 1940s. Three films produced by the Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station show different hay harvesting techniques.
Submitted by Prudence Doherty, Public Services Librarian