Agricultural History Review, Volume 57 Part 2 (2009), p. 293

In the last two decades or so historians have produced a growing body of diverse and inventive literature on farm women, be they hired labourers, farmers’ female relatives, or farmers in their own right. This book on Germany, by a scholar based in the USA, is a welcome addition to the literature on farm women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a case study of the state of Saxony in south-east Germany, an area dominated by small- and medium-sized family farms, and is set against a background of rapid industrial and social change, rural depopulation, war and its aftermath. The vast majority of rural women in the area continued to work in agriculture across the whole period of the study and they constituted a group who attracted much contemporary comment, criticism and commendation. This book sets out to analyse the roles and representations of women on family farms, why they assumed such significance in debates over national identity and security, and how women themselves reacted to, and often resisted, their situation.

The book is divided into five main chapters. The first explores farm women’s work and agricultural politics in the years between German unification and the First World War, a period of great agricultural intensification and diversification. The urban demand for products such as meat, milk, eggs and butter meant the need for female labour increased as the numbers of men working in agriculture fell. The extra burden put on farm wives and daughters and also on yearly hired female farm servants (Mädge) was recognized by officials in the pre-war period but, as much of the work was traditionally categorized as ‘women’s work’ on the farm, it was seen as part of their natural province. Chapter Two however moves on to show how some farm women, notably the Mädge, railed against their position, complaining of overwork and abuse, running away from their situations and taking their masters to court. A detailed analysis of these disputes is interwoven with an overview of contemporary pre-war debates about the increasing disinclination of rural female youth to work on the land and the potential disaster this drift from the land signalled for the German nation as a whole.

These debates escalated during the First World War and its immediate aftermath, with the panic over female labour resulting in a ‘full-blown gender crisis’ (p.95). This is the focus of Chapter Three. The shortage of labour on the land, and the increasing movement of women into industry, led to criticism of farm women not fulfilling their national duty and resulted in two state attempts to restrict the freedom of movement of agricultural workers, in March 1917 and March 1919. The failure of these sanctions led to fresh campaigns to reform farm women’s work by a range of agricultural experts, rural social welfare reformers and state officials in the 1920s. This rationalization movement is analysed in Chapter Four. Recognizing the burdens placed on farm women, new standards of household and farm efficiency using new labour-saving devices and hand-tool technology were promoted through farming periodicals, home economics classes and agricultural organizations. This aimed to enhance the social and economic status of farm women by recognizing the importance of both their productive and reproductive roles, and thereby making the life of the farmer’s wife more attractive to young farm girls. How far farm women themselves followed this advice is debatable and the lack of mains electricity and cash resources on small family farms meant the overburdening of women continued. This is reinforced in Chapter Five where it is shown that the continued strain on farm women, labour shortages in agriculture and the flight from the land became powerful metaphors for the disintegration of national life and the general failures of the Weimar Republic. This trope was used by a range of conservative agrarian political groups and led, in the late 1920s, to the growing political mobilization of farm women themselves, as they took part in a variety of activities such as petitioning, demonstrations and political meetings to air their labour grievances.

This is a fascinating study which utilizes a range of official, published and archival sources and is sensitive to the need to give farm women some space to speak for themselves (where possible) and not be seen merely as subjects of contemporary debates or bystanders in political action. It shows that there were numerous continuities in farm women’s lives in Saxony across the whole period, with the centrality of female farm labour and the overburden on women as enduring themes. Although it is in essence a local study, its subject matter and arguments make it relevant to major themes in agrarian history and women’s history, as well as German history, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in any of these areas.