Ohio History Journal
VIRGINIA E. McCORMICK
Butter and Egg Business: Implications
From the Records of a Nineteenth-
Century Farm Wife
Few stereotypes have a clearer image or
more persistent endurance
than that of the nineteenth-century
married woman who devoted
herself to home and family and relied
upon her husband as the
economic provider. This image produces
the perspective that "a
dramatic increase has occurred in the
labor force participation of
women of all income levels, including
married women who traditionally
have felt no economic need to
work,"1 a viewpoint which permeates
twentieth-century public policy.
Researchers compiling statistics
regarding women's earnings in the
nineteenth century have focused
primarily on groups which contained
significant numbers. In 1900 experienced
factory girls could earn five
to six dollars per week for a sixty-hour
week, but domestic workers
earned as little as two to five dollars
for a seventy-two hour week.2 The
latter was a far more likely option for
married women forced to seek
employment outside their home.
Historians acknowledge that women
traditionally earned income by
taking in boarders, sewing or laundry.
Julie Matthaei estimates that at
the turn of the century 42 percent of
the employed women were earning
income in their own homes.3 Rural
homemakers, who had fewer
options for earning at home, often sold
butter and eggs, but little
research has examined the economic
impact of this activity.
Virginia E. McCormick earned a Ph.D. in
education at The Ohio State University and
has taught there, at Iowa State
University, and at the Pennsylvania State University.
This article is adapted from Virginia E.
McCormick, ed., Farm Wife: A Self-Portrait,
1886-1896. © 1990, Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa 50010.
1. Sandra L. Hofferth and Kristin A.
Moore, "Women's Employment and Mar-
riage," in Ralph E. Smith ed., The
Subtle Revolution (Washington, D.C., 1979), 99-124.
2. Carl N. Degler, At Odds: Women and
the American Family from the American
Revolution to the Present (Oxford, 1980), 382.
3. Julie Matthaei, An Economic
History of Women in America (New York, 1982),
198-99.
58 OHIO HISTORY
Was the butter and egg business simply a
vestige of an earlier era
when home production provided the goods
necessary for family
consumption and trade in a barter
economy, or does it offer clues for
contemporary workers seeking
opportunities in self-employment or
home-based work? How did it rank among
income producing oppor-
tunities for nineteenth-century women,
and was the money it produced
supplemental or essential family income?
Did the butter and egg
business of farm wives have significant
impact on the local and national
economy, or was it simply "pin
money" which did not merit inclusion
in income statistics?
These are questions which can be
answered only through an under-
standing of the historical perspective
of women's economic roles and
careful analysis of case studies which
survive as farm and home
account records.
There is overwhelming evidence that the
late nineteenth century was
a golden age of domesticity when
management of home and family
achieved importance not seen earlier or
later.4 As the industrial
revolution diverted much traditionally
home-based production to fac-
tories, particularly in textiles and
clothing, husbands and wives were
able to assume separate spheres of
responsibility. Men were increas-
ingly associated with the role of
economic provider and women with
the moral leadership of the family unit.5
Within these differentiated roles,
historians acknowledge that women
have always shared responsibility for
providing the basic necessities of
food, clothing, and shelter. Much of
this contribution consisted of
unpaid labor related to food
preservation and preparation, clothing con-
struction, and home management.
Researchers such as Alice Kessler-
4. Glenna Mathews, Just a Housewife:
The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America
(New York, 1987). See also Annegret S.
Ogden, The Great American Housewife
(Westport, Connecticut, 1986).
5. For eloquent individual records see
Joy Day Buel, The Way of Duty: A Woman
and Her Family in Revolutionary
America (New York, 1984); Claudia L.
Bushman, A
Good Poor Man's Wife: Being a
Chronicle of Harriet Hanson Robinson and Her Family
in 19th Century New England (Hanover, New Hampshire, 1981); and Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Household Papers and Stories (Boston,
1896). For varied analysis see John
Demos and Susan S. Boocock eds., Turning
Points: Historical and Sociological Essays
on the Family (Chicago, 1978); Tamara K. Hareven ed., Transitions:
The Family and the
Life Course in Historical Perspective
(New York, 1978); Peter Laslett and
Richard Wall
eds., Household and Family in Time
Past (Cambridge, 1972); Michael Gordon, The
American Family in Social-Historical
Perspective (New York, 1978); and
Nancy F. Cott
and Elizabeth H. Pleck eds., A
Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of
American Women (New York, 1979).
The Butter and Egg Business 59
Harris recognize, but find it difficult
to quantify, the value of domestic
work and child care historically
performed by women.6
Women have also historically performed
socially useful work far
beyond that which is measurable in the
marketplace. Elliot and Mary
Brownlee emphasize contributions in
social welfare and health care
services, where women traditionally
served their "extended family"
and also as community volunteers.7
Some of the most penetrating questions
about the economic basis of
the nineteenth-century "cult of
domesticity," which maintained that
married women did not need to work for
pay, have been raised by Carl
Degler's contention that domesticity in
the short range increased
women's power, status and self
confidence, but in the long range weak-
ened their claim to the full range of
human experience.8 A homemaker
might reign supreme within her home and
be recognized for her
husband's status in the community, but a
price was paid with severely
limited economic, educational, legal and
political opportunities.
Recent research challenges the concept
of a dramatic twentieth-
century increase in women's employment,
on the basis that it ignores
changes in the census definition of
employment and the locus of the
work. Because the 1900 census requested
identification of one's
"primary occupation" and
recorded most married women as house-
wives, Christine Bose contends
statistics showing 20 percent of the
female population employed in 1900 and
54.5 percent employed in 1985
are an inaccurate comparison.9 In
1985 only 50.2 percent of employed
women worked full-time year-round, and
demographers suspect that
large segments of the "underground
economy" from child care to
piano lessons and garage sales are still
under-reported. Bose contends
that employment definitions which
included similar part-time and
home-based work in 1900 would have
revealed from 48.5 percent to
56.7 percent of the female population
was actually earning income.10
6. Alice Kessler-Harris, Women Have
Always Worked (New York, 1981). See also
the Industrial Relations Research
Association Series, Working Women: Past, Present,
Future (Washington, D.C., 1987).
7. W. Elliot Brownlee and Mary M.
Brownlee, Women in the American Economy:
A Documentary History, 1675 to 1929 (New Haven, 1976), 1-39.
8. Carl N. Degler, At Odds: Women and
the American Family From the American
Revolution to the Present, 49, 306, 328, 344, and 375.
9. Christine E. Bose, "Devaluing
Women's Work: The Undercount of Women's
Employment in 1900 and 1980," in Hidden
Aspects of Women's Work (New York, 1987),
95-115.
10. For statistics on percentage of female
population and percentage of married
women in the labor force from 1870
through 1940 see Women's Occupations Through
Seven Decades, U.S. Dept. of Labor, Women's Bureau Bulletin 218
(Washington, D.C.,
1947), 34, and Ray Marshall and Beth
Paulin, "Employment and Earnings of Women:
Historical Perspective," in Working
Women: Past, Present, Future, 1-36.
60 OHIO HISTORY
Social science researchers recognize
that the history of formal
employment for wages is only a minority
theme in the history of
working women, and are now constructing
research models which
attempt to identify where and how women
actually worked.11 Recent
increases in self-employment and
home-based work, by both men and
women, have encouraged a review of the
existing historic perspective
of such work. Scholars are focusing on
positive aspects such as
freedom of supervision and flexibility
for family responsibilities, as
well as negative aspects of potential
exploitation through low wages or
poor working conditions.12
Such analysis of home-based work focuses
renewed attention on
"women's work" of generations
past. In the nineteenth-century cult of
domesticity, a married woman's presence
in the labor force was
usually perceived as a signal that her
husband was unable to provide
adequate income. For women who wanted or
needed to increase family
income but preserve their husband's
reputation, there were alterna-
tives such as taking in boarders or
working as a seamstress, which were
seen as non-threatening and socially
acceptable "woman's work" if
done in one's spare time at home.13
In rural areas boarders were rarely
available as a viable source of
income, but a widely accepted
alternative was a farm wife's butter and
egg sales. 14 Such trade was
carefully nurtured as a secure source of
income in the volatile uncertainty of
the agricultural economy where
adverse weather or livestock disease
could mean disaster.
The prevailing social attitude about
butter and eggs sales was
non-threatening. Many persons raised on
farms remember these sales
as "pin money for the women, money
never taken too seriously in the
days when bookkeeping was casual and
accounting unknown."15 It
was income upon which farmwives relied
well into the twentieth
century, sustaining many a family during
the Great Depression of the
1930s. In memoirs of his rural boyhood,
Curtis Stadtfeld was surprised
11. Patricia Bronca, "A New
Perspective on Women's Work," Journal of Social
History, 9
(Winter, 1975), 129-53.
12. Eileen Boris and Cynthia R. Daniels
eds., Homework: Historical and Contempo-
rary Perspectives in Paid Labor at
Home (Chicago, 1989).
13. Julie Matthaei, An Economic
History of Women in America, 120-21, 198-99.
14. One of the few researchers who has
analyzed the income of rural homemakers is
Joan M. Jenson, "Cloth, Butter and
Boarders: Women's Household Production for the
Market," Review of Political
Economics, 12 (Summer, 1980), 14-24; and Loosening the
Bonds, Mid-Atlantic Farm Women,
1750-1850 (New Haven, 1986).
15. Henry C. Taylor, reflecting on his
mother's exchange of butter and eggs for
simple grocery supplies and basic dry
goods, in Tarpleywick: A Century of Iowa Farming
(Ames, Iowa, 1970), 119.
The Butter and Egg Business 61
that his father's 1935 account book
showed the cash income from
poultry and eggs nearly equaled that for
the farm dairy herd.16
The scarcity of contemporary records
makes the 1886-1896 diaries
and farm accounts kept by Margaret Dow
Gebby, a Logan County,
Ohio, farmwife worth analyzing. Her
journals confirm widely accepted
images of farm wives exchanging butter
and eggs for goods at the
general store, but they also provide
surprising glimpses of a thriving
home business which contributed
regularly and significantly to house-
hold expenses.17
Margaret taught school prior to her
marriage to Jeremiah Morrow
Gebby, a successful grain and livestock
farmer in northwestern Ohio.
With him she raised three sons and cared
for her widowed mother-in-
law. Her sister Martha lived just up the
road, and other siblings and
extended family resided at distances
within which close relationships
could be maintained.
Margaret Gebby's decade of daily records
of family activities, and
accounts of income and expenses for farm
and household, invites
readers into the life of a late
nineteenth-century midwestern farm
woman. Readers share the cycles of work,
leisure and social interac-
tion experienced by rural midwestern
women and their families a
century past.
The Gebbys lived in Logan County, just
west of Bellefontaine, on a
286-acre grain and livestock farm. It
was neither the largest nor the
most profitable farm in its neighborhood,
but was well above average,
ranking in the top 10 percent for Ohio.
In 1880 its land and buildings
were valued at $17,800, its equipment at
$2500, and the agricultural
products produced at $4085. The farm
included 28 acres of corn, 58
acres of wheat, an acre of potatoes, an
orchard of 75 fruit trees, and the
remaining land in hay, pasture and
woods for 74 cattle and 22 swine.18
Margaret Gebby's household through most
of this period included
her husband, three teenage sons, and her
widowed mother-in-law. Her
expenses regularly included payments to
women in the neighborhood
for services rendered. During the early
years she sent her washing out
each week to a neighbor and hired
domestic help by the day during
spring cleaning. Later she hired a
neighbor woman to live in and help
with the domestic work. To supplement
the sewing and mending she
and her mother-in-law did, she hired
neighbors or a seamstress in town.
16. Curtis K. Stadtfeld, From the
Land and Back (New York, 1972), 120.
17. Virginia E. McCormick ed., Farm
Wife: A Self-Portrait, 1886-1896 (Ames, Iowa,
1990).
18. Non Population Census Schedule, 1880
Products of Agriculture, Logan County,
Ohio, Harrison Township, ED 113, p. 12
#4 and p. 17 #4.
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62 OHIO HISTORY |
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Margaret's own source of income came from sales of her butter and eggs. She regularly milked three cows and cared for her poultry each morning and evening, producing enough to provide both for family consumption and for sale. Of course butter production peaked in the spring as cows calved and increased their milk production, but it is astonishing to note that butter prices could fluctuate as much as 80 percent during a single year, from 12 to 22 cents per pound in 1888. Farm wives had no choice but to adjust their spending patterns to seasonal fluctuations in the prices they received, for they were forced to accept what the market offered for their perishable commodities. Like other farmwives, Margaret Gebby traded at one general store and usually matched the total price of her purchases to the value of the produce she brought to sell. Rarely did she leave a small balance on her account, take part of her sales in money, or as she phrased it, "lift" a little credit against her store account. Butter was priced by the pound and eggs by the dozen, but odd amounts were regularly sold. Both sales and purchases could be precisely controlled since clerks weighed or measured everything to order. |
The Butter and Egg Business 63
A number of entries from her 1888 diary
furnish examples of how she
did business.
5 Jan.-Grandma & I went to town had
11 1/2 lbs of butter $2.10, got blue calico
dress, tea, baking powder, peaches, oil
cloth, braid for Grandma's dress &c
$2.12 ... 13 Jan.-was at Boals store had
11 lbs 3 oz of butter $2.01 got table
linen 21/2 yds at 45 cts pr yd 6 yd
toweling 2 yd at 11 ct, 4 yd at 10 cts pr yd,
coffee 28 cts ... 26 Jan.-Had 7 lbs 10
oz butter $1.52, got sugar $1.00 coffee
28 cts peaches 32 cts, apricots 19 cts,
Oysters 70 cts ... 12 May-Baked bread,
pies and cookies, churned, went to town
this afternoon, had 17 lbs of butter at
18 cts 9 doz eggs 89 cts = $3.06 got coffee,
baking powder, cornstarch, beans,
peaches, 2 cans apricots, scrim, lamp
& chimney &c $2.95 Jerry got fish 63,
Century 35, Harpers 10, Lemons 20,
Bananas ... 2 June-Went to town this
afternoon, had 22 lbs 14 oz of butter 12
cts pr lb, got coffee, tea, bluing, muslin,
candy, fish $1.61, left a balance of
$1.13 ... 4 Aug.-Baked bread and pies and
apple dumplings for dinner, went to town
had four lbs of butter 60 cts and 4 doz
eggs 56 got a calico meat platter 60
cts. screen wire 35 cts rivets 25 cts . . . 25
Aug.-sold 15 lbs of butter this week
$2.25 got corn starch, cinnamon, under
vest, buttons, stocking $1.16 ... 13
Sept.-churned this morning, went to town
this afternoon had 12 lbs of butter, 3
doz eggs $2.25 got Elmer overalls, collars,
copperas, cinnamon & pepper, mustard
seed. 19
As a farm wife selling butter and eggs,
Margaret Gebby represented
labor and management, production and
marketing, and long-range
planner and chief of daily operations
all at one time. She coped with
cows which went dry before she expected,
illnesses which interrupted
her work, and decisions about whether
eggs were to be sold or set to
hatch. She was also concerned with
increasing production, and upgrad-
ed her stock with Jersey cows and White
Leghorn chickens as it
became possible.
2 Feb. 88-I began churning this morning
before eight Oclock and churned till
two, and still did not get butter ... 9
Feb. 88-churned but failed to get butter,
quit milking Daisy ... 21 Mar. 88-I have
a very bad cold, Orra milked for me
this evening ... 14 Apr. 92-Set a hen
under a gooseberry bush, one between
the houses, one in George's boat ... 24
Apr 93-Set a hen in the old house on
the shelves, one in the calf stable
manger, found one setting in the briar patch
on 30 eggs ... 10 Aug. 96-I exchanged 2
sitting of Eggs with Mr George
Ebrite, his were White Leghorns ... 26
May 92-advertised for a good Jersey
cow in the want column of the Republican
Margaret Gebby kept meticulous daily and
monthly accounts of her
transactions, but did not record farm
and family expenses separately.
19. Margaret Dow Gebby Diaries, MSS 964,
Ohio Historical Society, Columbus,
Ohio. Subsequent entries from this
collection are cited by year and are quoted with
spelling, punctuation and capitalization
as it appears in diary entries.
64 OHIO HISTORY
It is possible, however, to separate
household expenses for a year and
determine the portion which were met
through butter and egg sales. In
1888, a representative year when the
household contained the six
persons mentioned above and the economy
was relatively stable, total
cash expenses for family living were
$615.51. Of this total, Margaret's
dairy and poultry operation provided
$130.41, or 21 percent.20
At that time, one of the highest status
and best paying positions
available to women in Logan County was
that of schoolteacher. A
woman teaching full-time in the county's
one-room schools earned an
average of $182 annually.21
If the teacher worked at least forty hours
per week during the twenty-nine week
term and Margaret worked
about ten hours per week year-round, the
butter and egg business
provided more income per hour.22
Recent statistics report all working
wives, both part and full-time, on
average contributed about 26 percent of
the total family income. Those
working full-time year-round contributed
38 percent.23 Even by current
standards Margaret Gebby's butter and
egg business earned substantial
income for a part-time business.
Of course, the Gebbys kept the produce
they needed for home
consumption. Margaret's butter records
for 1888 show that she sold
496 of the 612 pounds produced. At the
average sales price of 18 cents
per pound, the 116 pounds used at home
would have yielded an
additional $24.88. Between March and
September she sold 83 and 1/2
dozen eggs, and her baking and cooking
suggests the use of more than
that at home. The family often had
chicken for dinner, drank butter-
milk, ate cottage cheese, and used cream
liberally when they made ice
cream. It does not seem farfetched to
assume that the cash value of the
dairy and poultry products this family
consumed exceeded that of
those sold. Some of this value would
have been offset by the costs of
20. Arguments could be made that items
such as a $20 watch for a son, or $27 for a
suit and topcoat for the husband, served
many years and should not be included as
"annual" family living
expenses. Some might credit the butter and egg income with
providing as much as 25 to 30 percent of
the family's annual expenses.
21. John Hancock, Thirty-Fifth Annual
Report of the Commissioner of Common
Schools, [Year Ending 31 August 1888] (Columbus, 1889), 49.
Wages for primary
teachers averaged $36 per month for
males and $26 for females for a 29-week term in
Logan County. This was slightly above
the Ohio average of $37 and $27 monthly for a
30-week term.
22. Twenty-nine weeks times forty hours
equals 1080 hours. Fifty-two weeks times
ten hours equals 520 hours. One hundred
eighty-two dollars divided by 1080 hours is
approximately 17 cents per hour, while
$130.41 divided by 520 is slightly over 24 cents
per hour. These are, of course,
estimates rather than actual figures regarding hours
worked.
23. Ralph E. Smith, The Subtle
Revolution, 12.
The Butter and Egg Business 65
the buildings which housed cows and
chickens and the farm produce
they consumed as feed.
Margaret's profits are also lowered by
regular donations of butter
and cottage cheese to the church bazaar,
much like current church or
school groups rely on donations from
local businesses. One of the most
significant revelations of these diary
records is that the business
aspects of a farm wife's butter and egg
business were recognized
throughout the community. When Margaret
made sales directly to
relatives or neighbors, as she often
did, everyone carefully paid the
same price being offered at the general
store.
22 Mar. 94-Went to town this afternoon
had 18-12 of butter 3 doz of eggs =
3.43 got lemons, oranges, ginger snaps,
bananas, mustard, gingham & thread,
pepper, & peaches & $1.20 in
money, took 3 lbs of butter and 4 doz eggs to D.
Dows for the Easter supper tomorrow evening ... 20
Sept. 89-Grandma & I
went to town got coffee, sugar, Flower pot, three
spools of thread, a box to
pack eggs in for winter use, had 9 lbs 4
oz of butter, took Mrs Wright 50 cts
worth of butter . . . 4 June 92-Martha
Krouse [neighbor] got a lb of butter 12
cts, Lyman [brother] got 6 lbs 75 cts,
Boals [store] got 9-4 $1.13, got 2 pr silk
mitts 50 cts, 1 can apricots, 2 cans
corn, Raddish seed, & Bananas 15 cts ...
25 Mr. 93-Went to town this afternoon.
Boals got 15-4 1/2 of butter $3.36 got
Apricots, Plums, corn, Beans, Raisins, coffee,
braid, buttons, mustard,
Oranges, & yarn $2.37, called at
Fathers, he got 3 lbs of butter 66 cts, Mrs
Parker 2 1/4 50 cts.
When the Gebby farm installed a windmill
to pump water for
livestock in 1889, the family kitchen
was remodeled to include an inside
pump for water and a creamer to store
milk and separate the cream.
Margaret does not specifically describe
her churn, but in 1893 she
purchased a new one which she noted in
her diary completed her
churning in eighteen minutes.24 Box
and cylinder churns had been on
the market some twenty years, a time
span between invention and
adoption by this homemaker which is
particularly revealing when one
realizes that such a labor-saving piece
of equipment cost about the
equivalent of two week's butter sales.
22 Feb. 93-Jerry & I went to town
looked for a churn to suit us, we liked a
Sidney churn quite well, ordered one ...
27 Feb.-Jerry got the churn I
ordered last week ... 28 Feb.-Churned
with my new churn, had nice butter
but was a long time in churning, think I
had the cream too cold ... I
Mar.-Paid for the churn $4.50, churned
again this morning in about 18 min.
24. The Sidney churn was apparently a
local model of a box, cylinder or barrel style,
all advertised in the Sears and Roebuck
catalog at a comparable price. Margaret's diaries
imply that she had been using the older
dasher style churn which normally required forty
to sixty minutes to produce butter.
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66 OHIO HISTORY |
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The butter and egg business portrayed in Margaret Gebby's diaries was probably typical of her operation for more than thirty years as a farm wife, and her sisters and a significant number of neighbors had similar operations. In 1902 the county history noted 600,000 pounds of butter were marketed, and that "does not include creamers but simply the product of the farm and household."25 Such operations were widespread in rural areas throughout the country and reflect an economic contribution by women which has been largely ignored. The significant difference between the butter and egg business described in Margaret Gebby's diaries and a modern business such as a catering service run by a housewife from her home is not the work done or the income produced, but society's perception of the two businesses. Nineteenth-century farmwives considered themselves, and reported themselves in the census, as housewives. Income in a cash economy is extremely difficult to estimate accurately, but the time farmwives committed to the butter and egg business, the percentage of family living expenses which they earned, and their decision-making
25. Robert P. Kennedy, Historical Review of Logan County, Ohio (Chicago, 1903), 154. |
The Butter and Egg Business 67
responsibilities are remarkably similar
to a twentieth-century home-
maker operating a part-time business
from her home.
An intriguing revelation from these
diaries is the reference to other
women regularly earning money by doing
laundry, sewing, houseclean-
ing, and wallpapering. In a rural
community where many full-time
housewives earned cash income, the
butter and egg business was
apparently at the peak of the economic
hierarchy, conducted by
upper-middle-class farm wives who could
afford to own more than one
family milk cow. Margaret often sold
butter to neighbors, apparently
when their own cow was dry.
The butter and egg business clearly
reflects significant economic
activity which has not been accurately
reported. Records such as
Margaret Gebby's suggest a particular
need to reassess the historic
economic contribution of married rural
women, even those of the
upper-middle-class.
As a case study, these diaries suggest
that the butter and egg
business was both a vestige of earlier
eras when home production
provided the goods necessary for family
consumption and for trade in
a barter economy, and a home-based
business remarkably similar to
those currently conducted by many
self-employed workers. Even
though the Gebby farm was above average,
Margaret's butter and egg
income was not purchasing luxuries but
routine supplies for family
living.
If dairy and poultry operations like the
one described in these diaries
contributed approximately $100,000 to
the economy of a typical mid-
western rural county at the turn of the
century,26 a national figure for
such business would clearly reveal a
significant economic contribution
by married women which deserves to be
recognized.
26. The 600.000 pounds reported for 1902
in the county history would produce
$100,000 if the price averaged sixteen
and seventeen cents per pound, which is less than
the eighteen cents computed from
Margaret's accounts for 1888.