The mid 1940s are now quite a while back. Right now, quite frankly, it would be very difficult for any soldier being discharged from our recent wars to take up farming, unless he was born into it. So a pamphlet like this probably wouldn't even make sense in the modern context. I wonder when the last real option to simply decide to become a farmer was in US history?
The item on life expectancies in the era were interesting:
"According to a census study based on 1920 figures, a newborn city baby, if a boy, could expect to live, on the average, to the age of 52. If he was born on a farm, however, and stayed there, the chances are he would live to be from 56 to 60 years of age. For females, the expectation of life was 55 in cities and 60 to 62 on farms. In 1940 rural death rates were 10 per cent lower than urban."
Note how life expectancy rates in general have really climbed. This has been addressed elsewhere on this blog, and it isn't really true that "people are living longer", but it does show how many more people died young.
In the "Portfolio" section of the pamphlet there were apparently photographs depicting agricultural life, including this one:
"Wyoming ranchers watch their stock being loaded for shipment to Midwest feed lots. There the cattle will be “finished,” that is, fattened up on corn before they go on to the packing house."
That's one scene that wouldn't have changed much at all, other than that I suspect the photo showed cattle being moved by rail, rather than by truck.
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Some interesting pamphlets. The first one I looked at was the one on becoming a farmer:
http://www.historians.org/projects/GIRoundtable/Farming/Farming1.htm
The mid 1940s are now quite a while back. Right now, quite frankly, it would be very difficult for any soldier being discharged from our recent wars to take up farming, unless he was born into it. So a pamphlet like this probably wouldn't even make sense in the modern context. I wonder when the last real option to simply decide to become a farmer was in US history?
The item on life expectancies in the era were interesting:
"According to a census study based on 1920 figures, a newborn city baby, if a boy, could expect to live, on the average, to the age of 52. If he was born on a farm, however, and stayed there, the chances are he would live to be from 56 to 60 years of age. For females, the expectation of life was 55 in cities and 60 to 62 on farms. In 1940 rural death rates were 10 per cent lower than urban."
Note how life expectancy rates in general have really climbed. This has been addressed elsewhere on this blog, and it isn't really true that "people are living longer", but it does show how many more people died young.
In the "Portfolio" section of the pamphlet there were apparently photographs depicting agricultural life, including this one:
"Wyoming ranchers watch their stock being loaded for shipment to Midwest feed lots. There the cattle will be “finished,” that is, fattened up on corn before they go on to the packing house."
That's one scene that wouldn't have changed much at all, other than that I suspect the photo showed cattle being moved by rail, rather than by truck.
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