Leo T. reviewed on 3/23/2017 + 1775 more book reviews

The author has written many such books and there are period illustrations that are well chosen. The text is easy to read and it is organized into short chapters.
One of the last chapters is 'The Myth of the Frontier' but I suspect that there are other 'myths' such as the illustration on page 96 from the Bettman Archive with the assertion that the farm folk posing there are going to ride the farm machinery into town--cows walk slowly and there isn't room to carry stuff. Likewise, oxen were often better for pulling heavy wagons than horses and endured hard journeys better. Many people didn't have the latest farm equipment; for example my friend Boyd Mosher told me that in the early 20th C. on his folk's farm in southern Illinois they didn't have a combine, still doing part of the harvesting operation by hand.
Further Reading, index included.

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