LIFE IN ALABAMA IN EARLY 1900S

CHORES

• Hauling water, gathering eggs, tending the garden, and filling the wood box if they had one. Some chores like milking cows and feeding livestock had to be done more than once a day. Fieldwork started early, with feeding and harnessing the horses.

DAILY LIFE

• Farmers worked from sunrise to sunset, milking cows, feeding planting and harvesting the fields. When the farmer completed the farm chores, he still had the everyday chores around the house, such as cutting wood for the fireplace, maintaining fences and hunting to provide food for the family. Even if one did not live on a farm, most people still raised chickens for eggs and cows for milk.

ENTERTAINMENT

• In the early 1900s, three popular entertainment types were vaudeville variety shows, the circus and baseball.

FOOD

• Farms generally would have five to ten milking cows, a few sheep, a large flock of chickens for eggs and meat, and sometimes a few turkeys, ducks, or geese.
• Other things grown on the farm were green beans, cabbage, sweet corn, green peas and tomatoes. Minor crops included other types of beans, squash, pumpkins, watermelons, popcorn and lettuce.

SCHOOLS

• In the early 1900s, children only attended school for a few years, if at all, due to the demands of working in factories, coal mines, and on farms in order to help support their families.
• Parents tended to be satisfied with their children only acquiring the basic educational skills of literacy and numeracy.