Farmer Boy

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1933

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-25

Chapters 26-29

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Background

Historical Context: Rural Life in the 1800s

The 1800s US was a primarily rural nation “with most people living on farms or in small towns and villages” (“Rural Life in the Late 19th Century.” Library of Congress). Few towns existed, and cities were not yet built. Modern technology, such as the internet, television, microwaves, and even tractors and cars weren’t yet invented. Farm work had to be done by hand or using horses, oxen, and simplistic tools, including hoes, plows, yokes, and scythes. In fact, “new machines for use in farming were invented in this period, but horses, oxen, and people still provided most of the power that operated the machinery” (“Rural Life in the Late 19th Century”). Although farmers produced “cash crops (crops grown for sale),” they were still “remarkably self-sufficient, often making or trading for nearly everything required by their own families” (“Rural Life in the Late 19th Century”). Agricultural Life and Self-sufficiency is a major theme in Farmer Boy: Almanzo’s family raises their own food for themselves and their animals, chops their own wood, slaughters cows to eat, and shears the sheep for wool to make their own clothes. The family doesn’t rely on anyone outside their farm. They fulfill their basic needs for food, clothing, water, and shelter on the farm through hard work and preparedness.

During this time period, farms averaged more than “400 acres,” and “corn and wheat” were “staples” (Scheel, Eugene. “Farm Life in the 18th Century.” The History of Loudoun County, Virginia). Most homes were frame or log homes, and families averaged “five and six” to “support themselves” (“Farm Life in the 18th Century”). Unlike today, families were large because all the children worked daily to help the farm grow and prosper. Children were seen as worthy laborers, and the more children a family had, the more help they had to run the farm and live off the land. In addition, people relied on good-hearted neighbors and their community to assist each other, often bartering or trading things like crops or animals in exchange for work hours. During this time, the “workday began with the sun rising and ended with its setting” (“Farm Life in the 18th Century”), which Farmer Boy accurately depicts.

Series Context: The Little House Series

Farmer Boy is the second book in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She wrote autobiographical fiction using anecdotes and experiences from her life—and the life of her husband, Almanzo, in Farmer Boy—as the driving content. The author “was born in the Big Woods of Wisconsin on February 7, 1867, to Charles Ingalls and his wife, Caroline,” but her parents decided to move to a farm in Missouri, then Kansas, before ultimately going back to Wisconsin (“Laura Ingalls Wilder Bio.” Little House Books). These were the years Laura wrote about in her first book, Little House in the Big Woods. They next lived in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, on the banks of Plum Creek, on a farm that Laura loved. After grasshoppers devoured their crops, the family couldn’t pay off their debts and started a butcher shop instead of farming. Laura, at age 10, helped “earn money for the family by working in the dining room of the hotel in Walnut Grove, babysitting, and running errands” (“Laura Ingalls Wilder Bio”).

Because she had firsthand experience growing up in the 1800s, the author knew the context around the time, including valuing self-sufficiency, family, religion, and community. She portrays how people cherished their families, prayed, did chores, and upheld certain morals through attending church, helping others in need, and working hard to earn a living. The series chronicles her time growing up as a young girl in the countryside to her maturity into a woman and marrying the love of her life, Almanzo Wilder (whose life as a child inspired the main character in Farmer Boy), and starting their family.

The Little House series includes nine main books as well as compendium books. The main series begins with Little House on the Prairie and ends with The First Four Years. Farmer Boy provides an important contrast to the rest of the Little House series in that it depicts a different time, place, and socioeconomic situation. Since it doesn’t follow Laura’s perspective, the book is sometimes considered third in the series instead of second.