Turning Points
in Wisconsin History
Farming and Rural Life
Although Native Americans have farmed in Wisconsin since the Woodland Period (about 3,000 years ago), the European settlers who arrived in the 19th century were not at first drawn to farming. Instead the lure of underground mineral wealth attracted the first few thousand settlers to the lead region of southwest Wisconsin in the 1820s.
Everything began to change in the 1830s when government surveyors began laying out townships and making detailed examinations of the Wisconsin landscape. Armed with copies of the surveyors' notes, land seekers and speculators began to purchase land from government land offices, paving the way for Wisconsin's... more...
Original Documents and Other Primary Sources
 | The early days of commercial cranberry growing in Wisconsin. |
| A Sauk Co. farmer recalls turning from wheat to dairy in the 1850s. |
| A man recalls his years on a hop farm in Sauk County |
| A Made-to-Order Farm to lure settlers northward, 1921 |
| Juliet Severance argues for farm women's education, 1886 |
| Farming developments in Sauk County (1917) |
| An overview of Wisconsin agriculture in 1909 |
| An Immigrant Who Became a Northwoods Missionary |
 | A gas powered tractor for small-scale farmers |
 | An 1888 milling catalogue from the Allis Company |
| Three new flour mills open in Superior in 1893 |
| A post-season report on farm laborers, 1960 |
| A pamphlet on farming in Northern Wisconsin, 1904 |
| Folklore and folktales collected by Charles E. Brown |
 | Photographs of cranberry harvesting, 1895-1977. |
| Advertisements for farm equipment |
 | "Aunt Nellie" offers advice to farm women, 1912-1918 |
| Ma Ingalls describes family life in 1861 |
| A Wisconsin farmer's diary, 1861-1865 |
| A Wisconsin farmer's diary, 1866-1871 |
| A Wisconsin farmer's diary, 1872-1878, account book, and letters |
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