The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1922-09-08
FARM WOMEN HAPPY
WIDE SURVEY SHOWS
Their Attitude Makes for National
Stability, Declares Editor of
Rural Journal.

If you had a daughter of marriage
able age would you let her marry a
farmer?
"Ninety-four per cent of the Ameri-
can 1000 farm women who were
reached in the survey conducted by the
Farmers Wife, a national rural wom-
ems publication this spring answered
unreservedly in the affirmative. Their
replies were based on personal OBJ
servation and experience and form the
finest type Of evidence in refutation
of the city-made charge that the farm
woman is a hopeless drudge, dissatis-
fled and unhappy" 1t was Miss Bess
"A. Rowe, formerly director of the home
demonstration extension work at Boze-
man, now a member of the editorial
staff of the Farmers Wife, who told
the story Of the survey and its find
ings to several hundred women at
Butte recently.
Through this survey we felt the
heart beat of the rural women of the
United States as it has never been
felt BEFORE" Miss Rowe declared. The
women who wrote these 1000 letters
represented every economic level, ev-
cry degree of experience, every section
of the country and without any qualifi-
cations "a per cent voted their prefer
ence for rural life. The remaining six
per cent fell into four groups: Women
soured by personal experiences that
might fall to their lot in city or coun-
try; the natural crabs, women who
would be satisfied nowhere and women
in sections affected by strong radical
propaganda"
Better opportunities for self develop
ment, self expression and community
service which combine to make for the
highest type of happiness Miss Rowe
declared, these women said they felt
are there in greater degree in the
country than in the city.
Zone third of the nations population
lives in the country and as rural homes
are good or bad, happy or unhappy and
their people strong OF weak so will
that portion Of the people upon which
so much depends fail or succeed, she
said.
The editors made this survey among
the three quarters of a million sub
scribers because they felt that previous
surveys of various kinds made by rural
journals had failed to show what they
wanted to find out-the outlook of the
nations rural women, makers of the
farm homes, cornerstone of American
stability.
"That much can be expected from
the present and coming generation OF
rural people is indicated from the atti-
tude of the farm women of today
! Miss Rowe asserted. "They prefer the
country to the city principally because
they feel that it is a better place to
bring up children, their letters show
They declare that it develops a create,
sense of responsibility in children;
that they are taken into the family
counsels from which the city child is
frequently barred and that they have
opportunities for greater physical
freedom.
"Many women wrote that they liked
farm life in the first place because the
rural woman automatically becomes
her husbands business partner on he,
marriage. 1t is the only business in
which the wife is the assistant mana.
ger, n woman wrote. There was
constant repetition of the advantage OF
the farmers wife in being able to carr
a small Independent income without
leaving her home, hardly possible
elsewhere.
"Most of the women who wrote
seemed to deeply resent the city wo.
mans general assumption that the
farm wife is a drudge. On the whole
they declared that drudgery is Target,
an attitude and that the majority OF
farm m are not over-worked. The
charge that loneliness is the lot OF
rural wives most of them also branded
as false. One woman said that she
had so many people around her that
she actually longed for a minute tc
herself, while most of the writers
voiced the opinion that because they
made fewer acquaintance thew coulc
develop real and lasting friendships.
"Nearly all of them spoke of thu