Rural Life in a Modern Age

What does it mean to live a modern life?

Where you live has a critical impact on your lifestyle, your options, community services and even your health. Historically, the transition from rural to urban has meant that a household has options to use specialties the community offers and not to rely entirely on its own resources. A bakery can supply bread, a hospital health care, transportation services like buses or taxis, a school graded classrooms and clubs social outlets. On the other hand, rural families avoid urban noise and often pollution, ethnic tensions from different neighborhoods and sometimes the loss of tight-knit neighborhoods and family connections. Depending on one's priorities, urban or rural living may have more or less appeal.

Rural, Urban Growth

For the first time in American history, the urban population surpassed the rural population in the 1920 U.S. Census. The census showed that 51.2 percent of Americans lived in cities with a population over 2,500 (the definition of urban). In Iowa, rural residents still commanded a distinct majority with 36 percent. But there was a definite trend toward urban living, especially in the big cities in the East, and many Iowans found this disturbing. Descendents of Northern Europeans countries (British Isles, Germany, Scandinavia, Ireland) had traditionally dominated the countryside throughout the 19th century, but Eastern and Southern European immigrants had been swelling Boston, New York, Philadelphia and the manufacturing centers around the Great Lakes. Railroads and automobiles had greatly increased travel exposing Iowa residents to urban values that threatened long-standing traditions. World War I had witnessed the beginning of mass migrations of African-Americans to Northern cities creating new racial tensions. Additionally, due to the collapse of high wartime practices and agriculture growing surpluses created by wartime stimuli, Americans experienced economic hardship.

American values were in flux in the early 1900s. Prohibition was officially the law of the land with the passage of the 18th Amendment but the bootlegging industry and widespread disregard of the law created tensions. The rise of motion pictures and radio brought images of urban life to rural areas. As troops returned home from the fighting in Europe, many hoped that the U.S. could withdraw from international affairs and return to a more isolated foreign policy, but world affairs continued to draw America into diplomatic issues. Technology, economics and political tensions prevented the United States from returning to the pre-war "normalcy" - as President William Harding described it - and the nation would face unprecedented challenges in the coming years with the Great Depression, World War II and the onset of the Cold War in the Atomic Age.  

Supporting Questions

What did modern life look like at the beginning of the 20th century?

• "Typical Eastern City" Newspaper Article, September 1, 1900 (Document)
• State Street in Chicago, Illinois, 1905 (Image)
• Iowa City, Iowa, 1907 (Image)
• Fort Dodge, Iowa, 1907 (Image)
• Interview of Harry Reece about His First Trip to Chicago, Illinois, November 29, 1938 (Document)

What did rural life look like at the beginning of the 20th century?

• Woman, Man and Child Between a Corn Field and a Stream in Iowa, 1897 (Image)
• Rural Wagon Delivering Mail, 1903 (Video)
• "Country Life," 1904 (Image)
• Excerpts from the Report of the County Life Commission, 1909 (Document)
• "Special Message from the President of the United States Transmitting the Report of the Country Life Commission," 1909 (Document)
• Family Posed with Haystack and Horse-Drawn Wagon in Dubuque, Iowa, ca. 1910 (Image)
• Children Reading the Sunday Newspaper in Dickens, Iowa, December 1936 (Image)
• Selected Graphs from "Changes in Agriculture," 1950 (Document)

How did rural people advocate for the conveniences of modern life?

• Excerpt from the Annual Report of the Postmaster-General of the United States, 1891 (Document)
• "Rural Mail Report" Newspaper Article, October 24, 1899 (Document)
• Excerpt from "President's Message" about Rural Mail Delivery, December 3, 1900 (Document)
• "Electricity and the Farm" Newspaper Article, February 28, 1901 (Document)
• "Telephones on Farms" Newspaper Article, December 30, 1902 (Document)

What did modern life mean to people at the beginning of the 20th century?

• "The Marvelous Vogue of the Automobile," August 24, 1899 (Document)
• "Is Our Pace Too Fast?" June 18, 1903 (Document)
• "Physical Culture of Beams and Girders," May 12, 1904 (Document)
• "Woman and Her Ways," January 10, 1907 (Document)
• "Thomas Edison Prophesies," July 10, 1907 (Document)
• "Experienced Teacher" and "Newspapers" Article, October 12, 1907 (Document)

Additional Resources

• "Good Roads and Rural Free Delivery of Mail" by Wayne E. Fuller
  This academic journal article was featured in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review and looks at the transition to rural free delivery of mail around the turn of the 20th century. 
• "The Changing Nature of Country Roads: Farmers, Reformers, and the Shifting Uses of Rural Space, 1880-1905" by Christopher W. Wells
  This journal article follows the progression of road development and its effect on rural America. This includes the passage of the first state-aid road laws, the creation of the first federal road agency and the growth of a strong urban-rural coalition promoting rural road improvements.
• "The Revolution in Rural Telephony, 1900-1920" by Claude S. Fischer
  This article from the Journal of Social History focuses on the evolution of telephone development and technology in rural America. 
• "Rural Education Reform and the Country Life Movement, 1900-1920" by David B. Danbom
  This article, which was published in the Agricultural History journal, looks at the parallels of education reform and rural America. 
• Born in the Country: A History of Rural America by David B. Danbom
  This book features a general history of rural America. Ranging from pre-Columbian times to the enormous changes of the twentieth century, the book integrates agricultural, technological and economic themes with new questions social historians have raised about the American experience.
  

Iowa Core Social Studies Standards (9th-12th Grade)

Listed below are the Iowa Core Social Studies content anchor standards that are best reflected in this source set. The content standards applied to this set are high school-age level and encompass the key disciplines that make up social studies for 9th through 12th-grade students.