The Farmer's Wife

Farmer's Wife (St. Paul, Minn.) 1905-1939  Browse the title

Identifying itself as a newspaper “earnestly striving to help farm women everywhere to ‘fight the big fight,’” the Farmer’s Wife was a major national agricultural women’s magazine published in St. Paul, Minnesota, with over one million subscribers at its height.

Each monthly issue of Farmer's Wife usually ranged from twenty to thirty pages and covered local, regional, and international agriculture news in an attempt to reach all women in farming communities. The publication prided itself on being the “national magazine for the country woman” and shared many progressive topics that interested women of the early nineteen hundreds. Articles recounted in the newspaper range from personal stories, ways to make farm life easier for the farmer’s wife, proper etiquette at the table, clothing patterns, recipes, and instructions on how to do various tasks on the farm, all to be shared in “the spirit of mutual helpfulness.” The publication held itself to high standards, and shared that many stories in the publication would be clean for the family to hear “without giving anyone cause to blush or feel ashamed.” Many illustrations and advertisements throughout the forty-year run of the publication identify various remedies for common sicknesses or ailments and include advertisements for new home appliances, how women should dress, and how to make their homes comfortable for their families. Often the publication was progressive, decrying the dwindling amount of teachers in education and uplifting the women’s suffrage movement as an option to allow rural women to bring about great social and economic reform in their region. 

The Farmer's Wife began publication in St. Paul in 1897. Edward A. Webb bought the small magazine in 1905, publishing it as a companion to their Farmer magazine until 1939. In 1939 Webb Publishing Co. sold Farmer's Wife to Farm Journal of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who merged the two titles. The magazine was published under the title Farm Journal and Farmer’s Wife until 1945. "The Farmer's Wife" then continued as a named section of Farm Journal until 1970. Throughout its run, Farmer's Wife served as an invaluable resource and connection point for rural women across America.