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Units of New Hampshire History
Unit 8: Changing Times on the Farm
Find It! Changing Times on the Farm

Find It! Changing Times on the Farm

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All the resources that appear in this unit are gathered here for you—the photographs, maps, objects, audiovisuals, documents, videos, biographies, and vocabulary words. Click on the image below to see a larger view of each resource with more information about each one. On some of the resources you can even zoom in and get a closer look. So go ahead, dive in, and explore. Before you know it, you’ll be thinking like a historian.

Find It! Scavenger Hunt

Can you help Mason find these items on the page and answer the questions?

Scavenger Hunt

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Biographies in this Unit:

A black and white drawing of a man with short hair and a mustache. He looks off into the distance, to the left of the viewer. He wears a jacket, collared shirt, and a necktie. There is text written in cursive handwriting in the bottom left-hand corner of the drawing, which reads "Gov. Frank Rollins."

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Biography

Frank W. Rollins

1860–1916

Caption:

Frank W. Rollins was governor of New Hampshire from 1899 to 1901. He is known for starting the tradition of Old Home Week when he was governor. He came up with the idea as a way to celebrate life in New Hampshire’s small towns, where most people lived by farming. Towns organized picnics, baseball games, parades, and dinners during Old Home Week and encouraged people who had moved away to come back and visit. The first Old Home Week was in 1899. Frank Rollins was also one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. This organization still exists today. It works to conserve forest land and make sure it is used wisely. Rollins State Park on Mount Kearsarge is named after Governor Rollins.

Image Credit: Portrait by John E. Coffin, circa 1895, New Hampshire Historical Society

Documents in this Unit:

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Document

College Diploma

1902

Caption:

The University of New Hampshire opened in 1866. Back then it was called the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, and it was part of Dartmouth College. Its purpose was to give the children of farmers and factory workers a college education. At first it focused on agriculture, and young people could take classes to study the science of farming. The first woman student enrolled in 1890. In 1893, the college moved to Durham, and in 1923 it changed its name to the University of New Hampshire. Now you can study all sorts of subjects at UNH, from accounting to zoology!

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

An orange, horizontal poster with large black text. The text reads: "PENACOOK LAKE ICE COMPANY/TELEPHONE 1052-R/ICE/LONG POND ICE FROM CITY WATER SUPPLY."

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Document

Penacook Lake Ice Company

1940

Caption:

Before electric refrigerators and freezers, people used iceboxes to store their food and keep it cold. Local ice companies harvested ice in the winter and stored it in icehouses year-round, then delivered it to their customers' homes each week.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

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Document

Proclamation for Old Home Week

1900

Caption:

This is a proclamation issued by Governor Frank West Rollins, announcing the second annual Old Home Week in August 1900.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

Explainer Videos and Virtual Field Trips in this Unit:

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Video

Virtual Field Trip: Wicked Old Farms and Fairs

2023

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

Maps & Charts in this Unit:

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Maps & Charts

New Hampshire's Ice Cream Trail

2020

Caption:

The Ice Cream Trail is a list of ice cream shops all over the state. You can get a brochure with the list and a map of all the shops. Try to visit all of them in one summer! Dairy farming has a long history in New Hampshire. The Ice Cream Trail is a great way to encourage tourists to visit New Hampshire and support the state's dairy farmers.

Image Credit: Granite State Dairy Promotion

Objects in this Unit:

A wooden box divided into two horizontal sections. The top section contains pieces of rough-looking cloth, thin fibers, and brown string. The bottom section contains pieces of smooth-looking cloth, colored thread, and thick fibers.

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Objects

Flax

Joep Vogels, Textielmuseum Tilburg

Caption:

This display from a textile museum in the Netherlands shows flax and products made from flax. Flax is a type of plant. The fibers from flax stems are strong, smooth, and straight. Bundles of flax fibers look a bit like blonde hair. Flax is harvested and used to make a textile called linen, which could be used for clothing or household goods. It can also be used to make rope, flaxseed, paper, and linseed oil. Linseed oil is used in cooking, to feed livestock, and to oil machines so that the metal parts work properly.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A tall rectangular carton of milk. Two sides of the carton are shown, the left containing drawings of a young boy and girl next to the words "Umm-Good!" and "Sure Is!" Beneath these drawings are the words "DRINK/MILK/FOR/HEALTH." The right side of the carton has a large label that reads "JOHNSON'S/DAIRY/NORTHWOOD NARROWS/NEW HAMPSHIRE."

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Objects

Milk Carton

circa 1950–1960

Caption:

Dairy farming has been an important part of New Hampshire agriculture since the middle of the 1800s. In the 1840s, New Hampshire farmers began shipping milk to markets in Boston by train. Later, farmers began to make butter for sale. Once freezer trains and trucks were invented, they made and sold ice cream too. Johnson's Dairy Barn in Northwood, NH, still sells ice cream today! Have you been there?

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A large basket made from thin strips of light brown bark. In the center of the basket are two thin handles.

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Objects

Sap Bucket

circa 1800s

Caption:

The Abenaki were the first to realize that the sap of the sugar maple tree could be collected and boiled down to make sweet syrup. They collected sap in buckets like this, made of bark from birch trees. This sap bucket is from the 1800s but it is similar to buckets used in earlier times. One main difference is that this basket has a metal wire to hang it from the tree. In the woodland period, the Abenaki probably used a cord made from animal hide or sinew or plant fibers instead.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society

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Objects

Sap Bucket Today

circa 2020

Caption:

Humans have collected sap from the maple tree for thousands of years to make maple syrup. As technology has changed over time, so have the tools that people use to collect and boil the sap. This sap bucket is from the 21st century. What is it made out of?

Image Credit: Adobe Stock user Teresa

A small wooden cylinder with thin blue thread wrapped around it.

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Objects

Spool of Thread

circa 1880

Caption:

This is a spool of thread. Thread is made by taking two or more strands of yarn and twisting them together very tightly. It is then wound on spools or large cones. This thread is made of silk, but thread can be made from animal, plant, or machine-made fibers.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

Photographs & Prints in this Unit:

A black and white drawing of the interior of a house, with a large fireplace on the left side of the room. A group of men, women, and children are all working at various chores around the room. One woman places coals on top of a pot in the fireplace; one woman works at a spinning wheel; another woman stands next to a cylinder barrel; another woman rolls out dough with a rolling pin; a man peels apples over a bowl; and two children play on the floor in the center of the room. Various herbs and vegetables hang from the ceiling. The title of the drawing, located along the bottom border, reads "A NEW ENGLAND KITCHEN,/A HUNDRED YEARS AGO."

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Photograph/Print

A New England Kitchen

circa 1876

H. W. Pierce

Caption:

New Hampshire farm families in the late 1700s and early 1800s were focused on their farms and their towns. The kitchen was the center of the home. People didn't have family rooms or living rooms like many houses have today. The kitchen fireplace, or hearth, provided heat for the house. It was also where the women cooked all the meals. What kinds of other work are the different family members doing in this picture?

Image Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

A colored drawing of a group of people in a village. Some of the people wear yellow pieces of cloth over the lower halves of their bodies and others wear yellow dresses. There are domed buildings placed in a semi-circle around the village. At the center of the village is a large fire pit, with two wooden racks hanging over the fire. The village is placed near a small body of water, which is shown on the left side of the drawing. A canoe sits on the shoreline just before the water.

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Photograph/Print

Abenaki Village

2021

Francine Poitras Jones

Caption:

Abenaki villages were always built close to a water source. In the village, the wigwams were built in a half-circle pattern, with a fire pit in the center. Around the edges of the village, the Abenaki planted crops to grow food. Some villages were very large, with hundreds of people living there.

Image Credit: Illustration by Francine Poitras Jones for the New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored painting of a train pulling multiple passenger cars through a flat area of land. The land to the left of the train shows several single-storied and two-storied houses. The land to the right has a large and curvy body of water surrounded by trees. Behind the body of water are tall mountains. The title of the painting, located along the bottom border, reads: "ACROSS THE CONTINTENT."

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Photograph/Print

Across the Continent

1868

Frances Flora Bond Palmer

Caption:

In the years after the Civil War, many people from New Hampshire moved west. The farmland was much better in places like Ohio, Nebraska, and California than it was in New England. The railroads made farming profitable, because crops like corn and wheat could be shipped to markets in the East. This painting shows a new town built along the railroad somewhere in the Midwest.

Image Credit: Yale University Art Gallery

A colored horizontal drawing of a gray, gold, and red colored train with a large smoke stack at the front of it, pulling a green and red cargo train car filled with coal. In the background of the drawing, there is a series of orderly rectangular buildings along the banks of a river. Smoke rises above some of the buildings' chimneys. The title of the drawing, located along the bottom border, reads: "OUTSIDE CONNECTED PASSENGER ENGINE./AMOSKEAG MANUFACTUING CO./MANCHESTER N. H."

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Photograph/Print

Amoskeag Locomotive

circa 1856

John H. Bufford

Caption:

The Amoskeag Company manufactured more than textiles over the years. They also made locomotives, fire engines, sewing machines, and rifles. The Amoskeag Company had a big machine shop where they made all of their own machines for producing textiles. When railroads started growing all over the country in the 1840s, Amoskeag Company decided to make locomotives too. A locomotive is an engine that moves by its own power. Locomotives are the train cars that pull all the rest of the cars. The first Amoskeag locomotive was finished on March 1, 1849. They made 234 steam-powered locomotives by 1858, when they decided to make fire engines instead.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white photograph of a large circus tent. A crowd of people walk in front of the tent. The outside of the tent is decorated with drawings of tigers, lions, and other wild animals.

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Photograph/Print

Animal Show at Concord Fair

1901

Caption:

The Concord Fair was one of many agricultural fairs held around the state in the 19th and 20th centuries. These fairs were celebrations of rural life, with farm animal competitions, games, food vendors, and other fun activities. There were also entertainment shows, like the animal show in this photo, or musical or acrobatic performances.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored painting of three boys standing and sitting on the shore of a small body of water. The boy standing on the right side of the painting bends down to roll up his pant leg. To his right is a pile of fish on the grass.

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Photograph/Print

Boys Fishing

1846

Thomas Le Clear

Caption:

Fishing has been popular in New Hampshire for thousands of years. Fish were an important source of food for the indigenous Abenaki people during the woodland period. Fishing was an important economic activity for the early English settlers, because they shipped the fish back to Europe to sell. For a long time, farmers fished, hunted, and gathered wild fruits, because they could not always rely on the crops they grew. And of course fishing is a fun recreational activity and sport that people do throughout New Hampshire today! Do you like to fish?

Image Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of George Maxwell, in memory of his friend and mentor, John K. Howat, 2015

A colored horizontal poster of a young boy wearing a red and white striped shirt with blue overalls rolled up to the anke. He does not wear any shoes. He is laying on his stomach on green grass surrounded by chickens and various farm products - such as potatoes, apples, berries, tomatoes, lettuce, and squash. The title of the poster, which is centered along the upper border in blue text, reads "chippa granite says: buy new hampshire products."

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Photograph/Print

Chippa Granite Says Buy NH Products

circa 1954

Alice Cosgrove

Caption:

Chippa Granite was a character created by New Hampshire state artist Alice Cosgrove in the 1950s. Chippa's image was used on posters, billboards, signs, and brochures. He encouraged people to visit New Hampshire and to buy New Hampshire-made products. Chippa Granite became a symbol of New Hampshire.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white drawing of a horse-drawn wagon driving up a dirt road with a slight incline to a multi-storied house and several farm buildings. The wagon has various bundles in it and the horse is directed by a person sitting at the front of the wagon. To the left of the road is a fenced-in piece of land, scattered with grass and trees.

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Photograph/Print

Colonial Farm

circa 1760s

From Indian History for Young Folks by Francis S. Drake, published 1885, at the Internet Archive

Caption:

This book illustration shows what a colonial farm would have looked like in the 1760s.

A colored drawing of the inside of a factory. There are several large cloth-making machines in long columns, with a pathway between each. Each machine is attended to by women and young girls in long dresses. In the forefront of the drawing, a young woman bends down and points to the underneath of the machine in front of her, and a man holding a strap of leather looks on from her left.

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Photograph/Print

Cotton Carding Machines

circa 1834

Thomas Allom

Caption:

These women and children workers are running the carding machines in a cotton mill. The raw cotton is fed into the machine and rolled around the cylinders. This cleans and smooths the fibers. These workers are in a cotton mill in England, but there were many women and children mill workers in New Hampshire's textile industry.

Image Credit: ©The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

A black and white photograph of a man standing on a frozen body of water, dragging pieces of cut ice through the exposed water.

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Photograph/Print

Cutting Ice

1936

Arthur Rothstein

Caption:

Before refrigerators and freezers were invented, people harvested ice from New Hampshire's lakes and ponds and stored it year-round to keep their food cold. This is from a series of photos of an ice harvest in Coos County.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress

A black and white photograph of three white men unloading a truck. One man stands on the truck's bed and hands down a large bottle-shaped container to another man standing just below the truck's bed, while another man stands off to the side. Several other containers, labeled with numbers, sit under a tarp on the truck.

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Photograph/Print

Dairy Farm Workers

circa 1940s

Caption:

After 1850, railroads could bring food from the rich farmland of the Midwest to New England. It was cheaper to do that than for New England farmers to grow food themselves. Many New Hampshire farmers moved to cities or to the Midwest or the west coast. Others shifted from growing grain to focus on other products, especially dairy. Dairy farming continues to be an important part of New Hampshire's economy today.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored photograph of a group of white men and women playing instruments. They all sit in rows behind music stands.

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Photograph/Print

Deerfield Old Home Day

1985

Caption:

This photo shows a community band playing at Old Home Day in Deerfield, New Hampshire. Old Home Days began in 1899 and started out as a whole week. People who had moved away from their hometowns came back to visit family and friends and celebrate their small-town traditions. Many towns in New Hampshire still hold these celebrations, but they are for one day instead of a week.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored postcard of a green valley set between three tree-covered hills. To the left of the valley is a large tree and a shrub lined road. The title of the postcard, located along the bottom border, reads "GREETINGS FROM DERRY. N.H."

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Photograph/Print

Derry Farm Scene

Curt Teich and Company

Caption:

The first settlers in the Merrimack Valley were Scots-Irish, people who were originally from Scotland, but had moved to Ireland. Beginning in 1719, many Scots-Irish moved from Ireland to New Hampshire. They wanted more land and to preserve their culture and religion. Many were farmers, and soon farm towns full of Scots-Irish settlers spread all over the Merrimack Valley.

Image Credit: Derry Public Library Collection, Internet Archive

A black and white drawing of a cluster of multi-storied buildings sitting on the edge of a body of water. A group of ducks swim in the water and three men fish from the shore in the forefront of the drawing.

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Photograph/Print

Dover Factories

circa 1828–1830

Thomas Edwards, Senefelder Lithographic Company

Caption:

The town of Dover, NH, has used the water power of the Cocheco River for centuries. In the 1600s it powered a sawmill and in the 1800s it powered cotton mills. This picture shows textile factories along the Cocheco River in the early 1800s.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored postcard of a wide street lined with multi-storied buildings. The scene is depicted at night, with a full moon in a cloudy sky. All of the buildings have light shining through the windows. A trolley drives down the road with its headlights on. Several people walk along the sidewalks. Decorative iron arches with lightbulbs cross over the street at distanced intervals. The title of the postcard, located in the bottom right-hand corner, reads: "ELM STREET BY NIGHT, MANCHESTER, N. H."

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Photograph/Print

Elm Street By Night

circa early 1900s

Caption:

New Hampshire's cities grew quickly during the Industrial Revolution! Manchester became the largest city in the state, and it is still the largest today. Life was very different in cities than in farming towns. There were all sorts of places for entertainment and shopping. New technology, like electric lights and streetcars, meant that people could go out in cities at night.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Manchester (NH) Historic Association

A black and white photograph shows a bird’s eye view of a plot of farmland. The foreground shows a small fenced-in yard with metal fencing dividing it at a diagonal. Inside the yard are small shrubs and a small wooden shack. Beyond the fencing, in the background, are several vertical rows of crops. To the left of the fenced-in yard and the rows of crops is a dirt road, lined by rock walls and small trees. The plot of farmland is surrounded by large trees.

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Photograph/Print

Farmland in New Hampshire

1902

Caption:

New Hampshire is known for its beautiful farmland, and people have come here to farm from prehistoric days all the way through to the modern day. During the "Great Wave" of immigration, many immigrants moved to New Hampshire to farm.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored photograph of the same scene displayed four times, with two images placed on top of two other images. In each scene, a path is lined with thin trees. Each scene displays different types of weather and foliage, showing, from left to right: flowering trees with pink blossoms, trees with green leaves, trees with green and yellow leaves, and snow covered trees and path.

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Photograph/Print

Four Seasons

undated

George Hodan

Caption:

New Hampshire has four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall, which is also called autumn.

Image Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A colored photograph of a white two-storied house, with several multi-storied buildings attached to the back of it. Surrounding the house is a green field and tall trees with green leaves.

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Photograph/Print

Frost Farm

Vincent Rojo

Caption:

This picture shows a connected farm. This type of housing style was popular on New England farms in the late 1700s and 1800s. Most farms started off with a small house but then added to it as the farm produced more goods. Farm families who were doing well built a bigger house onto the small house. Sometimes they also built a room that linked the house to the barn. This was called a connected farm because the different parts of the house are connected together. This was known as "big house, little house, back house, barn." This connected farm in Derry, New Hampshire, was built in the 1880s and later owned by the Frost family. A famous writer, Robert Frost, lived there with his family from 1900 to 1911.

Image Credit: Courtesy Nutfield Genealogy Blog

A black and white photograph of a three-storied building with a pointed roof. A sign hanging between the first and second floors, which reads: "J. JONES & SONS." A man and a woman stand in front of the building on steps that lead up to the building from the dirt road. To the left of the man and woman is a horse-drawn wagon with large wheels.

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Photograph/Print

General Store

circa 1900

Caption:

This photograph shows the J. Jones and Son general store in Alton, NH. General stores were very popular in the 19th and early 20th century. Most villages had one, and people from the surrounding countryside would go there to shop. They were called "general" stores because they sold a wide variety of goods, including food, clothing, farm equipment, seeds, medicine, tools, and fuel such as kerosene. Customers usually bartered items they produced on their farms, such as eggs, butter, or vegetables, in exchange for the goods they purchased. They also bought items on credit, which means that they agreed to pay a certain amount later, after they were able to sell their crops. General stores were also often the post office for the area and a place that people could gather to catch up on the news of the day. This building is still a store today, the Alton True Value and Country Supply.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white photograph of a grassy field to the left of a river, on which several sheep graze.

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Photograph/Print

Grazing Sheep

circa 1880–1985

Caption:

Have you ever noticed old stone walls in your town or along country roads in New Hampshire? Many of them were built in the early 19th century to keep sheep penned in. There was so much sheep farming in New Hampshire that farmers were said to have "sheep fever." Many trees were cut down to provide land for sheep to graze on. By 1840 there were more than 600,000 sheep in New Hampshire. That's more sheep than people!

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white photograph of a group of people in a large grassy field. Some drive a team of oxen or horses, which are attached to wagons piled high with hay, while others ride atop farming equipment pulled by a single horse.

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Photograph/Print

Harvesting Hay

1889–1988

Caption:

These New Hampshire farm workers are harvesting hay. They are using a machine pulled by horses. In the 20th century, farmers were able to pull the hay harvester with a tractor. The hay was used to feed farm animals like horses, cows, and sheep over the winter.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white photograph of a man standing in the back of a truck, holding a filled cloth bag over his head. To his left is a triangular tower, off of which hangs fours rows of filled cloth bags. A sign on the tower reads "MILKWEED PODS/COLLECTED LOCALLY."

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Photograph/Print

Harvesting Milkweed

circa 1941–1945

Caption:

During World War II, Granite Staters collected milkweed pods to help in the war effort. Milkweed floss is water-resistant and was used to fill life jackets for soldiers and sailors. It took two 20-pound bags of milkweed pods to make one life preserver.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white photograph of two young boys standing in front of a sheep. Both boys look at the sheep, while the boy to the left holds up the sheep's chin.

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Photograph/Print

Kids at Hopkinton State Fair

1978

Bill Finney

Caption:

The Hopkinton state fair began in 1915. It had agricultural exhibits, competitions for farm animals, horse races, food vendors, and games. The fair still runs today every Labor Day weekend and has many of the same activities. It is a chance for farmers to show off their prize livestock or crops. These kids are getting ready to show their sheep at the 1978 fair.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white photograph of two young boys kneeling on the ground outside, cutting the tops off of peppers. There is a large pot positioned between the boys on the ground. To the left of the boys is a large basket of peppers.

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Photograph/Print

Kids Harvesting Peppers

circa mid-20th century

Caption:

These kids are helping out on their family's farm. Does your family have a garden, or have a plot in a community garden? What kinds of things do you grow?

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white photograph of two young boys working in a vegetable garden. The boys are walking along a path between two garden rows. The boy at the front of the photograph holds bundles of carrots in each hand, while the other boy walks behind him.

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Photograph/Print

Kids Helping on a Farm

circa mid-20th century

Caption:

These kids are helping out on their family's farm. Does your family have a garden, or have a plot in a community garden? What kinds of things do you grow?

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored photograph of a young girl standing between two black and white cows with horns. Behind them is a long, yellow and white striped tent.

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Photograph/Print

Lancaster Fair

2018

Fletcher Manley for the "New Hampshire Now" project

Caption:

Many agricultural fairs were held around the state in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These fairs were celebrations of rural life, with farm animal competitions, games, food vendors, and other fun activities. The Lancaster Fair began in 1902 and included horse racing and baseball games. Later there were car shows and circus acts, as well as live music. But whatever entertainment shows were held at the fair, there were always arts and crafts, baking contests, livestock competitions, and other opportunities to celebrate the traditions of rural life. In this photo, a girl shows her oxen at the 2018 Lancaster Fair.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Now collection, New Hampshire Historical Society

Leete Farm, West Claremont, New Hampshire

A colored painting of a two-story white house with several barns and out buildings in a large grassy field. Behind the buildings are large green hills covered with trees. In front of the buildings are several piles of green hay. Five men with rakes work in the field. A large pile of hay sits on top of a flat wagon, pulled by two brown oxen.

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Photograph/Print

Leete Farm, West Claremont, New Hampshire

circa 1822

Attributed to Francis Alexander

Caption:

Farming has a long and important history in New Hampshire. In the woodland period, the Abenaki planted crops. The early English settlers had to grow food to eat. Until the early 1800s, nearly everyone in New Hampshire was a farmer! Granite Staters grew all sorts of crops, including grains like wheat and corn, vegetables like squash and carrots, and they had orchards of apples and pears. They also raised livestock, like sheep, cows, and chickens, to provide milk, eggs, and meat. Agriculture continues to be important in New Hampshire today. This painting shows a very typical farmstead near Claremont, New Hampshire, in the early 1800s.

Image Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1972

A colored painting of a white farm house to the right of a dirt road. To the left of the road is a tall gray barn. The road is lined with rock walls and small trees. A small boy in overalls walks in the center of the lane, holding a raised stick in his right hand. He walks behind two brown cows.

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Photograph/Print

Lewis Nute Farm

1880

Frank H. Shapleigh

Caption:

This farm in Milton, NH, was owned by Lewis Nute. Nute was born in Milton but moved to Boston as a young man and worked in the shoe business. Eventually he owned his own shoe company and built factories in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to manufacture the shoes he sold. Later in life he retired to New Hampshire and bought this farm.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white horizontal drawing of a group of men working at various jobs relating to cutting and storing pieces of wood, including splitting wood with an axe or a saw, stacking wood into rectangular blocks, and leading a team of oxen pulling a wagon of round logs. The title of the drawing, located in the upper left-hand corner, reads "LUMBER & Wood Products."

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Photograph/Print

Lumber and Wood Products

From a painting by Sidney E. King for the National Park Service, circa 1950s, published in The Project Gutenberg Ebook of New Discoveries at Jamestown by John L. Cotter and J. Paul Hudson, 2005

Caption:

This illustration shows the types of work that English settlers in the timber industry might have done. What do you notice about the kinds of things they may have built with the timber? How did they get the logs from the forest to their workshops? What did they do with the extra timber?

Image Credit: Project Gutenberg

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Photograph/Print

Making Maple Syrup Today

circa 2020

Caption:

People in New Hampshire have been boiling sap from maple trees to make syrup for thousands of years, starting with the indigenous Abenaki people. As technology has changed over time, so have the tools that people use to make maple syrup. How does this equipment look different from what people used long ago?

Image Credit: Adobe Stock user Kumblack

A black and white drawing of a sheep with curved horns on its head. The sheep stands on a patch of grass. The title of the drawing, located along the bottom border, reads: "MERINO RAM."

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Photograph/Print

Merino Sheep

1893

From Sheep, Breeds and Management by John Wrightson

Caption:

In the early 1800s, many farmers in Vermont and New Hampshire started raising sheep. They could sell the wool from the sheep to the new textile factories. There were more sheep than people in New Hampshire! This is known as the Great Sheep Boom. Merino sheep were a popular breed of sheep to raise during this time. Merino sheep were known for being very sturdy and for producing fine wool.

Image Credit: Internet Archive

A black and white drawing of two groups of people meeting along the shore of a body of water. The two groups trade items with each other in the foreground of the drawing. In the background, people either sit in large canoes or stand along the edges of large ships.

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Photograph/Print

Native Americans and English Trading

1597

Theodor de Bry

Caption:

English explorers first met the Abenaki people in the late 1500s and early 1600s. The English and the Abenaki traded with each other for items like beaver pelts, wampum, and metal tools like ax heads. Many people think this image shows an explorer named Bartholomew Gosnold trading with Native Americans in what is now Massachusetts. Other people think it shows a different Englishman trading with Native Americans in what is now Newfoundland, Canada. It is probably not a very accurate image of what the indigenous people looked like. But it does give you an idea of early meetings between indigenous people of New England and English explorers.

Image Credit: Edward E. Ayer Digital Collection, Newberry Library

A colored photograph of an apple tree, with an old barn in the background.

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Photograph/Print

New England Farm

thomas

Caption:

Most English settlers in New Hampshire had to farm to produce their own food. If they had extra crops, they traded them with other people for the things they couldn't produce themselves.

Image Credit: Adobe Stock

A black and white drawing of three women doing different activities in front of a large fire place. The woman on the left is sitting and knitting; the woman in the middle stands in front of the knitting woman, with her back turned towards the viewer; and the woman on the right is sitting and reading a book. All three women wear long dresses with long sleeves and bonnets. The fire place has large pieces of furniture on either side of it. Hanging above the fire place is a musket and powder horn. Inside the fire place are several pots hanging from hooks over a small fire.

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Photograph/Print

New England Farm House

1876

F.S. Church in Harper's Weekly, July 15, 1876

Caption:

This illustration shows a typical 17th or 18th century New England farmhouse. Notice the kinds of work the women are doing. The farmhouse in the picture is a replica, or reproduction, from an exposition or big fair called the Centennial Exposition. It was held to celebrate the 100th birthday of the United States in 1876.

Image Credit: Library of Congress

A colored painting of a three-story yellow house and barn in a wooded area. A curved dirt path leads to the house. A man, a dog, two sheep, and two cows walk along the path towards the house.

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Photograph/Print

New England Homestead

1839

Samuel Lancaster Gerry

Caption:

Image Credit: Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund

A colored drawing of a white farm house, several out-buildings, and various farming equipment. Chickens, cows, goats, geese, a dog, and two cats roam around the fields and in front of the house. A horse-drawn carriage with a man and a woman seated in the carriage rides past the house, as a man, woman, and small child watch on from the front yard.

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Photograph/Print

New Hampshire Farm Scene

1993

Barbara Henba

Caption:

In the early 1800s, most people in New Hampshire lived in farming communities a lot like this one. What do you notice in the foreground of the painting? What do you notice in the background?

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A horizontal poster showing a black and white photograph of farmland and various out-buildings in a valley surrounded by mountains. The photograph is showcased in an oval frame, surrounded by a colored drawing of apple trees. Above the photograph are the words "NEW HAMPSHIRE FARMS," and below the photograph are the words "YOUR OPPORTUNITY."

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Photograph/Print

New Hampshire Farms: Your Opportunity

1920

New Hampshire State Board of Agriculture

Caption:

Many people left New Hampshire in the 1800s as they discovered cheaper, better farmland further west. The railroads also made it easier and cheaper to travel to the west. Many farms were abandoned during that time, so the state government used to publish a brochure encouraging people from big cities like New York and Boston to buy them as summer homes.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored vertical poster of a fair ground, with horses, pigs, and cows being displayed. Groups of people walk around looking at the animals, while others watch a horse race in the upper left-hand corner. There are several single-storied buildings in the background of the poster. In the lower left-hand corner, there is a drawing of a cow next to some farming equipment, and there is a drawing of a horse next to some fruits and vegetables in the lower right-hand corner.

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Photograph/Print

New Hampshire Grange Fair and Festival

1886

Strobridge Lithographing Company

Caption:

Although fewer Granite Staters lived and worked on farms after the Industrial Revolution, agriculture is still a very important part of the state's economy and its history. New Hampshire's Grange was founded in 1873. The Grange is a national organization for farming communities. The Grange works with politicians of both parties to try and put policies and rules into place that are good for farmers. Local Grange chapters also work on community service projects and host social events, like agricultural fairs and festivals.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

New Hampshire Union Soldiers on Morning Duty

A colored illustration of a large group of men dressed in long blue coats and pants. All of the men carry either a shovel, a pick-axe, a pitch fork, or a rake. They all walk in straight rows past three large triangle-shaped white tents.

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Photograph/Print

New Hampshire Union Soldiers on Morning Duty

circa 1890

Illustration by W. T. Crane, published in The Soldier in Our Civil War: A Pictorial History of the Conflict by Frank Leslie

Caption:

When the Civil War began in April 1861, thousands of men from New Hampshire volunteered to fight in the U.S. (Union) Army. This group of soldiers was stationed in South Carolina. In this picture, they are reporting for their morning duties. The picture is from a book written about the Civil War in 1890.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white drawing of three images - a fish, a bundled collection of arrows, and a tree - in a circle surrounded by words written in another language - other than English - along the border.

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Photograph/Print

New Hampshire's First State Seal

1776

From Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History From 458 A.D. to 1909, volume 6 by Benson J. Lossing (New York and London: Harper and Brothers Publishing, 1906)

Caption:

A seal is a mark on a document to make it official. The first state seal shows some important symbols of New Hampshire. On the left is a codfish. On the right is a white pine tree. In the middle there are five arrows bound together. At the time this seal was created, there were five counties in New Hampshire. This was the first seal designed after New Hampshire and the rest of the original 13 colonies declared independence from England in July 1776. The words on the seal are in Latin. Sigill rei pub Neohantoni means "seal of the state of New Hampshire." Vis unita fortior means "a united force is stronger."

A black and white photograph of a large group of people standing in front of a multi-storied building. The building is decorated with American flag banners.

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Photograph/Print

Old Home Celebration

circa 1900–1940

Caption:

Old Home Week is an important New Hampshire tradition. It started in 1899. Its purpose was to celebrate rural life and help people feel good about living in New Hampshire. Towns held celebrations over an entire week, with parades, dances, picnics, concerts, and games. They invited back everyone who had moved away from the town to visit their "old home." The idea spread throughout New England and across the country. This photo shows an Old Home celebration in Goffstown, New Hampshire.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Goffstown Historical Society

A horizontal black and white poster, showing four images of farms, mountains, and lakes to the left of the words "Come back again…/OLD HOME WEEK/IN/NEW HAMPSHIRE."

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Photograph/Print

Old Home Week Letterhead

1899

Caption:

Old Home Week is an important New Hampshire tradition. It started in 1899. Its purpose was to celebrate rural life and help people feel good about living in New Hampshire. Towns held celebrations over an entire week, with parades, dances, picnics, concerts, and games. They invited back everyone who had moved away from the town to visit their "old home." The idea spread throughout New England and across the country. Many New Hampshire towns still have an Old Home Day each year.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A black and white drawing of a group of Black men and women working in a field of tall white plants.

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Photograph/Print

Picking Cotton

1887

Illustration from Willard W. Glazier, Down the Great River: Embracing an Account of the Discovery of the True Source of the Mississippi

Caption:

Textiles, or making cloth, was the biggest industry in New Hampshire in the 19th century. At first the cloth was made from wool. Lots of farmers changed the way they farmed. They raised sheep instead of growing crops, and sold the wool to the factories. In the 1830s cloth made from cotton became more popular than cloth made from wool. The cotton was grown in the South and shipped to factories in New England. The cotton was grown on big plantations, and enslaved people planted and harvested it. Even after the Civil War, when slavery ended, the cotton was mostly farmed by Black people who were paid very little for their work.

Image Credit: Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, slaveryimages.org

A black and white drawing of three men working in a forested landscape that has been fenced off. The man on the right holds up a long stick and digs into the ground with a twisting tool. In front of him are three tools on the ground: a curved axe, a shovel, and a pickaxe. The man in the center digs a large hole with a shovel. To his left is a fallen tree. The third man, bent over on the left side of the drawing, prepares to cut a tree down with a curved axe.

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Photograph/Print

Planting in the Colonies

1631

From A New Orchard and Garden by William Lawson, 1631

Caption:

Almost every English settler in New Hampshire grew some crops, even if they also worked in other industries. They needed to grow food to eat as well as trade with others. They grew wheat, corn, and barley, vegetables like beans and squash, and also had apple orchards.

Image Credit: Project Gutenberg

A colored photograph of a rocky field. A valley of flat land and mountains can be seen in the background.

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Photograph/Print

Rocky Landscape

Caption:

Farming is challenging in New Hampshire because of its rocky landscape. Before there were machines, farmers had to dig all of the rocks out of the soil by hand! They had to move them out of the fields so they could plant their crops. It was a lot of hard work.

Image Credit: Adobe Stock user Sin Dinero

A colored painting of a mailman presenting a letter to a large group of people gathered in front of a store. Behind the mailman is a square-shaped, horse-drawn carriage.

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Photograph/Print

Rural Free Delivery, 1896

Carl Rakeman for the Bureau of Public Roads, circa 1920s–1950s

Caption:

The Grange is a national organization that works to improve the lives of people who lived in rural communities. It began in 1867. The Grange is very active in New Hampshire. One of the things that the Grange fought for was delivery of the mail directly to people who lived in rural areas. This program is called Rural Free Delivery (RFD). Before RFD, people living out in the country had to pick up their mail at post offices that might be far away, or pay a private mail carrier to bring it to their homes.

Image Credit: Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, on flickr

A colored photograph of several rows of brown crops in the snow. Tall trees can be seen bordering the field of crops in the distance.

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Photograph/Print

Snowy Field

Caption:

Farming is challenging in New Hampshire because of the weather. The growing season is shorter than many other areas of the country. It finally warms up in May, but gets cold again starting in October. Too much rain or not enough rain prevents crops from growing. Plus, a windstorm or icestorm could damage crops. Farming is hard work!

Image Credit: Adobe Stock user Aaron J. Hill

A black and white drawing of the interior of a house. On the left side of the drawing, a woman sits behind a tall table with a large wheel attached to it, looking at a small child playing on the floor. To the right of the woman is a large fireplace, with a large pot hung over a fire. On the ground in front of the fireplace is a pile of small pieces of wood and a small stool.

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Photograph/Print

Spinning in the Colonial Kitchen

circa 1700–1850

Joel Dorman Steele and Esther Baker Steele from A Brief History of the United States, 1885

Caption:

New Hampshire women in farming families in the 1700s and 1800s did all kinds of important work from sunrise to sundown. They cooked, cleaned, preserved food, raised their children, and did the laundry, all without modern machines. They also helped take care of the farm animals and made many things that we buy in stores today, like candles and clothes. When many of the men left home to fight in the American Revolution, the women had even more work to do to keep the farms running, like planting and harvesting crops.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A colored photograph of a rock wall. Beyond the rock wall is a flat field of green grass, bordered by tall green trees.

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Photograph/Print

Stone Wall

Caption:

The Great Sheep Boom was in the early 1800s. Textile factories needed more and more wool to produce more and more fabric. So farmers in New Hampshire changed the way they farmed. They turned their fields into pastures where they kept flocks of sheep. They had to build stone fences around the pastures to keep the sheep from wandering away. You can still see parts of these stone walls all over the state today!

Image Credit: Adobe Stock user Jeff Schultes

A colored postcard of a group of multi-storied houses and churches facing each other across a green field. At the forefront of the postcard is a curved white picket fence. The title of the postcard, located along the upper border, reads "'Storrowton' New England Village, Eastern States Exposition, Springfield , Mass. 72873 35."

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Photograph/Print

Storrowton New England Village

Tichnor Brothers postcard circa 1930–1945

Caption:

This postcard shows a typical colonial New England village. Notice that the main public buildings, like the meeting house or church, were centered around the town commons. A commons is a public area, usually flat and grassy, that is used by all members of a community. Storrowton Village Museum is a recreated village of 18th and 19th century buildings from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. All of the buildings were originally located in different places, but they were moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, and set up like a colonial village. That way modern visitors can see what it would have looked like in the 1700s and 1800s.

Image Credit: Boston Public Library, Digital Commonwealth

A colored photograph of a Black man and a young Black boy standing in a field of strawberry plants, each holding strawberries in their hands. The strawberries are planted in long rows.

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Photograph/Print

Strawberry Picking

Caption:

Farming became popular in New Hampshire again in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. People became interested in buying their food directly from farms. Restaurants started to include more and more local food on their menus. And lots of people, both residents and tourists, started visiting farms to pick their own strawberries, blueberries, and apples. Have you ever gone to a pick-your-own farm?

Image Credit: Adobe Stock user digitalskillet1

A colored painting of a farm yard. Scattered around the farm yard are small groups of white men, women, and children interacting with horses, cows, chickens, sheep, turkeys, dogs, and cats. A Black man is seen pushing a plow behind a team of two horses on the painting's left-hand side. To the right of the people and farm animals is a two-storied house and barn.

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Photograph/Print

The Residence of David Twining, 1787

1847

Edward Hicks

Caption:

This painting shows a typical family farm in the late 1700s. Notice all the different activities the people are doing. The farm in this painting is located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, but it is similar to New England farms during this time period.

Image Credit: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum

A drawing of a tall green stem with corn growing at the top of it. Beneath the stem are two squashes. Intertwined with the stem is a thin green vine with large green leaves and red beans growing on it.

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Photograph/Print

Three Sisters

2018

Anna Juchnowicz

Caption:

The Abenaki used a farming technique known as the "three sisters." They planted squash, corn, and beans together. The corn grew straight and tall, and the bean vines grew up around the corn stalks for support. The squash grew at the base of the corn stalks, and its big leaves helped prevent weeds from growing.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A colored painting of a large grassy area, with green and red trees and mountains in the background. On the grassy field are red and brown cows.

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Photograph/Print

View from Lewis Nute Farm

1880

Frank H. Shapleigh

Caption:

New Hampshire's geography supports many types of plant and animal life. This painting of a farm in Milton, NH, shows how diverse the landscape can be. Animals graze in the fields and the village of Farmington is shown in the distance.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored painting of several farm houses on either side of a dirt road. The road is lined with fences on the left and tall rock walls on the right. There are two other rock walls that form squares with the road's rock wall on the right side of the painting. Beyond the fencing on the left side of the painting are various small trees and bushes. A horse-drawn carriage rides down the center of the road, away from the viewer.

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Photograph/Print

View Near Manchester

circa 1854–1865

John Badger Bachelder

Caption:

The city of Manchester got bigger and bigger during the Industrial Revolution as more and more people moved there to work in the factories. By the middle of the 19th century, there were very few farms left in Manchester. Instead, food was grown on farms in surrounding towns, like the one in this painting, and brought to stores in the city.

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

A colored painting of several groups of Native Americans doing different activities in a large village. A wide vertical path divides the village into two sections. The left side depicts shelters with rounded roofs positioned on a flat piece of land surrounded by trees, while the right side depicts gardens and fields of crops.

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Photograph/Print

Village of Secoton

circa 1590

Engraving by Theodor de Bry

Caption:

This image is from a book written by English explorers. It shows an indigenous village in what is now called Virginia. Notice the fields of crops in the picture. The indigenous people have planted corn and other crops to harvest and eat. They stored the leftover crops to eat during the winter. Indigenous people have been growing crops for thousands of years.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A colored drawing of a group of people in a snowy landscape. Towards the left side of the drawing are three triangular tents. Behind the tents is a small body of water. Towards the right side of the drawing, a man pulls a seal in from the water, while a group of people pull a canoe in from the water.

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Photograph/Print

Wabanaki Encampment, circa 1000 BCE

1989

Judith Cooper

Caption:

This painting was made in the 20th century to show what a Wabanaki camp may have looked like about 3,000 years ago. The artist used traditional Wabanaki knowledge, and knowledge about the natural world, to create her interpretation. This painting shows a camp on the coast of Maine. Abenaki camps in what is now known as New Hampshire, especially on the seacoast, would have had some similarities with this camp. Notice how everything the people use is made from the natural world around them.

Image Credit: From the collection of the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, Maine. [80760]

A black and white photograph of a group of people posed outside of a long, three-storied bulding. Some of the people stand in clusters in the yard in front of the building while others sit atop a large pile of cut wood. There are also some people standing in the building's doorways, peering out of windows, and sitting on the building's side roof.

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Photograph/Print

Workers at a New Hampshire Factory

circa 1910

Caption:

Many towns and cities in New Hampshire had factories or mills that provided jobs for local workers. The Kendall Hadley Window Sash and Blind Company was the largest employer in Goffstown for more than 100 years, offering jobs for 75 men, women, and children. The company sold window sashes (frames) and blinds that were popular throughout the northeast, as far south as New York City.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Goffstown Historical Society

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