Bryan Echtemkardt and Laura Brown were tum-of-the-twentieth-century Nebraska farm children. Certainly they attended school and played with their friends, but when writing to the children's page of a farm magazine, they described their lives largely in terms of work. In a nation where childhood, in the ideal, was increasingly defined by school and play, farm families continued to be highly integrated and interdependent units. Their success depended upon the work of children who remained tied economically to the family until they were twenty-one years old or married. Moreover, for the children-and their families-to be successful, children had to cultivate habits of independence and initiative from a very early age, and take on the work habits of adults well before their twentieth year.
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This is an article from Nebraska History 82 (2001): 2. Posted with permission.