PA Farming History with Professor Sally McMurry
To understand Pennsylvania’s past, genealogists need knowledge of PA farming. Most of PA’s first immigrants were farmers and agriculture dominated the economy for 200 years. Dr. Sally McMurry, professor emerita of history of Penn State University shares highlights from her comprehensive book, Pennsylvania Farming: A History in Landscapes.
Topics Discussed:
- The impact of agriculture on the PA economy
- How farms operated - indentures, tenancy, redemptioner, and slaves
- The impact of women’s labor on the household
- What farmer’s produced to get hard currency
- The myths of PA farming busted
The whole book is essential reading if you are researching early PA ancestors who lived in the vast rural areas of Pennsylvania.
Links:
Pennsylvania Farming: A History in Landscapes can be purchased from the publisher University of Pittsburgh Press or Amazon.
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Music: My Days Have Been So Wondrous and Free, composed by Francis Hopkinson in 1788 in Philadelphia, www.amclassical.com, Creative Commons license, some rights reserved.
At the request of the author, this episode is not on YouTube.
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