Horses to Steam Engines - Doing it the old way

I had the opportunity at the Midwest Old Thresher's Reunion this past weekend to picture how farming was done 100 years ago. When horses were the most common horsepower. When the shift to machines was just beginning. When the power was steam instead of gas.


The evolution of farming from horses to machinery was fascinating to see. Horses pulled wagons loaded with shocks of wheat and barley up to the threshers.  Massive traction steam engines powered threshing machines that looked a bit like the product of Rube Goldberg's imagination.

When Mr. Van Vark of Pella - who restores traction engines - actually let me drive his 1916 Case 40 hp (for about 30 feet), he showed me how much 'play' there was in the steering wheel. I could spin the wheel two or three revolutions before the wheels began to turn. I learned that's because the steering wheel reels in chains that attach to the axle and turn the wheels - just like a man driving a team of horses would have pulled on the reins to turn the team. 

I have never seen so graphic a demonstration of the step up in technology. Inventors took the idea of steering horses and transferred that steering mechanism almost directly to the 'iron horse' of the traction steam engine.

When Mr. Van Vark put the steam engine in reverse, I was quick to turn over the steering wheel to him.  I'll take power steering any day.

Out of the dark

We lost power last night, just as we were finishing supper. Fortunately for me, my husband always knows where the flashlights are. We rummaged up candles and turned on the gas fireplace. You never know how long a power outage will last, but the impact of losing electricity sets in right away.

No TV. No radio. No computer unless you have a laptop. No Internet access. No dishwasher. No clothes washer. No lights, no matter how many times you walk to another room and unconsciously flip the switch. No reading books in weak candle light. Thank goodness it wasn't in the morning - No hair dryer! Life as we are so used to living it just comes to a stop without electricity.

My 90-year-old uncle who grew up on a Wisconsin farm in the early 20th Century says electricity was the most important invention in his lifetime. When my parents moved to our Iowa farm in 1945 there was no electricity. They milked cows by hand. Separated cream by hand. Washed clothes by hand. Dad worked to have the Rural Electric Cooperative get electricity to the farm as fast as possible.

There have been so many great inventions. The internal combustion engine. The cotton gin. Airplanes. Computers. But I'll add my vote to my uncle's. Electricity makes our way of life possible.

We were grateful and relieved when the lights came back on only four hours later. Once we turned everything off and went to bed, I laid there in the dark enjoying the inaudible hum of electricity waiting for me to turn it on again.

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