An April 27, 1942 Time magazine article underscored the agricultural labor crisis and concluded with a call to action: "With crops growing green and men busy with war, the
farmerette may come back.
RETTERETTE a female flax retter (soaker), compare usherette,
farmerette, etc.
The evidence would suggest that some of the tenants brought, to the ubiquitous victory garden campaigns, agricultural expertise from their formerly rural Southern lives; one "urban
farmerette" at the Seville Homes was reported to have grown in her plot "cabbage, onions, tomatoes, white potatoes, corn, okra and even black-eyed peas," as well as "a fine crop of collards, which she shared with her friends." Considering the traditional centrality of churches as institutions in black communities, the newsletters also testify to a large churchgoing population in the projects, as revealed by extensive reporting on the activities of the many diverse local churches and resident participation in vacation bible schools.
And as many as 75 companies offered add-ons allowing the farmer (or the "
farmerette," as women who farmed were called) to make his own tractor out of the family auto.
Brenda (Millikin) Halliday is a former librarian at the CCBC and the daughter of Doris Hughes, a
farmerette who married a local Winona boy.
Defying convention, a group of mismatched girls live and work on a farm during the summer of 1943: dutiful Helene; fun-loving Peggy; Isabel, whose fiance is in Europe; rich Binxie and reliable Jean, whose family farm is taken over by the group of "
farmerettes." And then there is the mysterious "X," who feels the most out of place, always longing for what lies out of reach.
An author's note at the end offers more information about the Woman's Land Army, and the 15,000 "
farmerettes" who helped grow and harvest countless acres of crops, in the process showing America and the world what women were capable of.
During the two world wars, a radically different group of workers entered Niagara's agricultural workforce: middle-class, Anglo-Canadian girls and women, most often labelled
farmerettes. By comparing minority workers and
farmerettes in Niagara's fruit and vegetable industry the study sheds light on a little-studied sector of Canada's workforce.
David Webb spoke about The Ontario Farm Service Corps:
Farmerettes. These were women who helped farm the Niagara area while the men went off to fight in World War I.
Their presence aroused tensions over class and gender, but the Land Girls, or
farmerettes as they were tagged in the USA, often experienced a sense of independence and adventure through their work.