1. Rural Life Changes Chapter 5, Lesson 1
Mr. Julian’s 5th Grade class

2. Essential Question
How did new machines and technologies affect the lives of people living in rural areas?

3. Places Walnut Grove, Virginia Ahwahnee Valley, California
Appleton, Wisconsin

4. People Cyrus McCormick L.O. Colvin Gustav de Laval Ellen Eglui
Aaron Montgomery Ward
Richard Sears
Alvah C. Roebuck

5. Vocabulary
Manual labor
Mechanization
Reaper
Threshing machine

6. Mechanization on the Farm
Farming in the early 1800’s was difficult.
Manual labor, or doing a job by hand, without the help of machines, was the only way tasks were completed on the farm.
Mechanization, or doing work using machines, dramatically changed farming.

7. Mechanization on the Farm
In 1834 Cyrus McCormick perfected the mechanical reaper, a machine that cuts grain.
Steam engines were used to run threshing machines that separated the grain from the plant stalks.
In 1862 L.O. Colvin developed the first milking machine.

8. Mechanization on the Farm
The cream separator invented by Gustav de Laval cut down the time to separate cream just minutes.
As farms increased in size, farmers could sow fields with crops to sell.
These were called “cash crops” because farmers grew them to make money.

9. Industry’s Impact
Factories were producing many products like Ellen Eglui’s wringer machine.
Farmers and people living in rural areas did not have the ability to buy some of these products, as most of their materials were still made by hand.
Aaron Montgomery Ward started a mail order establishment which helped people that did not live near cities to get the same goods.

10. Industry’s Impact
In 1893 Richard Sears and Alvah C. Roebuck formed a mail order company that grew bigger than all other mail order companies.
They promised that their prices were the cheapest and would deliver any product you requested.

11. Getting Connected Telephones connected people from around the country.
A factory owner could call a supplier with a request without having to travel.
Emergencies were also less frightening as you could call a doctor or the police.
Telephone rate were very expensive and some rural had no phones at all.

12. Getting Connected
When Alexander Graham Bell’s patent expired in 1893 small telephone companies began to form in rural areas.
One of the fist rural areas to get phone service was Ahwahee Valley, California.

13. Electrifying the Countryside
People knew of electric power for many years.
The first battery was made in 1880.
The first electric motor was made in 1821.
The problem was making enough power stations to deliver the electricity.
The first power station opened in San Francisco in 1879.

14. Electrifying the Countryside
The first hydroelectric plant opened in 1882 in Appleton, Wisconsin.
The power plant in Appleton helped run the paper mill and electric streetcars.
Farmers, however still would not get power for many years to come.
In 1936, the rural Electrification Act gave money to help create power stations that would give electricity to rural areas.

15. Timeline 1834 - Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper
First electric power station opened in San Francisco
New telephone companies formed when Bell’s patent expired.

16. Review Questions
How did advances in mechanization affect farmers in the late 1800’s?
How did the growth of the industry make it easier for farmers to get goods?