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Picture of the day -
February 24, 2006
An Old-Fashioned "Barn Raising"
Photo courtesy of
Rebecca Williamson.
Rebecca Williamson was going through some of her family's old photographs when
she ran across this gem - a very old picture of a barn raising on her
great-great-grandfather's farm near Bad Axe, Michigan. According to some old
family documents the barn was built (and this photo was taken) around 1885.
Times were especially hard back in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Most
families had to grow, process and store their own food which made the barn the
second-most important building on the farm after the family home. Actually, it
could be argued that back then the barn was even more important than the house
in some ways and often it was the first building erected on a new homestead.
Since building a barn required a lot of man-hours back before the invention of
modern construction equipment, everyone benefited from barn raisings and they were typically community events with most of the men in the area
pitching in to build the structure from bottom to top - usually in just one or
two days!
Of course the women did their part as well by preparing meals - and in some
cases working right alongside the men helping with the construction. Usually,
the building site would have been prepared and the materials gathered ahead of
time.
Some communities still hold barn raisings today, most notably the Amish who have
preserved this time-honored tradition as a way of helping their fellow man while
reinforcing their sense of community.
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