The Esther Stratton Witmer interview follows her life chronologically from her small town childhood through her experiences as a young farm wife and her various roles in farm organizations. She articulates her belief that men and women have different talents and have different roles in organizations and family life.

2 interviews. The Patti Barker interviews follow the chronology of her life from childhood to young adulthood, marriage, motherhood, and divorce. She describes the potentials and limits of rural women’s opportunities during the 1970s and 1980s. She also describes the difficulties divorced women and single mothers face in rural areas.

The Vivian Schelker interview follows her life chronologically from her childhood in East St. Louis and Tama to her transition to farm life, marriage, and motherhood. She spoke candidly and with self-respect of her bi-racial marriage, her experiences as a young wife and mother, a woman, a farmer making a living on a hill-country farm, and a widow.

The Wilma Embree interview follows her life chronologically from a childhood on a farm, through several years of teaching during the second World War to her role as wife, mother, farmer, and teacher in rural Iowa. Her experience documents the attitude of farmers whose membership in the NFO was passive rather than organizational.

The Martha Linn interview follows her life chronologically from childhood in town to working woman to marriage and motherhood on an isolated farm. The bulk of the interview describes the Linn family involvement in the NFO during the 1960s and 1970s. In the interview, Linn candidly relates her sense of isolation as a young farm wife. She remains convinced that if the NFO had succeeded in getting farmers control over agricultural prices that small farmers and rural communities would have survived.

The bulk of the Ilo Rhines interview described the operation of the NFO at the county level in northeastern Iowa. It included lively material about growing up female in rural Iowa as well as a description of how she and her family survived financially after the NFO failed in their bid to become the bargaining agent for farmers.

The bulk of the Mabel Schweers interview described the operation of the NFO at the county level in Adams County, Iowa. It includes thoughtful and candid perspectives on raising a large, Catholic family in the 1950s and 1960s and some insights into her perception of feminism in the 1970s.

The Luella Zmolek interview follows her life chronologically from young farm daughter to wife and mother, with the preponderance of the interview centering on the years from 1955 to the mid-1960s when the Zmoleks were active with the NFO. It emphasized the fluidity with which both Luella and Donald moved from farm work to wage employment over the course of their marriage. She related the changes in farming to economic forces and national farm politics.

The Joan Witwer Blundall interview begins with vivid memories of her childhood in an impoverished neighborhood of Philadelphia. She noted that her own divorce had deepened her ability to sympathize with others in pain. The bulk of the interview concerns her witness of the impact the crisis had on the lives of farmers and their families. She is insightful and candid about the limits and opportunities of women in times of crisis.

The Kathy Bollin interview follows her life chronologically from a challenging childhood in a prosperous southern California suburb to a wife and mother in an alternative lifestyle in rural Iowa. The bulk of the interview describes the Bollin family struggles with the Federal Land Bank in the 1980s . In the interview, Linn candidly relates her sense of delight in family life and the devastation of her family as a result of the crisis. She believes that the publicity around her family’s struggles spurred reform legislation, but the reforms came too late to help them.

The Naomi Christensen interview features relatively little discussion of her childhood or married life. Instead, she talked about her accomplishments and the groups that sponsored or nurtured them. She stressed the value of hard work and working for others, especially children. She attributed most of her leadership growth to her involvement with the United Methodist Women.

The Patricia Alshouse Eddy interview describes a farm family that negotiated with the Farmers’ Home Administration to save their farm land, livestock, and machinery with limited success. It illustrates how farm women were drawn into grassroots organizations and developed leadership skills. It also illustrates the difficult choices and devastation of the rural fabric since the 1980s.

The bulk of the Linda Eddy Faga interview describes the loss of a family farm operation during the early 1980s. The bulk of the interview concerns the process of building up a family farm and selling it to pay debts incurred because of uncontrollable external circumstances. It also discusses strategies that farm families employed to keep their families intact after the crisis forced them out of farming.

The Barb Grabner interview follows her life chronologically from a childhood on a farm through her organizing effort with the Gary Hart campaign, PraireFire Rural Action, and the women’s leadership development project. While supporting an expanded leadership role for women, she respected rather than resented the leadership skills of men with whom she worked. Her interview focuses on the political aspects of the farm movement at the state and national levels.

3 interviews. The Carol Hodne interviews begin with her childhood memories of her father’s resistance to large scale agriculture while on the board of directors of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation in the 1950s and 1960s. She describes her value formation during her student years at ISU and her maturing as a grassroots organizer in the following years. The bulk of the interviews center on the ideological and political position of various Midwestern farm organizations during the 1980s. These included the Farmers Union, American Farm Movement, Rural America, Minnesota COACT, Groundswell, PrairieFire Rural Action, and Iowa Family Farm Coalition. Her interviews also provide valuable insight into women’s roles in farm organizations during the 1980s and the annual farm women’s conference, Harvesting Our Potential.

The Denise O’Brien interview follows her life chronologically from an urban childhood through several years of a counterculture lifestyle in California and Vermont to her roles as wife, mother, and activist in rural Iowa. Of particular interest are her memories of the role of a grass-roots groups, the Prairie Progressives, as a political base for later efforts by Dave Ostendorf, Daniel Levitas, and Dixon Terry. She felt that the male leadership of the farm movement promoted a feminist rhetoric, but refused women any real positions of power. She discussed her presidency of the National Farm Family Coalition in the early 1990s and the dissolution of a progressive farm movement in that decade.

The Marjean Sutter interview consists almost entirely of accounts of her experiences during the farm crisis and her activism with PrairieFire. She was a full partner in the Sutter Farm enterprises and the motive force behind the bus trips to Washington. She describes the benefits of the women’s conference, Harvesting Our Potential, from a traditional, rather than feminist perspective.

2 interviews. The Linda Terry interviews focus on three areas of her life: the transition from her childhood as the daughter of the mayor of a rural town to her life on a central Iowa commune; her roles as a progressive woman, farm wife of a leading rural activist, and mother; and her experiences as a widow and single mother. The interviews are highly personal accounts as well as documents of the development of progressive politics in Iowa before the farm crisis emerged on the national level. Her discussions about the attendance of young progressives at the meetings of the USFA in the late 1970s provide essential history about continuity between farm radicals of the 1930s and 1980s.