This investigation of fifty years of farm life reveals that many women saw farming as an opportunity to be full partners with their husbands and considered themselves businesswomen central to the success of their farms. Lauters combed farming, women s, and mainstream magazines and conducted interviews with more than 180 women who were raised on or lived on farms to determine how closely their perceptions matched the images found in the media. Lauters also tells how farm women responded to such events as economic depression, world war, and suffrage.