It’s August already! Soon, students will be returning (and arriving for the first time) in droves for a new academic year. But for now, there’s still plenty of summer left to enjoy! We are officially in the “dog days of summer,” trying to find ways to beat the heat and humidity here in Ames. Truth be told, I’m not certain in which season the photo above was taken, but I like to imagine these farmers are taking a break from the heat of their summer work and their trusty farm dog decided to join them (the long sleeves don’t necessarily indicate cool weather – they also serve as protection from the sun and other elements). Sometimes we don’t know much about a photo, and it is therefore open to interpretation. What we do know about this one is that it’s a great image of a small piece of farm life in the 1940s, a life integral to Iowa then and still integral today.
The photo above comes from the Cooperative Extension Service in Agriculture and Home Economics collections, a list of which can be found here. More Extension photos can be found on our Flickr site for those of you wanting to see more. And, if you need to get out of the heat, the Special Collections and University Archives reading room is a great place to cool down and explore Iowa’s agricultural past. See you soon!
Cardinal Tales 