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Settlement of the area had begun in the 1760's, but because the roads were poor, the inhabitants remained isolated during the remainder of the century. Many of the necessities of life continued to be made at home, the work being done primarily with muscle power and hand tools. Maple sugar products, whiskey, ginseng, and furs were common commodities of the rural homestead. Excess quantities were bartered for goods that could not be made at home. The early settlers' soil-exploitive agricultural practices were crude and produced little surplus for market. What surplus there may have been was traded in Pittsburgh and Cumberland, Maryland, floated down the river to New Orleans, or transported by packhorse to the East. |
| Advancements in the science of farming during the nineteenth century, along with the eventual development of land-grant colleges in the 1890's, improved the farmers' lot. The crop yield per acre increased dramatically when improved methods of crop rotation and the application of fertilizer and lime became common practices. |
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 The
effects of the Industrial Revolution were felt on the rural farmsteads
of the region in the 1870's. The growing industrial complex produced
a variety of tools, implements, and machines which made farming more efficient
and profitable. Steam powered and mechanized farm equipment made
the work of the farmers easier and allowed them to increase the number
of tillable acres. As production improved, so did the roads and railroads
which supplied efficient and inexpensive means for farmers to transport
goods to and from city markets. Later, the introduction of motor
vehicles, the telephone and radio, rural free delivery mail and parcel
post, free public schools, and other services and inventions brought some
of the advantages of urban living to the countryside. |
 Industrialization
created a new class of consumers who no longer toiled on the farm, but
worked in the factories and provided a growing market for the farmers'
produce. In turn, handmade articles in the rural home were gradually
replaced by factory goods. In less than two hundred years, farm life
advanced from handwork to machine power, from rural isolation to nationwide
communication, and from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture.
This story of change and its effect on the everyday lives of people is
dramatically presented at the Somerset Historical Center through many objects
that represent the life and culture of rural southwestern Pennsylvania,
the land beyond the mountain barrier. |
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