Historic Photos - Women's Jobs

By Ann Chrissos

Women in agrarian Chesterfield worked long hard hours at a variety of jobs.  Most wives birthed children, cared for the children, cooked, cleaned, did laundry and mended clothes.  Farmers’ wives also fed the pigs and chickens, gathered eggs, milked cows, and planted, weeded and harvested kitchen gardens.   They canned fruits and vegetables, pressed apples for cider, made apple butter, carried food to the men in the fields, mixed and stuffed sausages, sawed logs and sometimes helped with the threshing. Sometimes women took jobs as teachers in one of the seven area one-room school houses, worked as switchboard operators or nurses, or helped their husbands in their general stores.  The efforts of women helped to make the Chesterfield area a successful community.

For additional information see http://www.chesterfield.mo.us/historical-commission.html or the CHLPC publications for sale at Chesterfield City Hall or at the Chesterfield Heritage Museum at Chesterfield Mall.