icon for Home page
icon for Kid's Home page
icon for Digital Collection
icon for Activities
icon for Turns Exhibit
icon for In the Classroom
icon for Chronologies
icon for My Collection

Things To Do
Dress Up | 1st Person | African American Map | Now Read This | Magic Lens | In the Round | Tool Videos | Architecture | e-Postcards | Chronologies | Turns Activities

Send an E-Postcard of:
Jerry with Rocking Chair

front
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

In the 19th century, in a ritual that continues in many areas today, farmers exhibited the biggest and best of their livestock and produce at regional fairs. The proud owner of this giant ox celebrated his animal's tremendous size by posing for this whimsical photograph. Raising enormous oxen like Jerry was a specialty among farmers in the mid-Connecticut River Valley. Farmers bought oxen in the fall and fattened them through the winter. By spring, a carefully chosen diet and extremely limited exercise produced extremely large animals. The oxen were then driven to the cattle markets in Brighton or New York. After the Civil War, a growing network of railroads began transporting western range cattle to the east. Although farmers continued to raise large oxen, the coming of the railroads signaled the end of the heyday of the stall-fed ox.

 

top of page

Share this image with a friend.
Simply enter their e-mail address below and we'll send them this image in an e-mail greeting, along with a link to see the image on our site.

To E-Mail Address *
From E-Mail Address *
From Name
Message

* = Required


button for Side by Side Viewingbutton for Glossarybutton for Printing Helpbutton for How to Read Old Documents

 

Home | Online Collection | Things To Do | Turns Exhibit | Classroom | Chronologies | My Collection
About This Site | Site Index | Site Search | Feedback