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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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This picture captures the very end of the harvest, as farm workers stand in a field of stubble in September or early October. Behind them is the Mill River, a stream that originates in the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Above it, the hills of Conway rise to the west. Although mechanization had already transformed much of American agriculture by 1900, farmers in New England were resistant to change. However, much of this kind of work was done as well done by hand, especially if farm labor was inexpensive, as it was in the first decade of the 20th century. However, this was a world that would be short-lived. By the 1920s machines would entirely transform farm work.

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