Many people take technological advances for granted, especially farm equipment. What many people do not know, is that many of our recent ancestors worked hard in the fields with their hands and farmed for their own subsistence as well as for cash crops. In the late 1890s, a farmer would work 75-90 hours a week, hand planting corn using a walking plow and harrow in order to produce just 2 ½ acres of corn. Come harvest time, farmers would have to harvest by hand, using a corn hook.
The featured artifact for this month is a modern-day corn hook. Although this hook likely dates the 1970s or 1980s, it is very much the same construction as a historic corn hook.
The original corn hook, also known as a corn husker, was invented by W.F. Lillie in the 1890s. The hook, comprised of a metal point that looks like a church-key can-opener attached to a leather strap, was strapped onto the right hand. The metal point was used to penetrate the husk top and remove it. When the hook was used, the best of corn shuckers could shuck 100 bushels a day! However, harvesting by hand meant farmers would work from late fall to early spring. To make the work more fun during harvest time, people would throw corn husking parties, where both men and women were involved. By the mid-1890s, other inventors were applying for patents to create corn picking machines, which would assist farmers in producing more acres of corn and would reduce the amount of physical labor.
Today, the corn husker has been replaced by the combine equipped with a grain platform specialized for corn. The head of the platform has snap rolls that strip the stalk and leaf away from the ear, so that only the ear (and husk) enter the combine. Farmers can now harvest up to 2,000 bushels a day, saving themselves time, money, and labor.
