ABSTRACT
By the early 1920s, Maria Bidlingmaier’s vision of a new, “rational” farm wife had captured the imaginations of numerous observers dedicated to solving the crisis of women’s agricultural labor that had emerged so dramatically during the war. The leaders of what became a broad nationwide campaign to rationalize farm women’s work included agricultural experts, rural social welfare reformers, and state officials. Their goals were far-reaching and their messages targeted both wives and daughters. As workers, rationalized farm women would help Germany attain food self-sufficiency, while as wives and mothers they would restore the health and morals of their families and communities. Moreover, experts reasoned that if farm wives won public recognition and respect as skillful, modern household managers, their daughters would be less likely to flee the countryside at the earliest opportunity and instead remain to act as disciples of rationalized work methods and techniques.2 Therefore rationalization was pitched not only as an antidote to the overburdening of farm wives, but also as a remedy for the chronic shortage of women’s labor on family farms, and the accompanying economic and social chaos.3
