Margareta Lagerman sits high atop a load of hay and holds the reins, ready to drive the wagon into the farmyard on her parents’ farm. Tvågården, Spårröd village, Kållered parish, Västergötland. Photographer unknown, 1930s. Collection of Kållereds hembygdsförening, in Östergötlands Museum, Linköping.
The physical courage of young women growing up on farms impressed those who observed them performing tasks that were customarily assigned to men. Margareta Lagerman’s parents, who saved and passed on this image, took pride in their daughter’s single-handed mastery of the draft horse and wagon heavily loaded with loose hay. Both amateur and professional photographers were inclined to present these young women as independent, self-confident, and “modern,” enjoying the challenge of farm tasks requiring muscular exertion, coordination, and the sense of balance involved in keeping unstable loads upright on bumpy fields.
The women depicted in these early 20th century photographs crossed conventional gender boundaries, but their actions are presented as in keeping with a rural culture in which sharing and exchanging work is fundamental. A housekeeper chops wood and works in the fields during ploughing and planting as well as the harvest. Women wear trousers when masculine garb is best suited to their labor.
Woman with a horse-drawn hay wagon. Broa, Gotland. Taken by Gunnar Lundh in color in 1938. Nordiska museet, Stockholm.
This is Gunnar Lundh’s take on a woman wearing trousers. She appears comfortable in wide-legged, ankle-length pants that are suited to her task. On this dry mid-summer day, she also goes barefooted in the farmyard.
In this photo, taken a few minutes later, she holds the reins and strides alongside the team pulling the wagon, which is loaded with an implement for haying, while in the distance a man opens the farmyard gate.
But this photo, taken immediately beforehand, shows the man’s arm as he worked beside her to load the machine onto the wagon. Why did Lundh deliberately shift the frame to eliminate any sign of the man’s presence in the farmyard?
