The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall

My reaction to the title of a Heritage Documentary about corn husking, which I’ve borrowed for the headline of this article, is that it was chosen to attract viewers rather than depict reality. The title implies that farmers were heroes once, which might be a bit of a stretch, but if they were then why not now? As an adjective the word seems misplaced. If “hero” is used as a metaphor it doesn’t work either, and the documentary is about contests, not farming in general.

After seeing the film and reading a book on the subject by Leonard Jacobs I still question the choice of words ­—but understand why they were chosen.

Hunky unmarried huskers like Elmer Carlson from Audubon (who liked to shuck his shirt and throw corn while sweat formed on his Adonis torso) received proposals of marriage from swooning young women. Married pickers, some of them, said they got proposals for arrangements less permanent. There were fan clubs and autographs, winners were sought for advertising contracts and followed by the press. National husking contests of the late ’30s drew more people to a single-day event than have ever attended a Super Bowl or World Series game.

I thought about that era last September while sitting in the bleachers with a scant half- dozen spectators watching the Iowa husking competition at Indian Creek Museum. The event lasted all day, people came and went, and I’m told attendance was respectable considering this was the first time the contest was held in that location.

Except for a runaway team of mules the action moved at a crawl. Some of the younger classes included kids who had never picked an ear — an educational experience for them but unless one knew the child it was about as exciting as soccer. In the adult men’s class there was no chance of seeing anyone who could perform like the old-timers. In the ’35 finals Carlson picked, shucked and tossed more than one ear a second for 90 non-stop minutes, doing so in a field that yielded only 85 bushel per acre and had numerous downed stalks. I think it safe to say no one living today could match that, and Carlson wasn’t far ahead of the pack. When not at his best he could be beaten, and was.

So why go? To look through a small window into our past. Those wiry men in Depression-era photographs were lean for a reason, and it wasn’t lack of calories. Researchers say a typical corn belt farmer spent more time picking corn than any other task; more than planting and cultivating combined. They started in September and picked every day the weather permitted. My grandfather, who never weighed more than 140 pounds, would drop 10 to 15 by Thanksgiving, the day he hoped to finish. For some it was Christmas. Even experienced pickers tended to start the season by getting into husking condition; a few bushel a day for a week or so. There’s a rhythm to be developed, motions that involve muscles not extensively used for other activities. They weren’t preparing for a sprint but a marathon; an arduous trek over snow and ice, through mud and rain, a lonely job with the only company being a team of horses and the thud of ears hitting the bangboard.

Leonard’s book tells us contests were promoted by Henry Wallace because farmers spent so much of their year picking corn. In a 1922 edition of his “Wallace’s Farmer” he wrote a piece in which he expressed the opinion that contests would allow huskers to compare techniques and, through competition, learn to pick an additional 10 or 12 bushel per day. At a time when two acres and 100 bushel meant starting and finishing in the dark that increase, over a two-month picking season, could save several days. Wallace viewed these events as a way to improve efficiency.

As I drive to this year’s contest, being held again at Indian Creek Museum on Sept. 22, there’s a chance of seeing machines in the field taking out more corn in an hour than those guys did in a month, and I’ll wonder what Henry Wallace would say about that kind of efficiency.

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.