Back from the land : how young Americans went to nature in the 1970s, and why they came back / Eleanor Agnew

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Agnew, Eleanor, author.

Contributor:

Caroline F. Schimmel Collection of Women in the American Wilderness (University of Pennsylvania)

Schimmel, Caroline F., donor, associated name.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Farm life--United States.

Farm life.

United States.

Urban-rural migration--United States.

Urban-rural migration.

Rural-urban migration--United States.

Rural-urban migration.

United States--Social conditions--1960-1980.

Social conditions.

Penn Provenance:

Schimmel, Caroline F. (donor) (Schimmel 7458)

Physical Description:

xi, 274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : Ivan R. Dee, 2004

Summary:

"When Eleanor Agnew, her husband, and two young children moved to the Maine woods in 1975, the back-to-the-land movement had already attracted untold numbers of converts who had grown increasingly estranged from mainstream American society. Visionaries by the millions were moving into woods, mountains, orchards, and farmlands in order to disconnect from the supposedly deleterious influences of modern life. Fed up with capitalism, TV, Washington politics, and 9-to-5 jobs, these modern-day Thoreaus took up residence in log cabins, A-frames, tents, old schoolhouses, and run-down farmhouses. They grew their own crops, hauled water from wells, avoided doctors in favor of natural cures, and renounced energy-guzzling appliances. This is their story, in all its glories and agonies, its triumphs and disasters (many of them richly amusing), told by a woman who experienced the simple life firsthand but has also read widely and interviewed scores of people who went back to the land as she did. Eleanor Agnew tells how the new settlers found joy and camaraderie, studied their issues of Mother Earth News, coped with frozen laundry and grinding poverty, and persevered or gave up. Most of them, it turns out, came back from freedom and self-sufficiency, either by returning to urban life or by dressing up their primitive rural existence. But most learned something about life and about themselves that they still hold on to today. Back from the Land is filled with juicy details and inspired with a naive idealism, but the attraction of the life it describes is undeniable. Here is a book to delight those who remember how it was, those who still kick themselves for not taking the chance, and those of a new generation who are just now thinking about it."--dust jacket flap.

Contents:

1 The Lure of Back to the Land 3

2 Early Days in a Technology-free Zone 23

3 The Height of Happiness 52

4 Getting Close to Nature and Natural Processes 83

5 Not-so-genteel Poverty 110

6 Generating Cash Flow 136

7 Staying Healthy, and Paying for It 153

8 Relationships

Friends, Lovers, Family, Community 174

9 Turning Points 194

10 Finding a Niche in the Mainstream 213

11 Lessons and Legacies 231.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-266) and index.

Local Notes:

Schimmel 7458: Presented to the Penn Libraries in 2024 by Caroline F. Schimmel. With dust jacket.

ISBN:

1566635802

OCLC:

54816995