Dig Deeper: Why were dairy cows so important during this time?
Having a dairy or milk cow was very important to Tennessee families. They provided milk, butter, cream and cheese—all important foods. When a cow got too old to provide a good supply of milk, the animal was killed and the meat eaten. Horns, bones, and the hide were used to make items like tools or shoes.
The first cow arrived in America in the Jamestown colony in 1611. Until the middle of the 1800s, almost every family had their own dairy cow or bought milk from a nearby farmer. There was no way to sterilize or refrigerate milk, so it couldn’t be shipped long distances.
Cows need to be milked twice a day, once in the early morning and then again in the evening. During the day, cows are generally let out to graze grass. Farmers often fenced vegetable gardens and/or corn fields to keep cows and other animals from eating the vegetables.
When it is time for milking, the cows were driven to the barn, usually by the farm’s children. Since cows were fed during milking, some learned to come back to the barn on their own in order to get food. This food was usually a mixture of corn and grains. If a cow didn’t come back on its own, the children were sent out to find them. Some farmers put bells around a cow’s neck to aid in locating it.
Milking the family’s cow was usually considered a woman’s job. Daniel Drake wrote that while he occasionally helped with milking, his mother and sister, Lizzy, did most of the work. He said both he and his mother “would have been mortified, if any neighboring boy or man had caught me at it.”
During the time Andrew Jackson was president, a group of cheese makers presented him with a large wheel of their finest cheddar cheese. Jackson put it on display in the White House for a year and then invited the residents of Washington D.C. to help him eat it.
Picture Credits:
- Drawing entitled, “Taking cows to water,” by M. C. De Cock. It shows a young girl leading two cows to water in order to drink. This drawing was originally published in May 1876, in Leslie’s Monthly Magazine. New York Public Library
- Drawing of a woman and calf. This print was originally published in the September 5, 1868 edition of Harper’s Weekly. Tennessee State Museum Collection, 2006.190
Age of Jackson >> Tennessee's People >> How They Lived >> Rural Life
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