Threshing grain took a significant amount of help in the harvest season. Multiple steps demanded people, machinery and other resources be available to keep harvest progressing. This week’s Throwback Thursday shows the E.M. “Gene” Young crew. Taken in 1941 near McLaughlin, South Dakota a New Way Harvester, a predecessor to the more modern combine, provides the backdrop for the 11-man Young crew. Mr. Young is on the far left.
When WWII broke out, manpower and resources became stretched. Threshing crews and machines took a lot of people, gasoline, tires, metal and other materials that were being diverted to the war effort. This created a deficit that needed to be solved. Over WWII, solution evolved in the form of the combine. The combine harvester used less of the diverted labor and fewer resources claimed for the war. The threshing crew dropped to just a few men to combine grain; less gasoline was used because there was only one lighter machine to run. WWII was a transitional time in the field of agriculture as it moved from the threshing crews, to combine harvesters like the E.M. Young Crew ran to the more modern combines of today.
SDAHM 1993:142:0001 Donated by Carol Anderson