Portrait Photos of Rural Americans in the Mid-19th Century

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The United States began as a largely rural nation, with most people living on farms or in small towns and villages. While the rural population continued to grow in the late 1800s, the urban population was growing much more rapidly. Still, a majority of Americans lived in rural areas in 1900.

Rural Americans in the 1840s and 1850s

New machines for use in farming were invented in this period, but horses, oxen, and people still provided most of the power that operated the machinery. While farmers now produced cash crops (crops grown for sale), they were still remarkably self-sufficient, often making or trading for nearly everything required by their own families.

Here below is a set of amazing photos from Mitch Young that shows portraits of rural Americans in the 1840s and 1850s.