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1931 & 1935 Iowa Farm Diaries – Anton L. Challberg – Great Depression Archive
Exceptional pair of original handwritten farm diaries kept by Anton L. Challberg (1873–1946) of Beaver Township, Boone County, Iowa.
The diaries cover 1931 and 1935 through January 8, 1936, with entries on an almost daily basis. Together they provide a remarkably continuous record of life on Challberg’s approximately 120-acre Iowa farm during the Great Depression.
What makes these especially interesting is the way individual subjects develop across the diaries rather than appearing as isolated notes.
In 1931, Challberg repeatedly records problems and repairs involving the family Essex automobile — compression trouble, running on only two cylinders, piston work, battery trouble, garage visits, a salvage piston, and even installing an old Overland horn in the Essex. The result is an unusually detailed running record of rural automobile ownership and repair.
The same is true of his poultry operation. Challberg appears to have recorded daily egg production throughout much of the diary, in addition to frequent egg sales, incubator use, chick counts and poultry transactions. His year-end accounting records 2,444 dozen eggs sold.
Other subjects recur throughout the entries:
- corn planting, cultivating, picking and yield
- hogs, cattle, calves and poultry
- cream and egg sales
- commodity prices
- gasoline, coal and groceries
- hired labor
- machinery and farm repairs
- loans, insurance and banking
- weather
- church and Swedish-American community life
- funerals, visitors and neighborhood activity
The 1935 diary continues the same level of detail, including hog and poultry prices, threshing, corn harvest, farm credit, automobile work and household expenses, while also recording major contemporary events.
Highlights include Challberg’s 1931 year-end accounting of $1,798.25 in recorded receipts, 1,700 bushels of corn, Depression-era bank and loan entries, and his January 6, 1936 notation that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional.
Also included is an original December 12, 1935 Ogden Reporter subscription receipt made out to Anton Challberg, with the same payment recorded in the diary.
A printed 3-page Research & Content Guide,which is a summary of my research of these incredible daily journals, is included and shown in the final listing photographs.
Both diaries show expected age and use, including cover wear, edge wear, creasing, staining and general handling wear. Please examine all photographs carefully.
The two diaries and original receipt are being offered together as one archive and will not be separated.
