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Hired Hand
About this film
[Description from the original press release] Hired hands, men who spend most of their lives working another man's farm, tending his cattle, building his fences and sowing his grain, are a dying breed. A special Nebraska ETV Network-produced program pays tribute to this man of the past and explores the reasons these men chose the life of a hired hand. Hired hands were an important part of Nebraska's agricultural development; their labor went far to build the state's number one industry. But theirs was a difficult, poorly paid, and often lonely existence. The story of Claude Clutter, a southeast Nebraskan who worked on the same farm for 25 years, brings out the trying lifestyle of a hired hand in the early 1900s in Nebraska. Alongside his employer, he worked incredibly long hours, day after day, year after year, in all extremes of weather. Because of unemployment insurance, social security, and welfare, men no longer seek the security of a guaranteed house and food provided for the hired farm worker. Organized labor and minimum wage laws make industrial work much more inviting; men can earn more in fewer hours in the city than they can on the farm. "The Hired Hand" was produced by t…
Directors & creators
Nebraska Public Media
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, Claude Clutter, John Spence, Roy Barry, Nebraska ETV Network, Nebraskans for Public Television, Central Educational Network, Nebraska agriculture, hired farm laborers, farm life, Crab Orchard, Nebraska, agricultural labor history, social security, minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance
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