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pounds of corn and a net of 22.64 bushels. Balko previously won the championship in 1934. The advent of World War II ended the National Corn Husking Contest and it was not revived after the war because most farmers had moved to machine harvesters and farming was at full speed as the U.S. worked to feed much of the world. Mechanized combines moved quickly from horse-drawn to tractor-drawn and ultimately to selfpropelled units. Farming’s culture of competition supported a belief that acceptance of change, participation in the process of change, and change in work technology would make a farmer more competitive and increase the chances of economic reward.
Winners of the National Corn Husking Contest became idolized heroes who were sought after by national media for interviews, paid to endorse products, and received proposals of marriage from female fans, according to the documentary “When Farmers Were Heroes: The Era of National Corn Husking Contests.”
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scan the QR code to see video from the 1938 National Corn Husking Contest on YouTube.
SOURCES / RECOMMENDED VIEWING & READING
• “From Dell Rapids Attic” by Dale Nighbert. bit.ly/Dell_Rapids • “The Organized Corn Husking Contests: Conduits of Industrial Culture in the
Rural Midwest,” by Denise Lorraine Dial. Iowa State University, 1998. • Wessels Living History Farms. bit.ly/OldStylePicking • History Nebraska. bit.ly/LillieCornHusker • Sioux Falls Argus Leader via newspapers.com. • Newsreel of 1938 Corn Husking Contest. bit.ly/HuskingNewsReel • ”When Farmers Were Heroes,” Heritage Documentaries Inc. bit.ly/FarmerHeroes • Corn Husking Tools photo. bit.ly/CornHook • National Museum of Anthropology. bit.ly/MaizeRelief
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