Back to the Hills

By the end of World War II, Connecticut had become primarily an industrial state, Population had grown from 460,000 in 1860 to 1,763,000 in 1945, almost entirely centered in the swelling cities of the industrial age .4 But despite the much larger population and new industrial economy, Connecticut was still 50 percent farmland.' The lands that remained in farms had only the best of soils; the poorer sites had already been abandoned by our great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. But these poorer sites amounted to only about a third of the land being farmed during the 1860 peak, when 78 percent of Connecticut was farmland. There was enough good land that in 1945 Connecticut remained an important agricultural state. Even so only about one person in seventeen lived and worked on Connecticut's farms.'

Following World War II, a new phase in the land-use history of Connecticut accelerated: suburbanization. Improvements in transportation, such as construction of interstate highways, and increased personal wealth from a booming economy gave many Connecticut residents the opportunity to satisfy a deeply held cultural wish: to move back to the land. Many of our forebears left crowded, economically stifling conditions in their native countries to come to a new, open nation where it was possible to own land. Most were farming folk who lived lives close to the soil in the old country but found their new livelihoods in America's burgeoning cities instead. Still, the desire to own land remained and became a goal of second and third generations.

For those who arrived early enough, like the Puritans, plenty of farmable land was available. But by the late 19th century, many of their descendants had left the hills for the urban life of a mill town. For them, too, a desire to return to the land always remained. Stephen Foster's song, "Way Down Upon the Swannee River," held much of its popularity for 19th-century urban audiences because it spoke eloquently of a desire to return to the calm, fulfilling life on a farm. This song was widely sung in Connecticut and other industrializing states.

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