Since most of the rural prairies were surveyed into townships with one-mile square sections (260 hectares), and since neighbours might be several kilometres away, isolation and loneliness were significant problems. This photograph of a homestead near Lloydminster, Alberta, gives a sense of the empty spaces which surrounded most settlers in their day-to-day lives. The winter months, when work was not so pressing and the weather made travel difficult if not dangerous, were particularly arduous.
Isolation was especially hard on farm women who often suffered from the common malaise "cabin fever." The desire to overcome this problem stimulated a variety of rural women's movements. Women's Institutes, Daughters of Evening Star, United Farm Women of Alberta, various local guilds and the Women's Christian Temperance Union were some of the organizations that were formed. They promoted prohibition and universal suffrage but they were also concerned about education, rural social life and new ideas of child rearing. Similar organizations emerged for young people, such as the 4H clubs and Young Co-operators. The men's organizations, the Grain Growers' Associations, the United Farmers' organizations and the Wheat Pools, had similar social purposes, their week-long annual meetings being important winter breaks for many farmers and their families. Joining organizations was one way of breaking out of the pattern of isolation. The most important ways, however, came in the communication revolution associated with the radio, television, telephone and, above all, the automobile. These innovations brought the world to the farm house and took the farm family into urban society.
