Exercise 3: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth-Century Farmworker

For Friday, read the first excerpt from Ulrich Bräker, The Life Story and Real Adventures of the Poor Man of Toggenburg. This memoir is one of a small but important genre of so-called “ego-documents” from our period in European history, that is to say, texts that are written from the standpoint of a self-conscious author and are meant to convey something about the author’s life and self. In the excerpt we will discuss on Friday, Bräker describes his childhood and upbringing in rural Switzerland, his falling in love, his marriage, the birth and death of his children, his struggles to survive and provide for his family.

Using Bräker’s memoir as your source of information, describe the life cycle of an eighteenth-century rural laborer. How did young women and men meet one another? At what age did they marry, typically? How long did a typical person live? Was family life happy, typically, or sad? What factors made a life prosperous or miserable?

Try to confine your response to two pages, and please print them out or deliver them electronically.