Not everyone was a farmer, even more than 100 years ago. My grandmother, born 1890, came from a smallish mill town. She and her sisters worked as seamstresses, laundresses, and teachers. One even went off to be a Harvey House girl. The boys all worked at the mill and in related jobs like driving delivery carts, horse drawn before automobiles became common. Farming is awesome and a wonderful life in many ways. And keeping a garden where you grow things to eat is a worthwhile endeavor. But you would have to go back many more generations to get to a time when pastoral farm life was the norm for the majority.