Should Almanzo Become a Wheelwright?

How do you guide your children to have a successful career? What’s good advice?

In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book Little House on the Prairie we learn about her experience growing up in a small cabin as her family homesteaded on the American frontier. Wilder also wrote a less known, but to me, even more interesting book, called Farmer Boy, which tells the story of one year of her future husband’s life, living on his parent’s farm  in far upstate New York.

More a memoir of the year 1869 than a history, we learn how nine year-old Almanzo Wilder planted and harvested potatoes in the cold (and how an exploding roast potato hurt his eye), how he almost fell into freezing water when his father was cutting ice, how he had to awake with his family in the middle of the night to save the corn from freezing, and how he helped butcher livestock and made candles from the rendered fat. We hear about the long days working in all sorts of weather, peppered with time off on Sundays and to visit local fairs.

Almanzo Wilder Homestead

All It Saves Is Time, Son

While Almanzo’s parents are experts at running a farm and profiting from sales of butter, potatoes, and wool, they choose what new tools to adopt, for example, when threshing wheat. From Farmer Boy:

“Almanzo asked Father why he did not hire the machine that did threshing. Three men had brought it into the country last fall, and Father had gone to see it. It would thresh a man’s whole grain crop in a few days.

“‘That’s a lazy man’s way to thresh,’ Father said. ‘Haste makes waste, but a lazy man’d rather get his work done fast than do it himself. That machine chews up the straw till it’s not fit to feed stock, and it scatters grain around and wastes it.

“‘All it saves is time, son. And what good is time, with nothing to do? You want to sit and twiddle your thumbs, all these stormy winter days?’

“‘No!’ said Almanzo. He had enough of that, on Sundays.”

Should Almanzo Become a Farmer…?

But if farming is so difficult, why pursue it?

Almanzo’s father shares the meaning of what farmers did for America, comparing them to the settlers who came before.

“’Well, son, the Spaniards were soldiers, and high-and-mighty gentlemen that only wanted gold. And the French were fur-traders, wanting to make quick money. And England was busy fighting wars. But we were farmers, son; we wanted the land. It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung on to their farms.

“’This country goes three thousand miles west, now.'” 

Almanzo’s siblings were already breaking away from farm life. That wasn’t purely because of the constant work. It was also a matter of going to school. We get hints of that change as the older children return for the holidays. And yet, Almanzo always seems clear on what he wants, though perhaps because he just doesn’t know any different. 

Here’s an exchange with Almanzo’s older brother, Royal.

“Royal… put on old clothes and did his share of the chores, but he did not seem interested. And that night in bed he told Almanzo he was going to be a storekeeper.

“’You’re a bigger fool than I be, if you drudge all your days on a farm,’ he said.

“’I like horses,’ said Almanzo.

“’Huh! Storekeepers have horses,” Royal answered. “They dress up every day, and keep clean, and they ride around with a carriage and pair. There’s men in the cities have coachmen to drive them.”

“Almanzo did not say anything, but he did not want a coachman. He wanted to break colts, and he wanted to drive his own horses, himself.”

…Or Should He Become a Wheelwright?

When you’re honest and hardworking in a tight-knit community, as Almanzo was, word spreads. This exchange between Paddock the wheelwright and Almanzo’s father was a potential turning point in Almanzo’s life.

“Mr. Paddock met Almanzo and Father outside the bank. He told Father that he had something in mind.

“’I’ve been meaning to speak about it for some little time,’ he said. ‘About this boy of yours.’

“Almanzo was surprised.

“’You ever think of making a wheelwright out of him?’ Mr. Paddock asked.

“’Well, no,’ Father answered slowly, ‘I can’t say as I ever did.’

“’Well, think it over now,’ said Mr. Paddock. ‘It’s a growing business, Wilder. The country’s growing, population getting bigger all the time, and folks have got to have wagons and buggies. They’ve got to travel back and forth. The railroads don’t hurt us. We’re getting more customers all the time. It’s a good opening for a smart young fellow.’

“’Yes,’ Father said.

“’I’ve got no sons of my own, and you’ve got two,’ said Mr. Paddock. ‘You’ll have to think about starting Almanzo out in life, before long. Apprentice him to me, and I’ll treat the boy right. If he turns out the way I expect, no reason he shouldn’t have the business, in time. He’d be a rich man, with maybe half a hundred workmen under him. It’s worth thinking about.’

“’Yes,’ Father said. ‘Yes, it’s worth thinking about. I appreciate what you’ve said, Paddock.’

“Father did not talk on the way home.”

Paddock’s argument made sense. In fact, his argument is one that I’ve made here in other posts. What are the changes (probably outside of your control) in favor of a particular occupation growing? If we can expect continued population growth and more travel and if railroads won’t ever completely compete with road travel, then people will need more wheels on their wagons and carriages.

Make and sell the wheels.

But one of the most telling passages in the book comes from Almanzo’s mother, who snapped at her husband when she heard about the prospect of her son becoming a wheelwright:

“’A pretty pass the world’s coming to, if any man thinks it’s a step up in the world to leave a good farm and go to town! How does Mr. Paddock make his money, if it isn’t catering to us?”’

“’Oh, it’s bad enough to see Royal come down to being nothing but a storekeeper! Maybe he’ll make money, but he’ll never be the man you are. Truckling to other people for his living, all his days— He’ll never be able to call his soul his own.’

“For a minute Almanzo wondered if Mother was going to cry.

“’There, there,’ Father said, sadly. ‘Don’t take it too much to heart. Maybe it’s all for the best, somehow.’

“’I won’t have Almanzo going the same way!’ Mother cried. ‘I won’t have it, you hear me?’

How many people today can understand what’s expressed in those words?

And soon we hear about the difference between being a producer of manufactured goods, being a farmer, and… living a farmer’s life.

As Almanzo’s father says:

“‘With Paddock, you’d have an easy life, in some ways. You wouldn’t be out in all kinds of weather. Cold winter nights, you could lie snug in bed and not worry about young stock freezing. Rain or shine, wind or snow, you’d be under shelter. You’d be shut up, inside walls. Likely you’d always have plenty to eat and wear and money in the bank.’

“’But there’s the other side, too, Almanzo. You’d have to depend on other folks, son, in town. Everything you got, you’d get from other folks.

“’A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you’re a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You’ll be free and independent, son, on a farm.'”

How romantic and meaningful that argument sounds, even today. But was it right?

Making the Decision in the Face of AI

How would you guide your child to make a decision about what to do with their life? Edit: this should be interpreted as what kind of work they will do…

A recent paper from Microsoft, Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Implications of Generative AI, looks at the ability for AI (specifically LLMs) to take over certain jobs. 

The researchers combed through 200,000 conversations on Microsoft Copilot, mapped user intent, and matched that to job categories. Jobs were then ranked as better or worse served by LLMs. 

The paper also notes that there are many ways their findings don’t necessarily reflect outcomes. 

“It is tempting to conclude that occupations that have high overlap with activities AI performs will be automated and thus experience job or wage loss,  and that occupations with activities AI assists with will be augmented and  raise wages. This would be a mistake, as our data do not include the downstream business impacts of new technology, which are very hard to predict and often counterintuitive. Take the example of ATMs, which automated a core task of bank tellers, but led to an increase in the number of bank teller jobs as banks opened more branches at lower costs and tellers focused on more valuable relationship-building rather than processing deposits and withdrawals.”

so just knowing that there is the potential for AI to automate a specific role does not explain how the world will change on a timeframe helpful to someone choosing careers.

Consider an extreme situation where we lose all the jobs in the top 40 occupations list noted in the paper. The list cuts across unexpected dimensions. Interpreters and translators are gone, but so are historians. Models (the human kind) are gone, but so are data scientists (that hot job of 10 years ago). The anachronous switchboard operators (there are still 43k of them) are gone, but so are web developers.

Now consider an extreme situation where the only jobs that remain done by humans are those of the bottom 40 occupations. 

Here we have a society where if you work, you might be a phlebotomist or a nursing assistant, or maybe a cement mason and concrete finisher, or an embalmer. The AI-resistant work is characterized by being physical in a way that is still difficult for today’s AI-assisted robots.

But here again, we’re taking expectations of change on a certain timeline. While those bottom 40 AI-impacted occupations look safe now, let’s consider how that might change in 20 years:

• Expectations of AI replacement changes the volume and who pursues certain jobs.

The competition it took to become a Management Analyst, Editor, or Data Scientist moves to Nursing Assistants, Plant and System Operators, and Ophthalmic Medical Technicians.

• AI takes the more easily automated situations, leaving the harder work for humans. Human efficiency decreases as a result.

It might seem like a Dishwasher’s job couldn’t get more or less difficult, but what about when the only things they wash are the ones the mechanical dishwashers and dishwashing robots can’t handle? The same for Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers, Roofers, and Floor Sanders and Finishers. 

• Some roles are easier or more difficult to start at an older age.

If, at the age of 55, you lose your position as a Personal Financial Advisor, will you be able to become a Oil and Gas Roustabout? Most of the jobs in the Bottom 40 AI-impacted list require physical labor. Many of the others require  specialty education in healthcare (like Phlebotomists or Surgical Assistants).

• Technology catches up and easily automates those protected jobs.

People mid-career are left jobless with few skills to start again. Those who were impacted earlier in their career found new pathways. Those impacted at the end of their career take early retirement.

If your skills are not easily transferable, what do you do when you lose your formerly AI-secure job as a Pile Driver Operator or Water Treatment Plant and System Operator?

Speed of Change

The situations that enabled financial success for the parents’ generation may not continue on to the children’s generation. 

And that’s the important, ignored part of the AI report. Rather than encouraging your children to go into one of the bottom AI-impacted 40 occupations, realize that we don’t know the real impact yet.

If you have to choose an occupation in a fast changing world, the real benefit will go to those  who can be agile and change directions mid-career.

Rather than just look at the expectations of AI researchers of today, consider that those research results could change dramatically as AI capabilities  or something else changes.

Rather than trying to predict outcomes that will last an entire working generation, think of how speed of change will affect your approach and how your age will affect the changes you can accept.

Change happens over multiple generations. When the speed of change is slow, children benefit from working in their parent’s profession. This enables the children to get years of relevant extra work experience before becoming independent. What worked for their parents works for the children. The parent’s network is relevant for their children.

Change happens after one generation. When the speed of change is a bit faster, children need more education outside of what their parents can provide. Parents no longer understand what work their children do. Parents can’t guide their children in expertise or relevant connections.

Change happens within one generation. When the speed of change is faster still, individuals are forced into constant learning. They realize that much of what they learned in school and the skills they acquired on the job may become irrelevant. They need to look for openings, even short-term ones, that provide a temporary advantage. They need to pursue ownership and scalability in order to benefit when a market takes off.

Age matters. Age changes one’s ability to do certain jobs. Most of those currently AI-resistant jobs require physical labor. How might your ability to do physical labor and benefit from growing experience change as you age?

What would happen if you needed to change course mid career to knowledge work?

And how might your ability to do knowledge work and benefit from growing experience change as you age?

What would happen if you needed to change course mid career to physical labor?

What Did Almanzo Choose?

After Almanzo Wilder and Laura Ingalls married and started farming, the Wilders suffered years of bad weather, fire, and illness. Due to a bad bout of diphtheria, Almanzo suffered a partial paralysis and needed a cane to walk. It took another ten years before the couple was able to save, relocate, and eventually build a successful farm. When they were both around 70 years old, royalties from the Little House books started to supplement their income.

What about becoming a wheelwright?

According to the 1900 Census there were 13,505 wheelwrights in the US. I couldn’t find good figures for 1869, the year of Farmer Boy. But based on the number of employees in Mr. Braddock’s shop, population of Malone, NY and the US at the time, it seems like the country could have supported 10 times the recorded number of wheelwrights.

Had Almanzo apprenticed as a wheelwright, he might have still have suffered  from the bad health and bad luck that plagued his early farm years. But he might also have done quite well riding the wave of greater demand for custom-built wheels and maybe eventually, mass produced wheels for automobiles.

Old professions often don’t completely disappear, like those switchboard operators mentioned earlier. Even today there are associations of wheelwrights, those who make wheels fulltime, or wheels occasionally, or year-round, for historical coaches and cars, for antique cars, as heritage preservation, and offering classes.

And interestingly, two wheelwright-like jobs made it to the Bottom 40 AI-impacted list: Tire Builders and Tire Repairers and Changers.