The reconstruction of the country and the Greek economy in the 1950s, with the contribution of tourism development, led to the influx of population from the periphery to the urban centres and their simultaneous modernisation. However, this modernising impulse affected rural areas very slowly, where agricultural occupations and traditional professions, now extinct, provided an interesting subject matter for the country’s promotional material. These postcards depict the process of harvesting and threshing before the advent of mechanised agriculture. In the rural areas of Greece, where cereal crops were grown, harvesting typically took place in June. Workers, using small sickles and quick movements, would embrace the ears of wheat with the bow of the tool and bundle them. The bundle was held with one hand, while the other was used to cut the wheat. When a sufficient quantity of cut wheat had been gathered, it was tied into bundles, and loaded onto mules to be taken to the threshing floor.

The threshing began at sunrise and continued throughout the day. The threshing floor was round, flat area with stone surface. In the centre of the threshing floor, farmers would place a cedar hardwood pole, called a “twister”, and attach a very large hairpin made of tightly braided goat’s wool. From this hairpin, they would typically tie two horses. After the threshing floor was thoroughly cleaned, the bundles were untied, and the straw was spread in circles from one end to the other. The thresher would then lead the horses with shouts and commands, sometimes in one direction as the hairpin was unwound, and sometimes in the other direction as it was gathered back onto the pole. In this way, the animals would circle around, continually treading on the straw until it was torn to pieces. Afterward, the peasants, holding “dikoulias” (forks resembling tridents), would blow away the broken ears of wheat, separating the straw from the grain. Finally, large sieves were used to thoroughly clean the wheat of any unwanted particles. It was then taken in sacks to the mill for grinding.