Category Archives: History

4-H History Preservation Newsletter
November 2015

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November is Thanksgiving, Veterans’ Day, voting, and Christmas/Holiday Prep.

We’re all thankful for 4-H and we remember with honor the veterans who helped guarantee our many freedoms, including the freedom to vote (did you?). Christmas/Holiday Prep, well, let’s push that into next month!

Each year, this month, Veteran’s Day has special meaning. We feature individuals and groups with a 4-H identity. Of course, many more 4-H alumni deserve to be honored and remembered for their service to the US; these are but a few.

A school superintendent from Ohio instilled scientific curiosity in his students and formed “experiment clubs” to keep them involved. 4-H Clubs evolved, using educational materials this pioneer encouraged from his USDA colleagues. One of our continuing series featuring people who helped make 4-H great.

By all accounts and on all levels, 2015 NAE4-HA in Portland was a great success. 4-H History Preservation team encouraged nominations to the National 4-H History Map, and collected countless sites which will be vetted for inclusion.

There’s a lively controversy about when “urban 4-H” actually started. But what year did the National 4-H Foundation announce a study, funded by the Ford Foundation, to document that expansion of 4-H?

Take a break in your Thanksgiving preparations, give fleeting thought to your Christmas or Holiday preparations, and enjoy this issue.

National 4-H Calendars

Novemver 2, 1936 one calendar company was issued permission by USDA to produce 4-H Calendars. The first and the latest calendar art that National 4-H Council owns for which we have found documentation are pictured here. One appeared on a 1951 National 4-H calendar and the other appeared on a 1975 National 4-H calendar.


1951 4-H Calendar Art

1951 4-H Calendar Art


1975 4-H Calendar Art

1975 4-H Calendar Art


 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


Why U.S. Presidents Like 4-H

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4-H'ers with President Jimmy Carter

4-H’ers with President Jimmy Carter

I just recently got home from the National Association of Extension 4-H Agents (NAE4-HA) Conference, held in Portland, Oregon this year. Just like so many others who attended, I ate too much, slept too little, and learned not nearly enough (although that wasn’t for the conference’s not trying!). The NAE4-HA Conference is one of the highlights of the 4-H year each year, especially if one is seeking more information about all that we do as 4-H “agents.”

If John Quincy Adams, our 6th U.S. President, is to be believed, the NAE4-HA Board has much to be thanked for. JQA once said:

“To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is…the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind.”

I agree!

He could have also been saying that about 4-H, if 4-H had been around when JQA was around. I think JQA would have liked 4-H. I think his father, John Adams, our second President, would have liked 4-H, too. He once said:

“I thank God I have a head, a heart, and hands which, if fully exerted all together, will succeed in the world.”

Dwight Eisenhower (#34) would have agreed with John. He once said:

“Hand and head and heart were made to work together. They should be educated together.”

I think lots of our Presidents would have liked 4-H. Theodore Roosevelt (#26) would have been right in there with them had he been aware of what was happening in various communities across the country concerning clubs and kids while he was president (1901 – 1909). In fact, he got the Extension youth development ball rolling when he told America:

“If you are going to do anything permanent for the average man, you must begin before he is a man. The chance for success lies in working with the boy, and not the man.”

I KNOW Eisenhower liked 4-H. At least he liked the 4-H’ers. Ike said so! He began his 1959 National 4-H Center dedication speech saying, “…I like the 4-H’ers.” Then he went on to list why he liked them. For example, one reason he identified was

“I like 4-H’ers because they are dedicated to excellence. They want to do things better.”

Lots of Presidents liked us for that reason. Harry Truman (#33) told 4-H’ers gathered in the Rose Garden in 1952:

“As one who helped organize one of the first 4-H Clubs in my state, I congratulate you on your theme for this year, ‘Better Living for a Better World.”

I think Truman really did like, and personally know, 4-H. He apologized to another group of 4-H’ers saying, “There is one thing I overlooked this morning. I forgot to put on my 4-H button, for which I apologize.” Truman made many speeches from the end of a train as it moved from town to town while he was in office and in many of those speeches, he’d reference 4-H. Yup, Harry liked 4-H.

JFK (#35) told 4-H’ers:

“Through your emphasis on head, heart, hands, and health you are making a valuable contribution to our country’s welfare and progress.”

Bill Clinton (#42) told us:

“You know, if every kid in America were in 4-H, we’d have about half the problems we’ve got. I believe that.”

Funny but I just can’t imagine Clinton and Richard Nixon (#37) agreeing on much, but they apparently agreed on 4-H!

When Nixon was Ike’s VP he told a group of 4-H’ers:

“With young people like yourselves growing up in America, I know tomorrow is in safe hands.”

Hmm, could that be a “4-H GROWS HERE” reference?

Woodrow Wilson (#28) told 4-H’ers:

“In America we have only one title to nobility and that is ACHIEVEMENT. You 4-H’ers have won that title.”

And Herbert Hoover (#31) rounds out the group by adding:

“The work of the 4-H Club is fundamental. It is developing…leadership, molding character, and building citizenship.”

Right he was!

Calvin Coolidge (#30) was a president many thought of as a stern man of few words. But 4-H’ers did make him laugh when they paraded past him with a sign that read, “We like Coolidge ’cause Coolidge likes us.” It must have been true ’cause 4-H’ers never lie, right?

However, the man who succeeded him in office, Herbert Hoover, summed things up best when he told 4 H’ers:

“The club work which you share with almost a million other boys and girls in 4-H Clubs in every part of the Nation is one of real accomplishment. … Your program and your future leadership is its great promise.”

Every President since William Howard Taft (#27) – all 18 of them, including our present President, Barack Obama (#44) – has met with 4-H members, discussed the future with them, given 4-H’ers encouragement, asked them for help (FDR [#32] even asked 4-H’ers to rededicate their heads, hearts, hands, and health to VICTORY in 1945!), and thanked them for what they’d given America. In January, 2017, #45 will be inaugurated. We don’t know who that will be yet, but we can be sure 4-H will be present at the start (Check out the Inauguration CWF opportunity recently announced). Will he or she meet with 4-H’ers? He or she will if we, as John Adams suggested, exert our head, heart, and hands all together toward that goal!

For more information on U.S. Presidents and 4-H, visit the 4-H History Preservation website.

Folks Who Helped Make 4-H Great
T. A. Erickson

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The following story is from the October 2015 issue of the 4-H History Preservation Newsletter


T_A_Erickson

Looking back on the early days of rural youth work from our present vantage point of well-developed programs and clear lines of operation, it’s hard to realize the bewildering array of choices that faced the pioneers of this great 4-H program. But in the days of T. A. “Dad” Erickson’s first work with youth clubs in Minnesota – just after the turn of the 20th century – the direction this movement would take wasn’t clear at all.

That’s why today’s 4-H members owe such a debt of gratitude to Erickson and his contemporaries. In spite of their lack of a pattern for the future, those men and women had the foresight to set up a youth organization with a level of standards so high that today the name 4-H is synonymous with quality the country over.

His early childhood prepared Erickson for a life of service to youth. Theodore August Erickson was born in 1871 near Alexandria, Minn., the second son of a farm couple from Sweden. His parents, while calling on the help of the children with the hard farm labor, saw that the youngsters had time to enjoy the fields and woods for their natural beauty.

Erickson’s influences on today’s 4-H and general agriculture are so many that to list them all is nearly impossible. Here are a few:

  • Pioneered crop-raising contests for Minnesota youth, the first being corn-growing competition in 1904 for which he bought $20 worth of seed with his own money.
  • Helped organize what may have been the first cooperative bull association in the country.
  • Promoted the first school fair in Minnesota in 1902, with crop exhibits by students.
  • Pioneered a school hot lunch program in 1907.
  • Helped operate what is recognized as the first National 4-H Club Congress in Chicago in 1919.
  • Launched the first state 4-H conservation project in the country in 1934 as Minnesota state 4-H Club leader.
  •  Helped do the spadework which resulted in the Extension Subcommittee on 4-H Club Work, today’s national policymaking group.
  • Established the first observance of 4-H Sunday, tying it in with the already existing Rural Life Sunday.
  • Helped get National 4-H Camp – now National Conference – started in Washington, D. C., in 1927.

Perhaps Erickson’s greatest contribution to 4-H, friends reflect, has been his continual emphasis on the character-building value of the youth program. In the early days of 4-H, much stress was laid on the project or subject matter side of the program. The Minnesota leader’s vision kept 4-H sights raised higher than simply the production goal.

The years of Erickson’s life are rich with lesson-bearing experiences for today’s 4-H workers. They include 11 years as a country school teacher, 10 years as a superintendent of schools in his native Douglas county – where he instituted many club work firsts, two years as rural school specialist at the University of Minnesota before his title changed to state leader of boys’ and girls’ club work in the rest of his 28 years in the state 4-H office (until 1940), and 14 years at General Mills as rural services consultant – where he developed 4-H literature now in wide national usage.

Since his retirement in 1954¸Erickson has served the cause of rural youth from his home in St. Paul. In a letter to a long-time friend which Erickson wrote in 1956, he summarized his 4-H philosophy in these words: “Some folks still think 4-H is only the story of corn, pigs, bread-making, canning, prizes, awards and events.

“In this story (referring to his autobiography, ‘My Sixty Years With Rural Youth’) I have tried to tell how 4-H has helped rural youth and their parents see that they can really live happy lives in farm homes and that agriculture is a great calling presented by the Creator ‘to dress and to keep’ what He had given them.”

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


Folks Who Helped Make 4-H Great
O. H. Benson

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When an accident claimed two fingers from Oscar H. Benson’s right hand while he was sawing wood as a boy, it proved to be a cloud with a silver lining for 4-H Club work. The occurrence spurred Benson’s desire to get a college education. And that learning later put him in a position of great influence on the early rural youth work in America.

First as a superintendent of schools in Wright county, Iowa, from 1906 to 1911, then in Washington, D. C., in Farmer’s Cooperative Demonstration Work, Benson was a leader in teaching demonstrations, now a universal method in 4-H. He was one of the first men, if not the first, to apply the cloverleaf emblem to rural youth club work. (In 1909, he was using three-leaf clover pins – representing head, heart and hands – as an achievement award to farm boys and girls.) And he was a keen promoter of state college-federal agreements on rural youth work.

A question in 4-H as yet unanswered by positive evidence is on the origin of the cloverleaf emblem. Benson was using it in Wright county; at least one other Iowa county had cloverleaf pins at about the same time. Originally or not, Benson was a prime force in getting the 4-H emblem adopted nationally in 1911, soon after he moved to Washington.

In early 1911, he was preaching “head, heart, hands and hustle” to the farmers of South Carolina and their children. Early pins showed the H’s, plus a symbol of the type of club the recipient belonged to – corn, cotton, etc.

In 1912, Benson was transferred to the Office of Farm Management in the U. S. Department of Agriculture. During that year he engineered the first state college-federal agreement for the promotion of rural youth club work in the North and West, his special area of operation, during a trip to his native state of Iowa. Indiana, Nebraska and other states quickly followed with cooperative agreements.

Traveling widely, Benson spread the influence of the teaching demonstrations with his pressure cooker and other canning equipment. He worked hard to convince some home economists that the pressure cooker was superior to the open-kettle method of canning for homemakers.

Oscar H. Benson was born on a farm near Delhi, Iowa, in 1875. He spent his childhood on livestock and fruit farms. College work in Iowa and elsewhere prepared him for teaching. After several years of country school teaching, he was elected to the Wright county superintendent’s post in 1906. There he encouraged farm youth to plant demonstration corn plots and encouraged agricultural improvement in other ways.

One innovation was his unusual form of commencement exercise. Instead of the usual schoolroom ceremony, he would have a tent erected outdoors and use the stage for livestock judging and grading lectures as well as the traditional graduation exercises.

After leaving the USDA in 1920, Benson worked hard in other youth movements. He developed Junior Achievement clubs and served for 15 years as National Director of Rural Scouting in the Boy Scouts.

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


4-H Girls Exhibit at First Woman’s World Fair in 1925

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The following story is from the National Compendium of 4-H Promotion and Visibility on the National 4-H History website at

http://4-HHistoryPreservation.com/History/4-H_Promotion/

Women's Worlds Fair, 1925 Souvenir Program

Women’s Worlds Fair, 1925 Souvenir Program

On April 25, 1925, the First Woman’s World Fair closed a successful 8-day run at the Furniture Mart on North Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. The fair, which highlighted women’s achievements in art, commerce and industry, attracted more than 200,000 visitors. The fair was the brainchild of Helen Bennett, author of “Women and Work,” and a pioneer of the women’s movement. In an age when women in the workplace were still considered a novelty, she was demanding comparable pay for comparable work. In the Women’s Republican Club of Chicago Bennett found kindred spirits to support her pioneering ideas – including the Woman’s World Fair. The fair was officially opened by President Coolidge by radio, at that time an almost unheard of feat.

The 4-H Club Girl’s exhibit at the Woman’s World Fair was in the form of a miniature household worked out in accordance with 4-H standards for Home Decoration. Miss Maude E. Wallace, Asst. State Home Demonstration agent, North Carolina, was in charge and Inez Harden, National 4-H health champion from Mississippi, Veva Divan, Wisconsin’s champion club girl and third in the national Leadership contest, and Beulah Rogers, member of the National Champion Canning team who won the trip to France in 1922, were present to demonstrate what 4-H Girls’ club work means to American farm womanhood. The exhibit was made possible by courtesy of Montgomery Ward & Company.

What the fair proposed – that women question their traditional role in society, discover themselves and seek employment if they so desired – may be commonplace today, but to the women of the 1920’s, it was quite new and radical. For 4-H to have been involved is just another one of those little nuggets of history that always comes as a surprise.

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


Looking for Fletcher the 4-H’er

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The following story is from the October 2015 issue of the 4-H History Preservation Newsletter

The National 4-H History Preservation team is looking for information and graphics relating to Fletcher the 4-H’er comic strip appearing in the 1960s and 1970s and written by Joe Bursch, cartoonist initially with Walt Disney. We are seeking the history of this comic strip: how was it initiated? Who was behind it? When and how long did it run? We are also looking for any copies of the comic strip. Currently, we have none.

If you can help us with any of the above information on Fletcher, please let us know at Info@4-HHistoryPreservation.com

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


Hands-On History
Promoting the Health H

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The following story is from the October 2015 issue of the 4-H History Preservation Newsletter

In the last issue we featured an article about O. H. Benson as one of the people selected by State and National 4-H Leaders as having “made 4-H great”. That article explained that he was instrumental in getting the clover adopted for our youth program. In 1911, O. H. Benson proposed four Hs that stood for Head, Heart, Hands, and Hustle. O. B. Martin suggested Health instead of Hustle. At a meeting in the spring of 1911, the 4-H leadership approved the 4-H emblem representing Head, Heart, Hands and Health.

An article by Gladys Scranage, a Girls’ Club Agent in WV, in the October 1938 issue of National 4-H Club News acclaimed that improving physical and mental health was vital to everyone. “[T]o create a desire for health, to aid in developing right attitudes, to encourage physical improvements, to help in establishing health consciousness in the community, to improve food habits, to aid in disease prevention, to study community health problems, and to continually set health standards are goals that seem to me to be entirely in the province of a 4-H club.”

Handles_Turn

Good safety habits contribute to good health. In the October, 1945 issue, safety cartoons by Utah 4-H member Ruth Louise Noall were featured. “Each pictured a warning, done in colored crayon and with its whimsical rhyme, occupied a full page in her [safety] book.” For example, a sketch of a child reaching for a pot on the stove warns, “Turn those handles toward the stove, If you will; And baby is not the only one Who might spill.”

Miss Scanage’s article lists some suggested activities for 4-H clubs that could be good hand-on projects for today’s 4-H clubs. She suggested that 4-H clubs should develop and promote a health program. This could include appointing a permanent health committee to direct health activities of the club. They would study local health problems, present health information as part of each 4-H club meeting, help in promotion of health in the community and encourage members to have regular checkups and make a personal health plan.

Hands-on History

Tools_Fools

How can your club benefit from Miss Scanage’s suggested activities? You could create a health officer or committee to suggest physical activities during your club meeting recreation time or recommend healthier refreshments. Your group can study local health issues and make plans to inform the community.

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


Historical Stories of 4-H Promotion

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First National Poster bearing the 4-H Clover in 1924.

First National Poster bearing the 4-H Clover in 1924.

The National Compendium of 4-H Promotion and Visibility is a history project started a year ago and placed on the National 4-H History Preservation Program website earlier this year. It is one of this year’s priority activities for those National 4-H History Team members working on the website.

Rather than being a chronology of 4-H promotion history, the Compendium is a collection of short stories, so far gleaned mostly from historical issues of National 4-H News, covering a broad array of national approaches to 4-H promotion, marketing, public relations and branding. Added to this are anecdotes, some from the local level but which received national visibility, that are simply special vignettes that should not be lost to history. These stories are often the ones which convey the true meaning of what 4-H is all about: chronicles of inspiration, of achievement, leadership, and goals; accounts of failures and having the strength, ability, and desire to pick oneself up and try again.

As one of the major sponsors of 4-H National Youth Science Day in 2009, DuPont provided some extra visibility extending to a massive audience; in the NASCAR circuit, the DuPont-sponsored car driven by Jeff Gordon prominently carried the 4-H emblem with the 4-H.org website on the back of the vehicle.

As one of the major sponsors of 4-H National Youth Science Day in 2009, DuPont provided some extra visibility extending to a massive audience; in the NASCAR circuit, the DuPont-sponsored car driven by Jeff Gordon prominently carried the 4-H emblem with the 4-H.org website on the back of the vehicle.

This Promotion Compendium is meant to document and preserve these stories of 4-H history before they get lost. It has immense value as a resource tool for new professional and volunteer staff development. Even more important, perhaps, it is also offered as a collection of short stories to be read for inspiration and enjoyment.

As of August, 2015, the National Compendium of Promotion and Visibility had over 160 stories posted, and over 150 photos or illustrations. The Compendium is an ongoing project with stories being researched and added regularly. While most of these stories illustrate national 4-H promotion history, if you have a story from the state or local level which received national publicity, please tell us about it. We will consider it for inclusion in the Compendium. Write to Info@4-HHistoryPreservation.com

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


4-H History Preservation Newsletter
October 2015

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‘Tis the season for pumpkins, goblins, corn mazes and (apparently) pumpkin-spiced lattes. Whether your 4-H Club is in a rural area or in town or city, these long-honored traditions can be a part of your October. Even corn mazes are near many towns.


Speaking of corn well before mazes became popular, the Otwell corn-growing competition garnered great publicity in Illinois in 1905. But the parade! What a spectacle!


The Health H was the last to be added to the four-leaf clover symbol. But you can build many educational activities around that important part of 4-H education. Do you have more ideas of how to celebrate the Health H in your programs?



Surely you’ve heard of “Mulligan Stew,” and maybe you participated in it. Can you recall what year it premiered as a 4-H educational series?


Who is Chris Clover? Rumor has it that he or she is a long-honored spokesperson for 4-H around the country. Tell us whether he or she has shown up in your county yet.



We again feature one of the several people who “made 4-H great;” this one is credited with starting a hot lunch program in schools, pretty significant in 1907!


We’re pushing the “Map Your 4-H History” this year at NAE4-HA. Think of historic sites in your area that you want to be documented on the internet-based, publicly-accessible atlas of 4-H History. Easy to do, and your site will be recorded forever.


Haven’t got your Halloween costume ready yet? How about going as Chris Clover! If not, stay home and take pictures of the Trick-R-Treaters while you sip your pumpkin-spiced latte and enjoy this issue.


4-H_Week_1942


4-H_Week_2015


A local store window display for National 4-H week in 1942 resembled one we saw on Twitter this year in that both referred to the growing of 4-H. The 1942 version was “4-H, Strong and Growing” whereas 2015 is more individually oriented with “4-H Grows Teamwork, Curiosity, Resilience, Courage and so much more!

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


Hands-On 4-H. 4-H Electrification Projects: Then and Now

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The following story is from the February 2014 issue of the 4-H History Preservation Newsletter
Oregon 4-H'ers in the 1950s demonstrate how to re-wire lamps at a club meeting.

Oregon 4-H’ers in the 1950s demonstrate how to re-wire lamps at a club meeting.

Many of us take electricity for granted at home, at work, and at local stores and businesses. But that wasn’t the case seventy-five years ago, especially in rural areas. An article in the 1939 National 4-H News invited 4-H members to participate in the 4-H Rural Electrification Project. Members and clubs were “encouraged to study wiring plans, safety practices, and operation of electrical equipment.” Members were encouraged to complete activities to help them learn to make basic electrical repairs and additions at home and on the farm. Project records were submitted to compete for county medals, trips to National 4-H Congress, and $200 scholarships.

Early electrical club work even inspired a novel to be written. “Dynamo Farm” by Adam Allen, and published by J. B. Lippincott Company, NY in 1942 tells the story of a boy from the city who moves to a farm and learns to love being there because he gets involved in an electrification project in 4-H and saves the family poultry business.

Electricity is still an important 4-H project. Members learn the principles of electricity, circuits, magnetism and safety. These days, energy conservation is also emphasized.

You and your club members can learn about electricity like the 4-H members did in the 4-H Rural Electrification project many years ago. A club member or guest speaker can do a demonstration or lead a club activity to learn about electricity. Club members can do a home energy audit and share their results at a future club meeting. Or you could try to find a copy of the novel mentioned above and share a report about it or act out some of the scenes for the club.

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .