4-H History Preservation Newsletter
December 2015

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Head, Heart, Hands, Health and Holidays! Between November 1 and January 15, there are about 29 holidays observed by seven of the world’s major religions. 4-H’ers don’t take a holiday, as many of them are busy bringing holiday happiness to their communities in myriad ways. What an eventful season!


President Truman and 4-H

It became an annual event, the presentation of a report on 4-H’s annual accomplishments to the President. In 1950, 4-H Reporters traveled to the White House courtesy of Chicago’ Stevens Hotel, later re-named the Conrad Hilton and scene of the annual National 4-H Congress for years.


Fifth in the series

A. G. Kettunen is featured as one of the pioneers selected in 1962 who “helped make 4-H great.” He was state 4-H leader in Michigan, a strong supporter of IFYE, a 4-H camping enthusiast and First Chairman of the National 4-H Club Foundation.


December dates in 4-H history

December 5, 1924, was the first National 4-H “Style Show” at 4-H Congress. On December 26, 1936, 4-H reached a significant milestone. Any guesses?


1935 Parade of National 4-H Congress Delegates at the National Livestock Exposition. This was its eleventh year.

1935 Parade of National 4-H Congress Delegates at the National Livestock Exposition. This was its eleventh year.


Maryland 4-H maps its history

The National 4-H History Map expands with significant historical sites across the country. Though still missing sites from a few states, the Map will soon include many sites from Maryland, as nominated by leaders and junior leaders as a result their annual meeting.


4-H’er wins international show

A 12 year old Iowa 4-H’er exhibited the grand champion steer at the 1928 International Livestock Exposition, the largest livestock show in the world. The champion steer, named Dick, sold for a record price and was purchased by someone who would become one of 4-H’s most generous donors.


Record memories in the holidays

“Voices of 4-H History” and the annual 4-H FilmFest offer splendid opportunities to record and exhibit treasured memories of 4-H in your family and community. There’s no better time to capture those memories



Whichever of the 29 holidays you observe during this joyous time of the year, enjoy it; and

enjoy this issue.

The Moses Trophy
Top Leadership Award

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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/



Horace A. Moses


Beginning in 1924 the top 4-H Leadership award, winner of the prestigious Moses trophy, was considered the top award in 4-H. Presented at National 4-H Congress, initially there was a single winner, however after three years, there was both a boy winner and a girl winner selected. The annual announcement of these winners brought national promotion to 4-H from coast to coast with coverage in movie newsreels, on national radio broadcasts and in newspaper and magazine features.


The Moses trophies (there were two) were travelling trophies with each of the annual winners getting to retain the trophy for one year before it was traditionally passed on to the new winners. The trophies were presented in the name of Horace A. Moses, President of the Strathmore Paper Company and a member of the board of the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work.


He also sponsored the 4-H Leader Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts and funded the Horace A. Moses Building at the Eastern States Exposition. Beginning in the 1930s, the winners also received scholarships provided by Edward Foss Wilson, the son of Thomas E. Wilson. In approximately 1961, the top winners received trays presented in the name of the President of the United States instead of the trophies. But… one of the mysteries of 4-H history continues to remain today – what happened to the two prestigious traveling Moses trophies? The National 4-H History Preservation leadership Team continues to search for these trophies so they can once again be displayed at the national level.


A notable “first” in 4-H history is the very first winner of the famous H. A. Moses trophy, awarded in the National 4-H Leadership program to Ford Mercer of Wellston, Oklahoma.


For more information on the National 4-H Leadership Program and a listing of all winners at

http://4-HHistoryPreservation.com/History/National_Recognition/Presidential_Winners/#AD1

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


Peter Max and 4-H

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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/



Peter Max, one of America’s most renowned pop artists, known for his use of psychedelic shapes and colors, partnered with 4-H in the mid-1970s to create a Peter Max scarf designed exclusively for 4-H. The colorful design represented love, joy and health through the symbols of head, heart and hands in peaceful motion capped off with four-leaf clovers. The 28″ x 27″ scarf was made of Polyester and sold through the National 4-H Supply Service. Virginia Ogilvy, Extension clothing specialist with USDA and Fern Kelley, from the federal 4-H Extension staff, worked directly with Peter Max on the project.


Peter_Max_Scarf


 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


Fannie Buchanan
Writer of 4-H Songs

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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/

Fannie_Buchanan

Fannie Buchanan earned a degree in music from Grinnell College, Iowa. During World War I, she organized music and recreation activities with War Camp Community Service. Eventually she joined the Victor Talking Machine Company as a Rural Specialist. As she traveled, she came in more contact with 4-H members and leaders and became involved in the 4-H music program and the needs of 4-H members.

She strongly felt that one of these needs was an appreciation for music and singing. During the early 1930s Miss Buchanan authored a column on music appreciation in the National 4-H Club News magazine. She became the first Iowa State Music Extension Specialist in 1930.

Fannie Buchanan wrote the words to five 4-H songs, set to music by her college friend Rena Parish, including “The Plowing Song” dedicated to farm boys and “Dreaming” that captured the daydreams of 4-H girls that she met during her cross country travels. These two songs were introduced at the National 4-H Club Camp in 1927.

These two songs were followed by “A Song for Health” in 1929, the “4-H Friendship Song” in 1932, and “The 4-H Field Song” in 1933. The National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work (now National 4-H Council) published all five of Miss Buchanan’s songs. The members of the Federal Extension Service and National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work helped to carry her songs throughout the country and encouraged their singing by 4-H clubs. In 1941 Fannie Buchanan authored an Extension music publication entitled, “Music of the Soil.” Miss Buchanan received a citation for distinguished service at the 1941 National 4-H Club Camp and recognition at the closing assembly of the 1944 National 4-H Club Congress.

Miss Buchanan lived in Grinnell, Iowa where she died in 1957 at the age of 82.

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


America’s Highest Scoring Air Ace in World War II was a 4-H’er

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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/

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

Richard_I_BongMajor Richard I. Bong grew up on a farm in Poplar, Wisconsin, as one of nine children, a member of a strong 4-H family, as noted in a feature in National 4-H Club News. While at Superior State Teachers College, Dick Bong enlisted in the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. One of his flight instructors was Capt. Barry Goldwater (later U. S. Senator from Arizona). He received his wings and commission as second lieutenant on January 19, 1942, only weeks after the U.S. declared war on Japan. Dick Bong became the United States’ highest scoring ace, having shot down at least 40 Japanese aircraft during World War II [Surpassing Eddie Rickenbacker’s American record of 26 credited victories in World War I.] Bong was a fighter pilot in the U. S. Army Air Force and a recipient of the Medal of Honor, at a special ceremony in December, 1944, from General Douglas MacArthur.

Near the end of the war, Major Bong became a test pilot assigned to Lockheed’s Burbank, California, plant, where he flew P-80 Shooting Star jet fighters. On August 6, 1945, his plane’s primary fuel pump malfunctioned and Dick Bong was killed; news of his death shared headlines in newspapers across the country with the bombing of Hiroshima. Bong is well remembered and memorialized in several settings: the Richard Bong State Recreation Area on the old site of Bong Air Force Base in Kenosha County, Wisconsin; the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in Duluth, Minnesota; Richard I. Bong Airport and Richard I. Bong Veteran Historical Center in Superior, Wisconsin; Richard I. Bong Bridge in Townsville, Australia; Richard Bong Theater in Misawa, Japan; as well as streets and avenues with his name in Glendale, Arizona, Anchorage, Alaska, Spokane, Washington, San Antonio, Texas, Mount Holly, New Jersey, and Okinawa, Japan.

4-H Alumni Distinguished Themselves in World War II and Beyond

As we celebrate Veterans’ Day this month we would like to remember and share short stories about some of the many 4-H alumni that served their country proudly in the Armed Services. The following excerpt comes from “Wartime 4-H Support – World War II” which is currently being researched and written by the National 4-H History Preservation Leadership Team for inclusion of the website.

When the United States entered World War II in December, 1941, many older 4-H members and 4-H alumni enlisted in our country’s military services, soon to be actively serving on the battlefields and seas of the war. There were an estimated 800,000 4-H alumni in total enlisted in the war effort.

Not surprising, many of these young men and women who had grown up on farms and experienced the “can do” attitude of successful 4-H projects and activities also became some of the heroes of the war.

Knocking out Japanese at Saipan and Tinian won a promotion for Marine gunnery sergeant Marion J. Franklin, former 4-H Club president at Mount Vernon, Illinois. As a scout with the fourth Marine Division artillery, he served with forward observer parties throughout the Marines’ campaign, and was a crack shot, specializing in hunting enemy snipers. Fighting throughout the war, Marion became old enough to vote on November 11, 1944, near the end of the war.

American boys of Japanese ancestry born in Hawaii made up the celebrated 100th Hawaii Infantry Division of the United States Army and one among them was Kenneth Otagaki, former 4-H Club member with a seven-year record of poultry project experience on the Island of Molokai. A graduate of the University of Hawaii, he was an assistant in the University’s dairy department, before enlisting. He closed out the war at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. because of combat wounds received at Cassina, where he lost a leg, an eye and several fingers.

Winner of the 100th Congressional Medal of Honor, Sgt. Oscar Godfrey Johnson, from Foster City, Michigan, was a member of the Sturgeon River Dairy Club five years and the Felch Forestry and Handicraft Clubs for each of several years. Sgt. Johnson’s citation tells a story of supreme courage. Detailed to a forward scouting battalion, his party was ambushed by Germans. All others were killed or wounded. He himself was responsible for killing 40 Germans, silencing six machine gun nests, and caring for the wounded. Later he was wounded and received the Purple Heart. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor from General Mark Clark.

The October 1945 issue of National 4-H Club News announced that Col. Creighton W. Abrams is now home in triumph in Agawam, Massachusetts. Abrams was a 4-H’er for several years, raising baby beef. During the war he served as tank battalion commander with Gen. Patton’s army. [Later, as a U. S. Army General, Abrams commanded the military operations in the Vietnam War from 1968-1972.]

 

Please help us preserve 4-H History . . .


E. T. Meredith
Early Supporter of 4-H Brings Visibility

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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/


E.T.Meredith
 

As a teenager, Edwin Meredith worked for his grandfather’s newspaper, “The Farmers Tribune.” It was heavily in debt and the grandfather gave young Meredith controlling interest in the publication as a wedding gift, which he turned around and sold for a profit. With the proceeds, in 1902, at the age of 25, he started E. T. Meredith Publishing Company with his own publication, the “Successful Farming” magazine. Meredith Publishing Company became a publishing empire including such magazines as Better Homes and Gardens,” “Ladies Home Journal,” “Country Life,” “Family Circle” and “Parents,” plus owning a string of both radio and television stations across America.

E. N. Hopkins joined Successful Farming magazine in 1916. Already a committed enthusiast for boys and girls club work, by 1917 Hopkins had inspired E. T. Meredith to offer a $250,000 loan fund [value of over $5 million in 2015] to farm youngsters to start a business for themselves. Over the years, Meredith made over 10,000 loans to club members so they could buy purebred livestock or hybrid seed corn or any number of other farm and home project requests, pledging only their character as collateral. These low rate loans for $10, $20 or $50 were almost always paid off by the due date, if not before. The loans were always made directly to the boy or girl, not to their parents, and were officially set up as a contract between the youth and Mr. Meredith. The hundreds of stories and testimonials Mr. Meredith received from the loan recipients made him a strong supporter of boys and girls club work and its potential. Additionally, it brought the parents “on board” and served as an example picked up by hundreds of local bankers and other businessmen across the country who also started making loans directly to 4-H members.

Also, with the urging of E. N. Hopkins, Meredith Publishing started a national monthly magazine “for farm boys and girls and the federal club work,” expanding upon a youth section that had been initiated during 1916 in “Successful Farming.” Originally called “Junior Soldiers of the Soil,” the name of the original 1916 column, the new magazine’s volume 1, number 1 was issued in January 1919. The publication name quickly was changed to Farm Boys and Girls Leader and Club Achievements” by the July 1919 issue, and later on to just “Farm Boys and Girls Leader.”

The subscription publication was billed as the only paper published exclusively for farm boys and girls. The publication carried many local news stories, excellent features, and hundreds of testimonials from the young Meredith loan recipients, or from their parents, letting Mr. Meredith know what a value the loan had meant. It is believed that the September 1922 issue may have been the last one published. However, if it had not been for these issues of the Meredith Publishing magazines, much of the history of 4-H for these years would, indeed, be unknown.

Edwin T. Meredith was always interested in politics, running for statewide office in Iowa twice. During the same period as the issuing of the “Farm Boys and Girls Leader” publication, in January of 1920, Meredith became President Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of Agriculture.

Edwin T. Meredith was a strong supporter for the creation of the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work to help supplement public dollars for Extension with funding and programs from businessmen in the private sector. He served as the first president of the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work, predecessor to National 4-H Council, from 1921-1924. Meredith continued to serve as a member of the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work until 1927. Early in 1924 Meredith allowed his name to be put forward as Iowa’s favorite son at the Democratic Convention. Early in 1928, he was considered as a Democratic nominee for President, however his health began to fail and he died that same year, at his home on June 17 at the age of 51.

Edwin T. Meredith, with support from staff member E. N. Hopkins, provided the young 4-H movement tremendous visibility over a relatively short period of time, and opened up doors for other support that otherwise may never had been opened. Between the Meredith loan fund and the creation of the first national publication for rural boys and girls club work, plus being Secretary of Agriculture and the first president of the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work, he brought public relations and visibility of 4-H to a whole new level. The Meredith Foundation and the Meredith family continue support of 4-H today at state and national levels.

 

Please help us preserve 4-H 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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O_H_Benson

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 . . .