NEH Grant for Preservation of Historical Agricultural Literature

[Susan Barnes]

NEWS RELEASE

June 15, 1996

Land Grants Join to Preserve the Nation's Heritage of Printed Agrarian
Literature

Nine land-grant libraries across the U.S. have joined with the U.S.
Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) to identify and preserve
historical literature about agricultural development and rural life
covering 1820-1945.  Since the nation was largely rural until after WWII,
these publications contain information about a significant sector of U.S.
history.  This cooperative preservation effort will preserve agrarian
literature for future generations of scholars and farmers.

Part of the National Preservation Program for Agricultural Literature
commissioned by USAIN and published in 1993, initial work will be funded by
an $850,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Historical literature for each of the nine states will be identified and
then evaluated by a panel of scholars.  Four of the nine land-grant
libraries will have funds to preserve the most valuable titles; the other
five will identify and rank the titles but not preserve volumes until
additional money is available.

This rich literature traces agriculture as it evolved from a home and
family way of life to the business enterprises which we know today.  The
grant will allow for handling local and land-grant literature about or
published in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Nebraska, New York,
Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.  Rural life will be the focus as
represented in many types of publications:  agricultural and farm journals,
histories, grant and agricultural society documents, natural histories, and
records of rural growth and community development.

Cornell, for example, will identify and preserve pamphlets and theses of
interest to social, economic, and cultural historians.  Sample titles
include "A Study of the Use of Out-of-School Environment by the Teachers of
Certain Small Rural Schools" (1928); "The Family Finances of 126 Identical
Farm Families in Northern Livingston County" (1930); "The Family in
Colonial New York: A Sociological Study" (1942); and "An Agricultural
History of the Genessee Valley, 1790-1860" (1945). Cornell will identify
and preserve an estimated 1,810 volumes.

Examples of items to be preserved at other institutions include:

-- annual descriptions of the oldest continuously held agricultural fair in
the country (the Brooklyn Connecticut Fair, founded in 1809),
-- "Florida Farm Wives: They Help the Family Farm Survive" by Masuma Downie,
-- pamphlets from Union Pacific (and other railroads) which were designed
to sell farmlands and to attract settlers to the new West,
-- the "Pennsylvania Farmer and Gardener" (published from 1859-1864),
-- "Hoard's Dairyman" (a magazine with such impact that its publisher
William Dempster Hoard was elected governor of Wisconsin), and
-- writings from Booker T. Washington such as "Up From Slavery" and
"Working with the Hands."

Mann Library at Cornell University will coordinate and manage the effort
under Project Director Sam Demas  and Project Manager Wallace C. Olsen
(607-255-8939).  The Universities of California (Berkeley), Connecticut,
Florida, Nebraska, and Texas A&M will share $55,049 for the identification
and ranking of literature about their states.  Four institutions will rank
and preserve literature in the course of this two year grant:  Auburn
University ($134,862); Cornell University ($170,628); Pennsylvania State
University ($117,214) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison ($180,830)
which will accomplish the preservation of an estimated 6,819 early and
valuable volumes.

Contact persons at the nine institutions are:

Dale Foster
Auburn University
 (334) 844-1755  fostecd at lib.auburn.edu

Norma Kobzina
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 643-6475  nkobzina at library.berkeley.edu

Fran T. Libby
University of Connecticut
(203) 486-2520 hbladm85 at uconnvm.uconn.edu

John Ingram
University of Florida
(352) 392-0342 jeingr at nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu

Katherine Walter
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
 (402) 472-3939 kayw at unllib.unl.edu

Marjorie Proctor
Cornell University
(607) 255-7950  map21 at cornell.edu

Sue Kellerman
The Pennsylvania State University
(814) 865-1858 lsk at psulias.psu.edu

Kathy Jackson
Texas A&M
(409) 862-4235 kathy-jackson at tamu.edu

Jean Gilbertson
University of Wisconsin-Madison
(608) 263-6864 gilbert at macc.wisc.edu

Susan Barnes

Assistant to the Director
Albert R. Mann Library
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853

(607)254-4993