Agriculture, State Board of
Creator: Kansas. Governor (1879-1883: Glick)
Date: 1883-1885
These letters are from various officials in the Kansas State Board of Agriculture to Kansas Governor G. W. Glick. The correspondents include Wm. Sims, secretary; J. M. McFarland, assistant secretary; and R. W. Jenkins, president. The department discusses the National Agricultural Convention, Danish and Swedish immigration, and a book, which Kansas is mentioned in, called Resources of the North and South from the office of Exposition Publications.

Angell Plow
Creator: Angell, Charlie J.
Date: 1926
One-way disk plow manufactured by Charles Angell of Plains, Kansas. Angell, a wheat farmer, developed a plow that set all disks at the same angle, or "one-way," to increase tilling efficiency. Farmers liked that it plowed faster and easily broke up hard soil, but its overuse created a fine, dusty layer that quickly blew away in heavy winds. This is a smaller version of the actual plow, which was ten feet wide. Angell made this four-foot model for use in his family's vegetable garden.

Arthur Capper with members of the Senate Agricultural Committee
Creator: International News Photos, Inc
Date: March 7, 1930
Senator Arthur Capper (standing, fourth from the left) with members of the Senate Agricultural Committee: seated - Legge, chairman of the Farm board, Senators: Henry Hatfirld; Charles McNary; Joseph Ransdell; Hyde, Secretary of Agriculture; standing -Frederick Walcott; Arthur Gould; John Thomas; Arthur Capper; Thomas Heflin; and Elmer Thomas. Members of the Senate Agricultural Committee during the executive session when Hyde, Secretary of Agricultural, and Legge, chairman of the Farm Board, appeared before the committee and testified that improvement in the farming situation was in sight and that prices for agricultural commodities were becoming stabilized. Secretary Hyde and chairman Legge were asked by the committee to submit an opinion on reports that a world wide attempt was being made to depress prices in an effort to demoralize the new American Farm Relief Program. Capper, 1865-1951, a native of Garnett, Kansas, served Kansas as Governor, 1915-1919, and U. S. Senator, 1919-1949.

Arthur Capper with members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture
Date: March 25, 1929
Arthur Capper, United States senator from Kansas, with a members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, working on the Farm Relief Bill, March 25, 1929, Washington, D.C.

By the President of the United States, a proclamation: whereas it appears that the public good will be promoted by eliminating certain lands within the State of Kansas from the Kansas National Forest
Creator: Taft, William Howard, 1857-1930
Date: February 24, 1913
This proclamation by President William H. Taft changes the boundaries of the Kansas National Forest. The original forest boundaries are illustrated on the diagram from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The forest was located west of Garden City and south of the Atchison, Topeka, and Sante Fe Railroad in Finney, Haskell, Grant, Kearny, and Hamilton counties. The proclamation excludes land west of Syracuse, Kansas and east of the Colorado border.

Clifford Hope
Creator: Forsythe
Date: February 1953
A black and white photo of U.S. Congressmen Clifford Hope from Kansas and members of the Cotton Advistory Group and Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson. Left to Right seated: Rep. Clifford R. Hope, (R.Kansas) Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, and Secretary Ezra Taft Benson. Standing: J.F. McLauin, President, National Cotton Ginners Association, Bennetsville, South Carolina; Alonza Bennett, Vice President, Federal Compressing and Warehousing Co., Memphis, Tenn.; Charles Cannon, President, Cannon Mills, Kannapolis, N.C.; George Wilson, President, California Farm Bureau Federation, Berkeley, Calif.; W.B. Coberly, jr., President National Cottonseed Products Association, Los Angeles, Calif.; A. M. Crawford, President, American Cotton Shippers Assoication, Memphis, Tenn.

Daniel Robert Glickman
Date: Between 1999 and 2000
This is a portrait of Daniel Robert "Dan" Glickman, a native of Wichita Kansas, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas in 1976. For eighteen years, he represented the fourth Congressional district of Kansas until he was defeated for re-election by Todd Tiahrt. After his defeat, President Bill Clinton appointed him to be the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture, where he served from 1995 to 2001.

Earl M. Smith to Senator Arthur Capper
Creator: Smith, Earl M.
Date: April 20, 1945
This is a telegram from Earl M. Smith, Concordia, Kansas, to Kansas Senator Arthur Capper, Washington D.C. With World War II taking much of the male labor force overseas, prisoners of war were brought in to do many of the jobs left behind. Smith, the president of the Cloud County Farm Bureau, requested that more prisoner of war workers from the Concordia camp be available to help with a labor shortage that the area was having.

Fike and Haynes Farm, Levant, Kansas
Creator: Griffith, J.L.
Date: July 13, 1910
This black and white photograph shows a group of representatives from the U.S. Government and the State Agricultural Department visiting the Fike and Haynes farm south of Levant, Kansas.

Frederick Funston Alaska Expedition
Date: Between 1892 and 1894
This set of photographs show some of the people Frederick Funston encountered during his scientific exploration in Alaska for the United States Department of Agriculture.

Government surplus cotton mattress project in Columbus, Kansas
Date: 1941
Here are photographs showing the government surplus cotton mattress project at the American Legion Pavilion cotton mattress center on the fairgrounds in Columbus, Kansas. The cotton mattress program was sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture Extension Service, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and the Surplus Marketing Administration. It was started in February 1940, and had a threefold purpose. First, it was designed to supply cotton materials to rural families who could not afford to purchase mattresses. Second, the program helped to reduce the cotton surplus. Third, the mattress program provided demonstrations through which rural people learned how to make cotton mattresses. Mattresses were made in community work centers under supervision of the home demonstration agent and others trained in mattress making. Representatives from the families participating in the program helped one another in actual construction of the mattresses. Eligible families received material to make one full-size double-bed mattress for each two persons in the family, but the total could not exceed three mattresses to a family. Participating families were excepted to pay for needles, thread and incidental expenses.

Governor Walter A. Huxman, correspondence files, box 5
Creator: Kansas. Governor (1937-1939 : Huxman)
Date: 1937-1939
These folders contain correspondence subject files with Governor Huxman. Some subjects included are natural resources, race relations, gasoline taxation, tuberculosis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Resettlement Administration, Farm Debt Adjustment, and the Works Progress Administration.

H.A. Kinney to Governor Walter Huxman
Creator: Emergency Dust Bowl Committee
Date: April 23, 1937
Secretary of the Emergency Dust Bowl Committee H. A. Kinney of Liberal (Seward County) sends Governor Walter Huxman of Topeka (Shawnee County) a copy of a telegram the committee sent President Franklin Roosevelt. The telegram appeals to the federal government for assistance in stopping the removal of top soil in the drought stricken areas of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. The telegram advises that the present program of management by individual farmers is inadequate. H. A. Kinney was also Secretary of the Liberal Chamber of Commerce.

Keep our soil home
Date: 1950s
This anonymously written pamphlet was printed at the Monitor, Leonardville, Kansas. The author urges readers to study the problems that the proposed construction of the Tuttle Creek dam might create and to take action by writing their Congressman. The author urges an approach of small retention dams on tributaries of the Big Blue River rather than one large dam. A number of residents of the area organized to oppose the construction of the Tuttle Creek dam. This pamphlet is one example of that opposition.

Testimony of the Honorable John Carlin, Governor of Kansas before the Committee on Agriculture, U.S. House of Representatives
Creator: Carlin, John, 1940-
Date: April 29, 1980
This is Governor John Carlin testimony before the U.S. House Agriculture Committee about the farm financial crisis impacting the Midwest and Upper Great Plains. He points out that farmers were hurt by declining crop and livestock prices, rising fuel prices, high interest rates, and the unavailability of credit. Carlin proposes that the federal government offer farmers advances on commodity loans for the 1980 crop year to help alleviate the immediate crisis.

The condition of the working class
Creator: Topeka Populist
Date: July 30, 1892
According to this Populist article, while the "professors of capitalism" (meaning the Republicans) continued to maintain that capitalism benefited the common laborer, the numbers spoke differently. The federal Department of Agriculture's most recent report demonstrated that in each region of the nation (eastern, southern. Etc…) the average monthly wages for farm labor had decreased significantly since 1866. The paper concludes by saying that "the 'improvement' and 'betterment' has been for the capitalists only."

The Daily Bulletin
Date: May 25, 1922
This is the daily publication of the Publicity Department of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (Texas A & M) located in College Station, Texas. The lead stories in this issue are information about the "bug hunters picnic, extension officials going to Washington, D. C., and a troupe of black faced comedians performing on campus. Other pages have information about commencement activities, adds, and stories listing student names.

United States Experimental Grass and Forage Station, Finney County, Kansas
Creator: Wolf, Henry L. 1850-1924
Date: Between 1890 and 1900
A photograph of the United States Experimental Grass and Forage Station No. 1 in Finney County, Kansas. The photo shows a residence, windmill, and several outbuildings. A man with two horses and a buggy are also visible.

William Marion Jardine
Date: Between 1925 and 1930
A photograph of William Marion Jardine who served as Secretary of Agriculture during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge. As one of the first Kansans to gain a cabinet level position at the national level, he was instrumental in directing a farm program that had become economically depressed during the post World War I period. Prior to his selection to this cabinet level position he had served as Dean of the School of Agriculture at Kansas State Agricultural College (Kansas State University) and subsequently became president of that institution from 1918 - 1925. Following his tenure as Secretary of Agriculture, President Hoover appointed Jardine as Ambassador to Egypt in 1930. Upon his return to this country in 1933, Gov. Alf Landon appointed him a temporary Kansas State Treasurer in the wake of the Finney Bond Scandal. Jardine resigned from that position in April 1934 and became the president of the University of Wichita (now Wichita State University).

William Marion Jardine
Creator: Henry Miller News Picture Service
Date: March 06, 1925
A photograph of William Marion Jardine (fourth from the right) taking the oath of office for United States Secretary of Agriculture. He served in this office during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge. As one of the first Kansans to gain a cabinet level position at the national level, he was instrumental in directing a farm program that had become economically depressed during the post World War I period. Prior to his selection to this cabinet level position he had served as Dean of the School of Agriculture at Kansas State Agricultural College (Kansas State University) and subsequently became president of that institution from 1918 - 1925. Following his tenure as Secretary of Agriculture, President Hoover appointed Jardine as Ambassador to Egypt in 1930. Upon his return to this country in 1933, Gov. Alf Landon appointed him a temporary Kansas State Treasurer in the wake of the Finney Bond Scandal. Jardine resigned from that position in April 1934 and became the president of the University of Wichita (now Wichita State University). Senator Arthur Capper is standing second from the right.