Historical Timeline — Agricultural Education & Extension
17th-18th Centuries
1647
Massachusetts Bay Colony requires elementary school in towns of at least 50 families and Latin school in towns of at least 100 families
18th century
Essay upon Field Husbandry written by Jared Eliot of Connecticut
1785
Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia contains one of the finest detailed descriptions of agriculture in an American State and asserts the virtues of rural life
1800
1810
First American agricultural periodical, the Agricultural Museum, begins
publication
1819
The American Farmer and the Plough Boy periodicals begin publication
1820
1820s
Agricultural periodicals begin to express rural issues
1822
First issue of the New England Farmer
1825-50
Some schools and colleges begin to offer courses in agriculture and in sciences helpful to agriculture
1826
Lyceum movement begins in Massachusetts
1828
First issue of the New York Farmer; Southern Agriculturist
1830s
Public school movement gains momentum
1830-60
Popular and agricultural education is the most prominent rural issue of this period, especially in the North
1831
First issue of the Genesee Farmer
1834
First issue of the Cultivator
1840
1840
Agricultural journalism becomes permanently established, with about 30 farm journals and a total circulation of more than 100,000
1841
Union Agriculturist and Western Prairie Farmer start publication
1850
Jonathan Turner begins to campaign for industrial universities
1855
Michigan and Pennsylvania pass legislation providing for establishment of Michigan Agricultural College and the Farmers High School, later Pennsylvania State College
1860
1862
The drive for agricultural education culminates in the passage of the Morrill Land Grant College Act
1870s
Many State colleges of agriculture begin experimental work
1874
Chautauqua system founded in New York
1875
Agricultural experiment stations established in Connecticut and California
1880
1887
15 States have formally organized experiment stations; Hatch Experiment Station Act
1890's
Development of secondary agricultural education in local areas and by State
1890
Second Morrill Act broadens land-grant program and sets up funding for Black land-grant schools
1893
49 experiment stations exist under the Hatch Act
1900
1900
First corn club for boys, forerunner of 4-H clubs
1903
Seaman Knapp begins boll-weevil demonstration project, an inspiration for extension education
1906
An agricultural wagon, or moveable farmers' school, is started by Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Institute to teach Southern African-American farmers better methods of farming
1910
1910
Thomas Hunt Morgan announces his theory of genes
1914
Edwin Broun Fred begins to supply cultures of nitrogen-fixing bacteria to growers of legumes for the purpose of increasing the plant's nitrogen fixing capacity
1914
Smith-Lever Extension Act passed. Establishment of the federal-state Extension Service was a major step in direct education for farmers
1917
Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act passed
1920
1920
31,000
students enrolled in agricultural courses
1924
Clark-McNary Act provides for forestry extension work
1925
Purnell Act provides for economic and sociological research to be
carried out by the experiment stations
1925-45
Basic research done in land-grant colleges lays groundwork for second
agricultural revolution
1928
Future Farmers of America founded
1930
1935
Bankhead-Jones Agricultural Research Act more than doubles Federal support of extension work
1940
1940
584,000 students enrolled in agricultural courses
1941
Extension agents work in every rural county in the country, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico
1946-54
Land-grant college enrollment increases greatly as veterans enroll under G.I. bill
1950
1958
National Defense Education Act
1960
1964
Antipoverty programs lead to expansion of extension education programs in inner cities
1970
1970
853,000 students enrolled in agricultural courses
1974
Agreement between USDA and land-grant colleges establishes Council on International Science and Education
1980
1980s
Enrollments in colleges of agriculture drop in wake of the farm crisis
1985
USDA scientists indicate that agricultural chemicals infiltrate ground water more than previously thought
1990-2000
1990s
Distance education becomes an increasingly important way to make cooperative research and extension resources accessible
