Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs

A Foundation for Sustainable Rural Community Development

1920-1930

• CLC home page
• Introduction
• Report

Summary

• Purpose
• Commissioners
• Survey & Hearings
• Prominent Deficiencies
• Underlying Problem
• Migration
• Agriculture Challenges
• Public Health
• Role of Farm Women
• Conservation & Land Use
• General Corrective Forces
• Commission Recommendations
• Legislative Recommendations
• Remedies
• The Call for Leadership

Legacy

• American Country Life Association
• Rural Sociology
• American Farm Bureau Federation
• Highways
• Agricultural Economics

Resources

• Bibliography
• Web Resources
• Timeline

Although succeeding presidents tried to erase Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive efforts from the early part of the century, the post World War I years saw renewed interest in country life, led by Roosevelt’s political and intellectual contemporaries. Economic and social interests for farmers and rural communities influenced the creation of national agricultural organizations, including the American Country Life Association (ACLA) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).

ACLA especially extended the vision of Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission. Organized as the National Country Life Association in November, 1917, ACLA established yearly conferences in 1919 to focus on both agricultural and rural communities. These themed conventions addressed social aspects of farming and rural communities, including rural education, rural homemaking, and agencies for agricultural education; health and sanitation; recreational and social affairs for older people; local government; country planning; and religious life (Wunderlich, 2003). The association’s first meeting attracted thousands of farmers, academics, ministers, and students.

While ACLA’s program was generally aimed at rural life, including rural communities, AFBF directed its work toward the farming business and farm families. AFBF was an early ACLA partner, sharing ACLA’s education goals, especially improved agricultural practices. The Farm Bureau’s mission evolved partly from programs and ideas developed in earlier farm organizations, such as the Grange, Farmers Alliance, and Farmers Union. AFBF carried on the Country Life Commission’s vision of a common voice for farmers in the lopsided marketplace and ultimately, in the federal, state, and local policy arenas. It also provided farmers with other services, such as insurance.

AFBF’s focus on farming practices and management linked it closely to land-grant universities. University experiment stations did agricultural research to improve production that was demonstrated by county extension agents and model farmers. AFBF’s county and state-level organizations supported these educational endeavors. During the decade, rural sociologist Edmund deS. Brunner documented the rapid changes in farming. He studied about 140 villages as director of the Institute for Social and Religious Research, concluding that agricultural mechanization tended to increase the size of farms.

The first half of the 1920s can be described as a growing crisis of agricultural overproduction in the United States that lowered farm income. Mechanization not only improved productivity, it drove rural residents into cities. This condition, worsened by changing global markets, escalated awareness about the conditions of farmers and rural communities. In the years immediately after the stock market crash of 1929, the rest of country joined the long-running agricultural depression, moving into the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Recommended Resources