Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs

A Foundation for Sustainable Rural Community Development

Purpose

• 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

“Not to help farmers raise better crops, but to call his attention to the opportunities for better business and better living on the farm. If the country life is to become what it should be, and what I believe it ultimately will be—one of the most dignified, desirable, and sought-after ways of earning a living—the farmer must take advantage not only of the agricultural knowledge which is at his disposal, but of the methods which have raised and continue to raise the standards of living and of intelligence in other callings.”

Theodore Roosevelt

United States and Bailey, 1909, p. 4

Recommended Resource

United States; Bailey, Liberty Hyde (ed.). 1909. Report of the Country Life Commission: Special Message from the President of the United States Transmitting the Report of the Country Life Commission, 60th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1909, S. Doc 705 (Washington: Govt. Print. Off.)