Western Illinois University

A Foundation for Sustainable Rural Community Development

Country Life Commission Timeline

Time Line Introduction CLC Introduction , The Report,(text only) Theodore Roosevelt, Home
1900 Transition from the Populist Movement to the Progressive Era.
1900-1920  
Oct. 22,1903 President Theodore Roosevelt creates the Public Lands Commission.
1903 The Cooperative Education Movement is founded at the University of Cincinnati to foster on-the-job learning.
1905 American philosophers William James and John Dewey develop intellectual foundations for service-based learning, a key path to formal voluntarism.
Feb. 1, 1905 Roosevelt signs the Federal Forest Transfer Act, transferring responsibility for national forests from the United States Department of the Interior to the United States Department of Agriculture and creating the United States Forest Service with Gifford Pinchot as chief forester.
Summer, 1905 American Sociological Association created.
Mar. 14, 1907 Roosevelt appoints the Inland Waterways Commission.
May 13-15, 1908 Roosevelt calls the first nationwide Conference of Governors.
June 8, 1908 Roosevelt appoints the National Conservation Commission.
Aug. 21, 1908 Roosevelt appoints the Country Life Commission including: Liberty Hyde Bailey, Kenyon L. Butterfield, C.S. Barrett, W.A. Beard, Walter Page, Gifford Pinchot, and Henry Wallace, who all volunteered their services.
December, 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt calls the Joint Conservation Conference, including Canada and Mexico, to recognize environmental issues across North America.
November-December, 1908 The Country Life Commission distributes questionnaires and holds thirty public hearings throughout the country.
December, 1908 The Joint Conservation Congress meets to receive the National Conservation Commission's three-volume report.
Jan. 11, 1909 The National Conservation Commission report is approved and transmitted to President Theodore Roosevelt.
Jan. 22, 1909 President Theodore Roosevelt transmits the National Conservation Commission report to Congress with a Special Message.
Feb. 9, 1909 Roosevelt transmits the Report of the Country Life Commission (text only) to Congress with a Special Message.
Feb. 18, 1909 The North American Conservation Conference is convened at Roosevelt's invitation in the White House.
Mar. 4,1909 President William Howard Taft is inaugurated President, succeeding Roosevelt. He discontinues Roosevelt’s commissions.
American philosopher William James envisions non-military national service in his essay "The Moral Equivalent of War."
   
1912 Congress funds Office of Public Roads to supervise building of rural post roads. Parcel Post Delivery established to expand Rural Free Delivery, which was established in 1896.
Theme of the American Sociological Association annual meeting is “Rural Life.”
Mar. 4, 1913 Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as President.
May 8, 1914 The Smith-Lever Act (Cooperative Extension) is passed by Congress.
1915 Frank Farrington’s book Community Development: Making the Small Town a Better Place to Live and a Better Place in Which to Do Business is published.
1915  Charles Galpin's study of rural Walworth County, The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community, is published.
1916 John Dewey's Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education is published. 
Federal Highway Act funds construction of rural roads.
Federal Farm Loan Act answers agricultural producers' demand for credit to finance land and farm machinery purchases, which had increased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as agriculture became more commercialized to meet growing domestic and foreign markets.
Feb. 23, 1917 The Smith-Hughes Act (Vocational Act of 1917) is passed by Congress.
April 6, 1917 United States enters World War I.
Nov.16-17, 1917 Organizational meeting for the future American Country Life Association held in Washington DC.
1918 Cornell University establishes its Department of Rural Sociology with Dwight Sanderson as chair.
Jan. 6, 1919 Theodore Roosevelt dies at Oyster Bay, NY, at age 60.
Jan. 6-7 1919 The first conference of the National Country Life Association, later the American Country Life Association, is held in Baltimore, MD. The theme is "Country Life Organization," intended to help with postwar adjustments in agricultural and rural living.
Nov. 8-11, 1919 The second conference of the American Country Life Association is held in Chicago, IL. The theme is "Rural Health."
Nov. 12-14, 1919 The American Farm Bureau Federation, an outgrowth of farm business recommendations by Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission, is formed.
1920-1930
1921-1928 Republican Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.
1922 Partly in response to weakened farm economy, congressional passage of the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act raises U.S. tariffs to historically high levels and sows some of the seeds for the Great Depression. 
Congress passes Capper-Volstead Act to let farmers join together to form marketing cooperatives.
Bureau of Agricultural Economics established in the United States Department of Agriculture for community and rural economic and sociological research.
Mar. - April 1923 The first issue of Rural America, the American Country Life Association's magazine, is published.
1925 Passage of the Purnell Act increases funding for rural extension research, including economics and sociology.
1927-1928 The McNary-Haugen Bill passes Congress in two sessions, but is vetoed twice by Calvin Coolidge. It would have created agricultural export subsidies to protect domestic farm prices from falling world prices.
1929 President Herbert Hoover’s Agricultural Marketing Act attempts to improve rural farm incomes.
Oct. 24, 1929 Black Thursday. The stock market crash leads the United States into the Great Depression.
1930-1940  
June 17, 1930 Passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act further raises U.S. tariffs and ends up worsening the growing Depression.
Summer-Fall, 1930  Severe drought brings national crisis and economic disaster to American farmers, worsening effects of the Great Depression. President Hoover’s efforts to provide relief are met with political obstacles and are mostly unsuccessful. The drought lasted until 1940.
1932 The Highlander Center is created by Myles Horton and Don West to gather workers, grassroots leaders, community organizers, educators, and researchers to address social, environmental, racial and economic problems facing residents of communities across the South
Feb. 10,1933 The Farm Foundation is created by International Harvester President Alexander Legge and Illinois Gov. Frank O. Lowden
March 5, 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated President and establishes the New Deal to deal with the Great Depression
1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act seeks farm price increases to improve farm incomes.
Federal Emergency Relief Act includes helping states set up programs for rural relief and instituting public works employment.
National Industrial Recovery Act authorizes subsistence homesteads program to resettle displaced workers.
Soil Erosion Service established in the Department of Interior.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) established to provide electrical power and to develop industry in the disadvantaged rural region of the Southeast.
Civilian Conservation Corps employs millions unemployed of young men to serve six to 18 months to help restore the nation's parks, revitalize the economy, and support their families through public sector work, with a widespread emphasis on reversing environmental damage.
1934 Rural Rehabilitation Program established.
1935 Works Progress Administration (WPA) is legislated through the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, which set aside $4.8 million dollars for work relief on public works.  
Rural Electrification Administration (REA) established to facilitate the development of rural electric cooperatives.
Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act sets up the Soil Conservation Service.
Resettlement Administration organized to resettle farm laborers and disadvantaged rural residents in newly developed part-time farming communities.
Nov. 26, 1935 Kenyon Butterfield, Country Life commissioner and long-time American Country Life Association leader, dies
1936 Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act replaces Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and adds conservation programs to price support activities. 
 
Congress passes Rural Electrification Act to help development of rural electric cooperatives.
Department of Interior Soil Erosion Service moved to the United States Department of Agriculture as the Soil Conservation Service.
Great Plains Drought Commission established to address the continuing problems of the Dust Bowl.
Special Commission on Farm Tenancy established to address widespread displacement of tenant farmers and sharecroppers.
1937 Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act authorizes assistance to help tenant farmers acquire farms and created the Farm Security Administration to replace the Resettlement Administration.
Rural Sociological Society is founded with the publication of its journal, Rural Sociology. Dwight Sanderson of Cornell University becomes the first president, serving in 1938.
1939 The United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Agricultural Economics conducts studies of six different rural communities across the country in its Rural Life Series led by rural sociologist Carl C. Taylor. The findings are published from 1941 to 1943
1940-1950
Nov. 1941 Bureau of Agricultural Economics Rural Life Studies series begins with Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community: El Cerrito New Mexico.
Dec. 8, 1941 United States enters World War II.
April 1942 Bureau of Agricultural Economics Rural Life Series Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community: Landaff, New Hampshire published.
Sept. 1942 Bureau of Agricultural Economics Rural Life Series  Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community: Sublette, Kansas published.
Sept. 1942 Bureau of Agricultural Economics Rural Life Series Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community: The Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania published.
Dec. 1942 Bureau of Agricultural Economics Rural Life Series Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community: Irwin, Iowa published.
1943 Kansas City, MO, becomes the first city in the United States to have a Division of Community Development.
Jan. 1943 Bureau of Agricultural Economics Rural Life Series Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community: Harmony, Georgia
June 1943 ACLA’s twenty-fifth conference held in Louisville, KY. Thirty-three rural organizations invited to attend. The theme is “American Rural Life and Post-War Planning.”
1944 The GI Bill, officially known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 links service and education by offering returning military personnel hospitalization, educational opportunity, and low cost home and business loans in return for service to their country.
Sept. 1945 World War II ends.
1946 Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) succeeds the Farm Security Administration.
Oct. 4, 1946 Gifford Pinchot, U.S. Forester and member of the Country Life Commission, dies.
1947 As You Sow, by anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt, The controversial book, based on his Ph.D. dissertation, compares two California farming communities – Arvin and Dinuba in the San Joaquin Valley – and the social impacts of industrialized agribusiness. The research was conducted for the United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Agricultural Economics.
April 7, 1949 President Harry S Truman’s Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan proposes the Brannan Plan
1949 Congressional Joint Committee of the Economic Report convenes to work on its first report about low-income families.  
The Housing Act declares every American deserves a decent home and authorizes loans for farm housing.
Rural telephone loan program established within the Rural Electrification Administration.
Forester and naturalist Aldo Leopold’s A Sand Country Almanac is published. In the book, Leopold lays out the case for the Land Ethic, an extension of community to include soil, water, plants, and animals. The book becomes an inspiration for conservationists and proponents of sustainability.
1950-1960  
Sept. 5-7 1950 During its 29th conference at the University of Minnesota, ACLA approves a new constitution and bylaws.
1953 Interstate Highway System receives first appropriations from Congress under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Dec. 25, 1954 Liberty Hyde Bailey, chairman of the original Country Life Commission, dies.
1955 Congressional Joint Committee of the Economic Report reconstitutes its Subcommittee on Low-Income Families to do further studies of their problems.
Rural Development Committees organized as a pilot program to help states and local communities establish training programs and other activities.
July 13, 1955 ACLA calls for President Dwight D. Eisenhower to create a second Commission on Country Life.
Jan.-Feb. 1957 The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is created.
Jan.-Feb. 1957 ACLA begins preparations and agenda to lobby Congress for a second Commission on Country Life. This includes a draft proposal, meetings with governmental officials, and seeking outside support from other agricultural organizations and the media.
July 8-9, 1958 Congressional hearings are held to establish a second Commission on Country Life.
Aug. 21,1958 50th Anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission.
1959 With Executive Order 10847 - Establishing the Committee for Rural Development Program - President Eisenhower creates an Interdepartmental Committee for Rural Development to coordinate federal efforts
1960-1970  
1960 Sen. Karl Mundt (R-SD) introduces bill S. 3140 to create a commission to address problems of small towns and rural counties. The 86th Congress passes the bill in the spring of 1960. 
Conference of Appalachian Governors called to develop an approach to resolving regional problems.
Jan. 20, 1961 President John F. Kennedy is sworn in as President. While his inaugural address emphasizes a united world community, one of its most famous lines is, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
May 1, 1961 Kennedy signs the Area Redevelopment Act, authorizing Office of Rural Areas Development and Rural Area Development Committees to help eliminate rural unemployment and underemployment. Rural Area Development Committees replace Rural Development Committees set up under Eisenhower.
1962 Rural Renewal program authorized by Congress in the Food and Agriculture Act. It is not funded until 1964, and only five sites are chosen for implementation.
1963 Kennedy forms a federal-state committee that came to be known as the President's Appalachian Regional Commission (PARC), and directs it to draw up "a comprehensive program for the economic development of the Appalachian Region."
Kennedy envisions a national service corps “to help provide urgently needed services in urban and rural poverty areas.”
Nov. 22,1963 Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson sworn in as President following Kennedy’s assassination.
January, 1964 Johnson gives his State of the Union Address, declaring “War on Poverty.”
March 16, 1964 Johnson proposes to Congress the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 to alleviate poverty. One of its provisions is “maximum feasible participation.”
Johnson also convinces Congress to create VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), a National Teacher Corps, the Job Corps, and University Year of Action.
July 2, 1964 Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
1965 The Economic Development Administration (EDA) is established under the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965.
Housing and Urban Development Act is passed to improve housing in urban and rural areas.
The Appalachian Regional Development Act (ARDA) creates the Appalachian Regional Commission as successor to the Conference of Appalachian. Governors.
Rural Community Development Service established to coordinate USDA’s rural development activities.
Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Development established in USDA.
Economic Development Division (EDD) of Economic Research Service, USDA, is given responsibility for rural development research.
1966 National Community Education Association is founded.
The phrase "service-learning" is first used to describe a project in East Tennessee that links students and faculty with area development organizations.
Sept. 27, 1966 President Johnson establishes the National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty with Executive Order 11306.
1967 The National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty submits its report, The People Left Behind, to Johnson.
Nov. 5, 1968 Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon elected President.
1969 Nixon announces creation of a Rural Affairs Commission. His presidential Task Force on Rural Development recommends programs for the public and private sectors.
1970s
1970 The Community Development Society is established. 
The Departmental Rural Development Committee replaces Rural Community Development Service as coordinator of USDA rural development programs.
The Youth Conservation Corps engages 38,000 people aged 14 to 18 in summer environmental programs.
1971 Senate Agriculture Committee establishes a Subcommittee on Rural Development, chaired by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN).
Rural Telephone Bank organized to finance rural telephone cooperatives.
The first of four Regional Rural Development Centers is established within USDA to carry out regional extension and research for rural development.
Coalition for Rural America, composed of farm, business, and educational leaders, is formed.
USDA Committee for Rural Development set up in each state to coordinate USDA rural development programs; Rural Development Service organized to direct USDA rural development programs.
Nov. 30, 1971 “The People Left Behind - Four Years Later: A Report on the Effectiveness of Implementation of the Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Rural Poverty” is published
Aug. 30, 1972 President Nixon signs the Rural Development Act, which authorizes a broadly defined set of rural development programs and designates USDA as lead agency
August, 1974 The  Housing and Community Act of 1974 authorizes community development block grants for rural and urban areas
1976 The Young Adult Conservation Corps creates small conservation corps in the states with 22,500 participants age 16 to 23
July 7-9, 1976 The American Country Life Association holds the organization’s last conference in Morgantown, WV. The theme is “People, Land, and Energy in Rural America.