When I started this series of Friday Footnotes my plan was to have one Footnote per state each week. The idea was that we could further our knowledge of the history of agricultural and extension education by briefly visiting each state. However, now that I have started on the fifth state (California) I have discovered so much information that it would be a shame to compress it into one Footnote. Thus a decision was made to divide the information from each state into several Footnotes from time to time as the situation warrants. So that is why this Footnote is Part 1 for California.
Before the Future Farmers of America – The Junior Farm Center
In the early 1920s agricultural education was growing in the schools of California. As high schools started teaching agriculture, the students formed agricultural clubs, but they went by various names. In some schools they were the Agricultural Club. Junior Aggies were another term used for these agricultural student clubs. However, the name Junior Farm Center was typically used to describe the club and agricultural program.
The 1922 Princeton High School Yearbook informs us (p. 58):
Last year the Princeton Joint Union High School District met the requirements of the State Board of Vocational Education and Smith Hughes Agricultural work is here to stay. Boys are learning agriculture by doing…To secure practice in organization and parliamentary procedure as well as further class work a Junior Farm Center was formed with Noel Helphenstine as president;”
The Biennial Report of the State Department of Education for 1927-28 for California contains a report from Julian McPhee, Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Education. He writes (p. 144):
One means that has been used in promoting the work of vocational agriculture in the high school has been the encouragement of extra curricular activities. In every high school where agriculture is taught there is formed an organization made up of high school students. The names given these groups vary, but for the most part they are called Junior Farm Centers, or Junior Aggies…The programs of work invariably include participation in judging contests, improvement campaigns for the local communities, father and son banquets, agricultural product exhibits of their projects at the various fairs, etc.
The training in leadership received by the boys through these groups has proved to be invaluable. Where a strong Junior Farm Center has been organized within a high school it is a common thing for a student from the agriculture department to be elected to the presidency of the high school student body.
An article in the Oroville Daily Register in 1926 describes the formation of a Junior Farm Center at Gridley High School. See Figure 1.
Figure 1. From the Oroville Daily Register, May 5, 1926.
The October 1925 issue of The California Countryman has an article by Lloyd Fisher who is an agriculture teacher. He writes (1925, p, 9), “The boys in most high school ag departments are organized in Junior Farm Centers or Agricultural Clubs and usually promote judging contests, issue their own publication, have their own activities and supplement community programs.”
The 1928 Yearbook for the San Juan Union High School shows the Junior Farm Center students. Sharp eyes will reveal female as well as male students. The text accompanying the photo reveals there are branches of the club in grammar schools. See Figure 2. [Figure 5 at the end of this Footnote shows a page from the 1930 Yearbook of San Juan Union High School. What changed?]
Figure 2. San Juan Union High School Yearbook, 1928.
Junior Farm Centers and Elementary School Agricultural Clubs
The San Juan Union High School yearbook (Figure 2 above) indicated the Junior Farm Center students had branch clubs in grammar schools. So how are the Junior Farm Center students involved in grammar school agricultural clubs? An article about Easton High School in the January 15, 1928 issue of The Fresno Morning Republic (See Figure 3) helps fill in the details. The article indicates (p. 35):
About 50 members of the student body of the high school [Easton] make up the junior farm center from which several are chosen each year to supervise grammar school club work. One member is assigned to a certain grammar school district and organizes an agricultural club in order to discuss problems of the year that come up before the young farmers.
Figure 3. The Fresno Morning Republic, January 15, 1928
Riverdale High School operated their grammar school club program in a similar manner to that at Easton. The program is described in The Junior Farm Leader publication (1926, p. 80):
Eighty boys and girls are enrolled in agriculture clubs in nine elementary schools surrounding the Riverdale High School. These eighty members are divided into ten groups. Each group is supervised by a local club leader. There are ten local Club leaders, each a high school boy who has previously done club work or project work and is at present doing project work in the high school. Each local leader is allowed school time to make one home visit each month with transportation provided by the high school. Each leader is allowed a quarter unit credit for such work in rural leadership.
Reedley High School operated a similar elementary school agricultural program. They had fifty boys and girls from rural elementary schools enrolled. Eight students from Reedley were the club leaders.
There appears to be a connection in numerous instances where the grammar school program was coordinated with the Cooperative Extension Service. Sanger High School students supervised “Nature Study Agriculture” clubs in the grammar school. But in The Junior Farm Leader it is reported (1926, p. 131) “Paralleling this Nature Study classroom work in the grammar schools we have the Agricultural Clubs and home projects for boy which are offered by the U.S.D.A. with the University of California cooperating and the High School Agricultural teacher acting as District Club Leader.”
To me, the description sounds like school-based 4-H club work, but the phrase 4-H is never mentioned. It was not until 1928 that the words 4-H were found in reports of extension youth work in California. Several instances of the agriculture teacher serving as the district club leader were found in researching this Footnote.
Agriculture teachers today think the FFA PALS (Partners in Active Learning) and the Food for America program is something new, but agriculture students and teachers were doing something similar in the 1920s in California.
The Rise of Junior Farm Bureaus in California
The agricultural clubs or Junior Farm Centers in the various schools operated independently of the other agricultural clubs in the county. The idea soon emerged that there should be some overarching umbrella organization for the agricultural clubs in a county.
In March of 1924 a letter was sent to all the agriculture teachers in Fresno County from the Sanger High School Agricultural Club with a proposal to form a “A Junior Farm Bureau.” All the schools with agricultural education programs in Fresno County were invited to cooperate in forming a Junior Department of the Fresno County Farm Bureau. It was to be modeled after a similar organization in Sonoma County.
In December of 1924 representatives from the various school agricultural clubs in Fresno County (Sanger, Riverdale, Reedley, Kingsburg, Easton, Clovis, and Fowler) met at the Farm Adviser’s office (known in most state as the county agent) and formed themselves into (The Junior Farm Leader, 1926, p. 9) “what proved to be more than a junior department of the Farm Bureau—The Fresno County Junior Farm Bureau.”
The 1926 Reedley High School yearbook has a photo of the “Ag Club”. The information on the page states the club had recently organized as “a Junior Farm Bureau Center.” The 1927 Santa Rosa High School yearbook has a photo of the Junior Farm Bureau accompanied by the statement “The Junior Farm Bureau is a county wide organization of high school boys interested in agriculture.” Then five other high schools (Analy, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Sonoma, and Tomales) in the country are identified as having Junior Farm Bureaus.
The 1926 Willits High School Yearbook reports that a Junior Farm Bureau has been organized and has 25 members. Any student in the high school can become a member by paying a fee of ten cents a month and having a project.
The 1927 King City High School yearbook has a photo of the Agriculture Club which was new to the school along with a statement that “Immediately a Junior Farm Bureau was organized to systematically carry out the projects of the year.” The 1928 Riverdale High School yearbook featured the “Riverdale Junior Farm Bureau Center.”
The Junior Farm Bureaus in various counties often published a yearbook of activities for the year (See Figure 4). An example is The Junior Farm Leader published by the Junior Farm Bureau of Fresno County. Each school in the county contributed information for the Yearbook. The opening editorial (p. 12) states:
The Fresno County Junior Farm Bureau, the County Farm Bureau, the County Agricultural Supervisor from the Superintendent of School’s Office, and the Agricultural Extension Service through the County Club Leader, and the Agricultural Teachers Association including some twenty supervisors of vocational education in agriculture and farm mechanics and representing thirty different organizations and High Schools, have all combined in publishing this Fresno County Year Book of Agricultural Education.
This publication will be placed in the homes of twelve to sixteen hundred leading farmers of Fresno County and will in addition be mailed to four hundred agricultural instructors, farm advisors, and agricultural educators over the State and Nation.
Figure 4. The Junior Farm Leader published by the Fresno County Junior Farm Bureau. Cover and First page featured. This document can be found at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$c105414
One must remember that the Farm Bureaus of the 1920s were not like the Farm Bureaus of today. In a past Friday Footnote from 10/19/2019 we learned:
If you remember, the Chamber of Commerce in Binghampton, NY created a division called a “farm bureau” within the structure of the Chamber to promote agriculture in 1911. This “farm bureau” hired an agricultural expert to work with the farmers of the area.
This idea caught on and soon many states were establishing county farm bureaus so they could employ a person to be an agricultural advisor to the farmers. After the Smith-Lever Act was passed in 1914, which established a national extension system, numerous states passed legislation requiring local groups to organize in order to receive federal and state funding to support extension activities. As a result, local county agricultural associations were formed. Many were identified as farm bureaus. Their purpose was to provide extension services to the farmers and their families. So, basically the farm bureau and the Extension Service were one and the same in the early 1900s. Smith and Wilson (1930, p. 150) confirm this by stating “At its [Farm Bureau] inception it was primarily an extension organization.” In about 2/3 of the states an organization known as the Farm Bureau was responsible for extension work.
Concluding Remarks
Before there was a Future Farmers of America organization in California there was a state wide Aggies group. The Federation of California Junior Aggies was created in 1926-27. The Junior Aggie group was short-lived because the national FFA was formed shortly after they were organized. See Chart 1.
The Junior Farm Centers and Junior Farm Bureaus were popular during the 1920s in California. They both provided organized leadership, social, and educational activities for the agricultural students.
Even though it is not highly scientific, a search of Newspapers. Com for the phrases “Junior Farm Center”, “Junior Farm Bureau”, “Junior Aggies”, and “Future Farmers of America” for the state of California between 1920 and 1930 reveals some interesting data. See Chart 1.
Both Junior Farm Centers and Junior Farm Bureaus were popular organizations for agricultural students in high schools. But once the national Future Farmers of America organization was established these two organizations declined in importance as schools affiliated with the FFA.
Chart 1. Number of “Hits” from Newspapers.com for four agricultural youth organizations in California between 1920 and 1930.
In The Junior Farm Leader there is a section titled “Cooperating with the Agricultural Extension Service” in which the relationship between the Fresno County agricultural teachers and the Extension Service is described (1926, p. 16), “The Agricultural Extension Service has cooperated with all of our teachers, assisting at local fairs and demonstrations put on by the high schools and especially the county wide Junior Farm Bureau contests of various sorts.” There is also a discussion in The Junior Farm Leader of how the agricultural teachers have been active in helping with Extension club work in the elementary schools.
Some might think having high school agricultural education programs connected with Extension (i. e. the Farm Bureaus) to be objectionable, especially given the Memorandum of Understanding created after the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act. However, it seems to have worked in California.
Perhaps it is time for Agricultural Education and the Extension Service to re-examine the relationship between the two organizations. It would be nice to have a national summit to explore possibilities. I think much more could be done than we are currently doing.
In Part II next week we will learn more about the FFA and agricultural education in California after this era. Compare the below page from the 1930 San Juan Union High School Yearbook with the 1928 yearbook (Figure 2).
Figure 5. It is interesting to see the change in the 1930 Yearbook. It now shows the same group, but they are identified as the San Juan Chapter Future Farmers of America (not the Junior Farm Center) AND there are still females in the photo. The information in the 1930 yearbook states (p. 60) “Future Farmer Organizations were started last spring and have grown rapidly all over the nation. The Future Farmers of America took over our Junior Farm Center and is carrying on its activities.”
Stay tuned.