College of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service records

In cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.), the Cooperative Extension Service is a network of colleges and universities that provide scientific research-based information and education.  Purdue Extension does this through four program areas: Agriculture and Natural Resources, Health and Human Sciences, Economic and Community Development, and 4-H Youth.  Today, Extension work is carried out in all 92 Indiana counties by various educators, specialists, and volunteers. Outreach was an important strategy Professor William Carroll Latta used to get the support of Indiana farms in regard to the university’s mission and to increase undergraduate enrollment.  Latta was one of the first professors appointed in the College of Agriculture and served in various capacities within the college from his appointment in 1882 to his death in 1935.  Outreach was first done through special bulletins (published by Purdue University and mailed to famers), press releases highlighting the work of Purdue researchers, and through personal appearances and presentations by the university’s faculty. The first extension activity in Indiana was authorized by the Farmers’ Institute Act, passed by the state legislature in 1889.  The same act gave Purdue the responsibility of managing the Famers’ Institutes, which emerged in the Midwest in the 1860s and were present in 26 states during the 1880s.  Latta played an important role in the growth of the Institutes in Indiana, establishing at least one in each of the state’s counties between 1889 and 1895.  Extension historians Frederick Whitford and Andrew G. Martin called the Farmers’ Institutes “one of the most successful university outreach programs ever developed in Indiana” that “helped Purdue University establish firm ties to the state’s rural communities.” In 1911, the Farmers’ Institute became a unit within the new Department of Agricultural Extension.  The first county agent was employed the following year.  Passed by Congress in 1914, the Smith-Lever Act increased federal funding for extension work and broadened its scope of that work at American universities, and especially Land-Grant schools like Purdue.  By the passed of the Smith-Lever Act, 27 county agents were already employed by Purdue in extension work.

Note written by John Michael Foster