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Nourse, Charles Ewing, 1826-1866 (Sc 3000), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Sep 2015

Nourse, Charles Ewing, 1826-1866 (Sc 3000), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescripts of three Mexican War letters (click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3000. Correspondence of Charles Ewing Nourse, Bardstown, Kentucky, and his wife Mary “Mollie” (Brown) Nourse. Three letters of Charles, serving in the 4th Kentucky Infantry during the Mexican War, describe military life, illness, Mexican cities, and encounters with the enemy. Mary’s father writes from Cadiz, Kentucky, of his work as a circuit judge, and an 1850 letter wishes Charles and Mary well on their marriage. Includes Mary’s letter to Charles with family news, and two verses, both probably by Charles; one …


Increasing The Value Of Wool In Wyoming And Beyond: The Impact Of Uw's Wool Lab And Library, David Kruger Jun 2015

Increasing The Value Of Wool In Wyoming And Beyond: The Impact Of Uw's Wool Lab And Library, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

At the turn of the twentieth century, little more than a decade after Wyoming attained statehood, a young agricultural student at the University of Wyoming saw a pressing need to improve the quality and reputation of Wyoming wool. When John Arthur Hill became a professor in 1907, the Wool Department he created would go on to not only assist Wyoming sheep ranchers in wool production, but provide the sheep industry with a better understanding of how wool fleeces and fibers could be improved across the nation. Under Hill’s leadership and his later protege Robert Homer Burns, the Wool Department developed …


Jcpenney And His Agrarian Animals: The Award-Winning Livestock Of A Department Store Icon, David Kruger Jun 2015

Jcpenney And His Agrarian Animals: The Award-Winning Livestock Of A Department Store Icon, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Widely known for his department store chain, James Cash Penney (1875-1971) greatly contributed to American agriculture through his horse and cattle breeding enterprises. Beginning in 1917, three years after moving to New York City, Penney began using his personal capital to acquire, breed, and sell outstanding animals for agricultural purposes. By the 1920s, his Guernsey dairy herd had earned a worldwide reputation for quality and production, with herd sire Foremost eventually becoming the namesake for one of the largest dairy cooperatives in the United States. By the 1940s, Penney was personally developing award-winning beef cattle herds on the Missouri farm …


‘The Farmer’S Family Must Find Compensation In Something Less Tangible, Less Material’: Culture And Agriculture In Maine And New England, 1870-1905”, Cody P. Miller Jun 2015

‘The Farmer’S Family Must Find Compensation In Something Less Tangible, Less Material’: Culture And Agriculture In Maine And New England, 1870-1905”, Cody P. Miller

Maine History

Following the Civil War, American agriculture changed dramatically, and New England was no exception. With new railroad systems, specialized crop markets, and chemical fertilizers, Maine and other New England farmers found themselves as part of an increasingly commercialized agricultural system. Farmers, urban pundits, and agricultural reformers all stressed the need to abandon small, mixed husbandry farming and instead they urged farmers to start treating agriculture like a business. In order to “progress,” one needed to increase acreage and adopt specialized cropping. While many farmers accepted this mantra, others resisted it and argued that there was a moral quality to agriculture …


The Society For Establishing Useful Manufactures: Class And Political Economy In The Early Republic, Daniel Pace May 2015

The Society For Establishing Useful Manufactures: Class And Political Economy In The Early Republic, Daniel Pace

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures was one of the first corporations in American history. The company was an attempt by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, with the help of his Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Tench Coxe, to turn Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures” into a physical reality. Although the SUM would dissolve only five years after openings its doors, there is plenty to extract from the company’s practices. Through the SUM, Alexander Hamilton and his Federalist contemporaries attempted to recreate, and unite, a weak and fledgling United States by strengthening the nation politically and economically. The Society was …


The Original Progressive Farmer: The Agricultural Legacy Of Thomas Spalding Of Sapelo, Dylan E. Mulligan Apr 2015

The Original Progressive Farmer: The Agricultural Legacy Of Thomas Spalding Of Sapelo, Dylan E. Mulligan

Honors College Theses

During the first half of the nineteenth century, a thriving plantation emerged on Sapelo Island, Georgia. The plantation’s owner was Thomas Spalding (1774-1851), who was one of Georgia’s foremost planters, and yet his substantial contributions to Georgia’s agricultural development have gone unnoticed by most historians. Spalding built a prosperous enterprise around staple crops such as Sea Island cotton; however, he was better known for his experiments with novel crops such as sugar cane, as well as his innovations in the areas of crop rotation and diversification and the successful implementation of tabby as a viable construction material on the Georgia …


Shelton Family Papers (Mss 527), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Mar 2015

Shelton Family Papers (Mss 527), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Collection 527. Letters and compositions written by Butler County, Kentucky native Curran Ralph Shelton, while a student at Glasgow Normal School. Also includes a diary in which he records family, church, and local community happenings in 1891. Also includes several small diaries kept by Curran’s wife John Annie during the Great Depression.


Jcpenney As Cattleman, David Kruger Jan 2015

Jcpenney As Cattleman, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Though widely known for his department store chain and its Wyoming origins, James Cash Penney also played a prominent role as a cattleman from the 1920s until his death in 1971. This presentation will explore Penney's personal and professional involvement in the cattle industry, including his significant contributions within the Angus, Hereford, and Guernsey breeds.


"Waste Not, Want Not": Farmers' Reactions To The New Deal In Minnesota, Kacie Phillips Jan 2015

"Waste Not, Want Not": Farmers' Reactions To The New Deal In Minnesota, Kacie Phillips

Departmental Honors Projects

By the time of the Stock Market Crash in 1929, farmers in America were already in financial trouble with the drop in demand after World War I. With poverty and malnourishment rampant, the motto of the Great Depression became “waste not, want not.” The government focused on alleviating human suffering in President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Hundred Days” of 1933 and instituted numerous legislative acts for relief, with special attention paid to farmers. As the rest of the nation fell into economic hardship, the government gave unprecedented attention to agriculture and developed relief programs to aid farmers and their families. Some historians …


Pulling The Wool Under Your Eyes: Preserving A Century-Old Wool Lab And Library At The University Of Wyoming, David Kruger Dec 2014

Pulling The Wool Under Your Eyes: Preserving A Century-Old Wool Lab And Library At The University Of Wyoming, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Sheep and wool have long been integral to the agrarian heritage of Western states, and still play a vital role in the region’s agricultural economy. From 1907-2012, Wyoming’s sole university supported wool research around the world through its Wool Department, complete with its own wool laboratory and library. When the Wool Department was permanently dissolved and its building condemned for demolition in 2012, the University of Wyoming (UW) Libraries partnered with UW Extension and the UW College of Agriculture and Natural Resources to preserve the unusual print and physical artifacts of this unique collection, as well as disseminate the spirit …