Biographical Sketches, 1891-1967

Organizational Involvement

Historically the chronological order of involvement of administrative and department staff members in the areas of farm management and agricultural economics is as follows: First, the Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station; then, in turn the Dean of Agriculture; the Economics Department; the Director of Short Courses; the Director of the Cooperative Extension Se the Dairy Department; and finally the Farm Management and Agricultural Economics Departments.

For example, the Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Professor Clinton D. Smith in 1898 wrote the first bulletin and as Dean of Agriculture in 1906 taught the first course in farm management at Michigan Agricultural College. Professor W. O. Hedrick, head of the History and Economics Department in 1911 taught the first course in agricultural economics to degree students at M.A.C. Professor Robert S. Shaw in 1914, as Dean of Agriculture, taught the first course in farm management to degree students at M.A.C.

From an organization standpoint, agricultural economics was initially a section of the Economics Department set up in 1916 in the Division of Arts and Science. The first department of Farm Management was set up in the Division of Agriculture on January 1, 1921. The Farm Management Department was terminated on June 30, 1923 when Professor Eliot, Head of the Department, left Michigan State at the request of the then President David Friday.

The Department of Farm Management was re-established on July 1, 1928 with Professor Elton B. Hill as Head of the Department. This department continued for about 21 years until April 31, 1949 when it was joined by the agricultural economics section of the Economics Department, of the Division of Arts and Science and established in the Division of Agriculture as the Department of Agricultural Economics with Professor Thomas K. Cowden as Head of the Department.

The following information gives administrative affiliation at time of appointment, period of service and a short biographical sketch of each person involved in the general area of farm management and agricultural economics, at Michigan State, from the start which was essentially in 1898. The names are listed in order of time of appointment. Biographical information on some individuals is brief because of the limited amount of descriptive material available.

Previous to 1898, a Michigan pioneer of interest in this connection is Milton J. Gard, a Cass County farmer, who in 1870 presented an excellent essay, for such an early period, entitled "General Farm Management" to the Volina Farmers' Club in Cass County. The essay was printed, pages 159-169, in the Ninth Annual Report of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture of Michigan, 1870. Mr. Gard, in 1875, was appointed by Governor Bagley to the State Board of Agriculture, the governing Board of the then Michigan Agricultural College. He served six years on the Board. Excerpts of the essay are presented in another section of this report.