Category Archives: History

History Preservation Newsletter
March 2015

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March is supposed to come in like a lion, right? Well in DC, it’s been doing that!

Thanks to you and others, your 4-H History website hit the 100,000th US visitor! We’re delighted and you should be too! If you’ve not visited, you’d better get in there before the next 200,000th visitor is announced.

Coming Soon

We’ll be adding an interactive National 4-H History Map! Participate by sharing your most important local historical 4-H sites. Join in next month!

New Feature

The all-new History website feature highlights decades of 4-H promotions and the compendium brings them all to life for you.

Partner with Us

We’d welcome a state to partner with the 4-H History Preservation Team to devise and deliver a 4-H history component for a newly-proposed staff development training module. Interested?

Donor Tracking

4-H has benefited from years of private (and public) sector support. We’re tracking the enormous impact of donor support to 4-H youth development; it’s much more than you think.

Get to Know the Center

What is that place we call the “4-H Center?” For those who visit and work there, it’s way more than most of us could ever imagine.

4-H FilmFest 2015

4-H FilmFest 2015 kicks off in St. Louis in June. Will your 4-H’ers submit a video or film in the “Voices of 4-H History” category? Hope so.

Support the 4-H History Preservation Team

Please take a moment to click on the “DONATE” button at the top of the page or below. It will take you to a list of items where funds are needed to keep this totally volunteer History Team working to preserve the valuable indeed irreplaceable history of 4-H. Every gift is tax deductible.

If you’re reading this in front of a fireplace, enjoy and don’t tell us; if you’re basking in sunshine, don’t tell us that either. We’re hoping that promised March lamb is coming to DC shortly!

We hope you enjoy this issue.

Delegate discussion group at National 4-H Conference, National 4-H Center, 2006

Delegate discussion group at National 4-H Conference, National 4-H Center, 2006

District of Columbia 4H’ers at National 4-H Youth Science Day, National 4-H Center, 2013

District of Columbia 4H’ers at National 4-H Youth Science Day, National 4-H Center, 2013

National 4-H Donor Support Added to History Website

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The following story is from the National Compendium of 4-H Promotion and Visibility on the National 4-H History website — http://4-HHistoryPreservation.com/History/4-H_Promotion/

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The Nation’s First Lady, Mrs. Patricia Nixon, and J. C. Penney, meet at the White House to discuss their role in 4-H as honorary 4-H co-chairmen of the National 4-H Club Foundation’s Advisory Council. With them is Barbara Evans, 4-H’er from Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Over the past year the history of the private sector and 4-H donors at the national level has been researched and is now up on the National 4-H History Preservation website. For nearly a century National 4-H Council and its two predecessor organizations – National 4-H Club Foundation and National 4-H Service Committee (earlier called the National Committee on Boys’ and Girls’ Club Work) – has secured funding for the support of 4-H programs across America and around the world.

Funds have been generous, coming from large corporations and small businesses, banks, foundations and associations, governmental agencies, state and county 4-H foundations, 4-H leaders’ councils, and from individuals and trusts, totaling well over a million gifts.

This new section attempts to document the most relevant areas of this support from a historical perspective: it is still a “work in progress” as they say, adding information as it is researched and located. It will never be complete. Some records have been lost. In many cases we listed the most significant donations, not attempting to document each and every gift or pledge. It’s for this reason that this new donor support segment has been added to the site in PDF format. This segment is located in the National 4-H History section of the website at

  http://4-HHistoryPreservation.com/History/Donor_Support/National_4-H_Donor_Support.pdf  Please note that this is a PDF file that will download to your device.

Time to ‘Spring Ahead’

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TimeAndDate.comYep.  It’s that time again.  When anyone living somewhere that uses daylight saving time to adjust how life is lived.

Here in the United States, Daylight Saving Time, or DST, begins at 2:00AM on Sunday, March 8, 2015.

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is used to save energy and make better use of daylight. The idea has been suggested in ancient times and later by famous scientists.

DST is a change in the standard time with the purpose of making better use of daylight and conserving energy.

Clocks are set ahead one hour when DST starts. This means that the sunrise and sunset will be one hour later, on the clock, than the day before.

For more information on the history of Daylight Saving Time, please visit http://www.timeanddate.com

One more thing…

Daylight Saving Time ends in the United States at 2:00 AM on Sunday, November 1, 2015.

“Voices of 4-H History” will be a Major Feature of 2015 National 4-H FilmFest

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Logo_5th_Film_FestThis year’s FilmFest will take place in St. Louis, Missouri on June 14-17, 2015 at the Hilton Fontenac.

For the third year, the National 4-H History Preservation Program is sponsoring the 4-H history category of the competition. For more information on this year’s event visit: http://4h.missouri.edu/filmfest. To learn more about documenting 4-H history with film, go to the http://4-HHistoryPreservation.com website and “click” on the Voices of 4-H History button in the left-hand menu bar on the homepage or contact: info@4-HHistoryPreservation.com

Coke and Georgia – A Promotion & Fund Raising Campaign

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The following story is from the National Compendium of 4-H Promotion and Visibility on the National 4-H History Website at http://4-HHistoryPreservation.com/History/4-H_Promotion/ .

Donald R. Keough, president, The Coca-Cola Company, admires 4-H commemorative Coke bottle with Bill Gentry, state 4-H officer from Carroll County, Georgia. Keough is a member of National 4-H Council's Board of Trustees. (From 1985 Winter National 4-H Council Quarterly)

Donald R. Keough, president, The Coca-Cola Company, admires 4-H commemorative Coke bottle with Bill Gentry, state 4-H officer from Carroll County, Georgia. Keough is a member of National 4-H Council’s Board of Trustees. (From 1985 Winter National 4-H Council Quarterly)

In 1984-85, 4-H’ers in Georgia were selling Coke bottles as part of a fund raising campaign. However, these were no ordinary Coke bottles. The bottles read, “Rock Eagle: The World’s Largest 4-H Center, 30 Years of Service to 1,000,000 citizens of Georgia 1954-84.” The front of the bottle flashes the 4-H emblem – a 4-leaf clover, just below The Coca-Cola Company logo.

The 96,000 special bottles were printed by The Coca-Cola Company as part of a five-year fund raising program to raise $2 million for the renovation of the 4-H camp and conference center in Eatonton. The 4-H’ers were selling the Coke bottles for $1 donation, or more, at county fairs, harvest sales, grocery stores, convenience stops and school stores.

Don Keough passed away on February 24, 2015 at the age of 88.

Yowza!

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100000

100,000 !

At roughly 10:00 on Friday, February 27, 2015, the 4-H History Preservation website received it’s 100,000th visitor from the United States! When you add in the number of visitors from around the world, we’ve had 103,195!

While we don’t get as much traffic as Google, the preservation of the history of 4-H is no less important.

We started keeping track of the number of visitors on September 10, 2011. Over the past 3 years 5 months and 17 days, our site has had guests not only from the United States, but also from 154 countries around the world. This all works out to someone visiting the site every 2-3 minutes of every day of every week of every month of every year since we started keeping track.

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“Ye Olde (4-H) Beauty Shoppe” on Display 85 Years Ago

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ESFN_1930_04_CThe front cover of the April, 1930, issue of Extension Service Farm News, issued by the Extension Service, A & M College of Texas, features a photo of a 4-H Beauty Shop exhibit at the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show.

Visitors to “Secrets of Feminine Charm,” found the popular exhibit in the girls’ division of the home demonstration booths. Frequent inquiries came to Miss Mae Belle Smith and Miss Mary Powell who arranged it. The brief article noted that “those who viewed the exhibit were inspired with hopes of immediate transformation by this simple and effective method.” As the article questioned, whoever dreamed that onions were eye sparklers; or that business women used heads of lettuce and cabbage for vanity cases? When did a baked potato become a powder puff, or apples a skin softener; or milk a vanishing cream?

Maybe Fort Worth 4-H’ers can reprise that exhibit for “Voices of 4-H History,” film it and answer those burning questions?

History Preservation Newsletter
February 2015

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Booker T Washington School on Wheels

This National Archive photo of Booker T Washington’s “School on Wheels” depicts one of the early innovations of the 1890 Institutions which took education to the rural areas.

February is National Black History Month, so what better lead than a feature on the 125th anniversary of the creation of the 1890 Universities, those educational institutions created to serve the country’s African-American population. Important 4-H programs were delivered from those schools before integration and continue today.
National 4-H Week was created in 1945 – but in March instead of October – with the theme “Head, Heart, Hands and Health for Victory!” It’s not too early to start contacting local media to feature 4-H (and 4-H history) this fall as well as any time during the year.

In 1930, Fort Worth 4-H girls featured “Secrets of Feminine Charm” in a stock show booth. Do you think they could convince women to use an apple as a skin softener, or milk as a vanishing cream?

The National 4-H History Preservation Website unveils its newest informative chapter: a Compendium of 4–H Promotion and Visibility stories which delight and educate. These are vignettes from history files of the myriad ways 4-H promoted itself from local communities up to the national and international levels. It’s pleasant reading.

“Voices of 4-H History” continues with Hawaii as its newest participant; the 2015 National 4-H FilmFest screens in June; University of Tennessee Collegiate 4-H joins the effort to preserve the history of campus 4-H clubs – and much more in this issue.

Whether you’re snowed in, being blown around by heavy winds, slogging through driving rain or basking in the warming sun (all of which are possible in February), we hope you enjoy this issue.

Goecke Takes International

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The following story is from the National Compendium of 4-H Promotion and Visibility on the National 4-H History website — http://4-HHistoryPreservation.com/History/4-H_Promotion/

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Goecke “Takes” International

Clarence Goecke, a 12-year-old 4-H member from State Center, Iowa exhibited the grand champion steer at the 1928 International Live Stock Exposition – the largest livestock show in the world. This is the first time a 4-H member’s animal had topped the show – the first such victory in history – causing headlines across the country.

Adult showmen used to give their junior rivals a patronizing glance, but after Goecke’s win, they eyed them with concern. Not only did Goecke’s steer – named “Dick” – win the show, but the animal was knocked down on the auction block for $7. a pound. The previous high price, paid in 1926, was $3.60 a pound. The purchaser in 1928 was the J. C. Penney Company, New York. The youthful owner saw his pet, which he had raised from a calf, auctioned off with solemn face despite the fact that the price paid meant he would receive more than $8,000. in addition to over $1,000. prize money he already had received. The below photo shows young Clarence Goecke on the left, James C. Penney in the center, and Emma Goecke, Clarence’s sister and an employee of the local Penney store in Iowa, on the right.

National 4-H Music Hour

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The following story is from the National Compendium of 4-H Promotion and Visibility on the National 4-H History website — http://4-HHistoryPreservation.com/History/4-H_Promotion/

4-H_NBC

National 4-H Music Hour

During the 1930s the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work negotiated with the National Broadcasting Company to produce and air a monthly hour-long educational musical show on the NBC network. The programs were broadcast mid-day from 12:30 to 1:30 Eastern Standard Time – always on the first Saturday of each month.

Announcements for the shows, carried in the National 4-H News magazine for 4-H leaders, explained that the United States Marine Band would play the music and annotations relative to the songs and composers would be given. The Extension Office, USDA helped coordinate the programs and R. A. Turner, 4-H USDA, narrated the annotations.

Themes apparently were selected for the entire year. For example, “Songs That Live” was the theme for the 1936 series of the National 4-H Music Hour. “A Musical Journey Around the World” was the theme for the 1938 series and “Stories Told by Music” was the focus of the series in 1939. The programs were intended to be both uplifting and entertaining, while also carrying a strong theme for music appreciation.

The National 4-H Music Hour was part of a much larger plan of the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work and Extension USDA to contribute to uplifting the spirits of rural farm families during the great depression years.