Twain, Mark. "Memoranda: How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once," The Galaxy, July 1870, 133-135. A hilarious send-up of farm newspapers. A must-read.

Histories and other Studies

Bardolph, Richard. Agricultural Literature and the Early Illinois Farmer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1948. Extensive coverage of Illinois publications aimed at farmers, including farm newspapers.

Demaree, Albert Lowther. The American Agricultural Press, 1819-1860. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941. The definitive study of American farm newspapers in the early nineteenth century.

Evans, James F. and Rodolfo N. Salcedo. Communications in Agriculture: The American Farm Press. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1974. An historical examination of the farm press by two journalism researchers at Iowa State University. A plausible narrative and tons of historical statistics. Excellent bibliography.

Fusonie, Alan and Leila Moran, eds. Agricultural Literature: Proud Heritage--Future Promise, A Bicentennial Symposium, September 24-26, 1975. Washington, DC: Associates of the National Agricultural Library and the Graduate School Press, United States Department of Agriculture, 1977. A collection of rather celebratory presentations about the farm press.

Murphy, Donald R. What Farmers Read and Like: A Record of Experiments with Readership on Wallaces Farmer and Wisconsin Agriculturist, 1938-1961. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1962. A fascinating report of survey research in the mid-twentieth century.

Schlebecker, John T. and Andrew W. Hopkins. A History of Dairy Journalism in the United States, 1810-1950. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957. Focuses on dairy newspapers.

Stuntz, Stephen Conrad, comp. List of the Agricultural Periodicals of the United States and Canada Published During the Century July 1810 to July 1910. Edited by Emma B. Hawks. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1941. Perhaps the most comprehensive list of early farm newspapers.

Tucker, Gilbert M. American Agricultural Periodicals: An Historical Sketch. Albany: Privately Printed, 1909. One of the first historical views of the farm press. Originally written for Liberty Hyde Bailey's Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, it was suppressed by the editor because it made harsh remarks about the farm newspaper editors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Bailey substituted a non-controversial historical listing of farm journals. Tucker published it himself to make himself heard.

Back to the top

Biographies

Evans, James F. Prairie Farmer and WLS: The Burridge D. Butler Years. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1969. A biography of the owner of Chicago-based Prairie Farmer in the early twentieth century.

Kirkendall, Richard S. Uncle Henry: a Documentary Profile of the First Henry Wallace. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1993. A documentary biography of the owner and editor of Iowa-based Wallaces' Farmer. Not a traditional biography, it reproduces Wallaces' speeches and writings to illuminate his place in history.

Ogilvie, William Edward. Pioneer Agricultural Journalists: Brief Biographical Sketches of Some of the Early Editors in the Field of Agricultural Journalism. Chicago: Arthur J. Leonard, 1927. Biographies of early farm newspaper editors.

Socolofsky, Homer E. Arthur Capper: Publisher, Politician, and Philanthropist. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1962. Biography of the owner of over a dozen midwestern farm newspapers.

Back to the top

Unpublished Works

Brantley, Billy Clyde. "History of the Missouri Ruralist, 1902 through 1955." M. A. thesis, University of Missouri--Columbia, 1958. Extensive study done by a journalism student.

Fitzpatrick, John William. "The Farm Press of America, 1900-1925." M. S. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1926. Gives histories of major farm papers.

Longsdorf, Lisle Leslie. "The Agricultural Press of America, 1850-1900." M. S. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1926. Gives histories of major farm papers.

Nafziger, Ralph Otto. "The History and Influence of the Farm Press in Wisconsin." B. S. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1920. A fascinating history, and an even more fascinating survey of Wisconsin farmers about what they liked in a farm newspaper.

Seaman, Gerald LeRoy. "A History of Some Early Iowa Farm Journals (before 1900)." M. S. thesis, Iowa State College, 1942. Gives histories of major farm papers in Iowa.

Shulman, Stuart William. "The Origin of the Federal Farm Loan Act: Agenda-Setting in the Progressive Era Print Press." Ph. D. diss., University of Oregon, 1999. Asserts that farm newspaper editors influenced federal loan policy.

Van Derhoof, Jack. "Eastern and Mid-Western Agricultural Journalism, 1860-1900." Ph. D. diss., Columbia University, 1951. Picks up where Demaree left off, but does not cover Southern or Western farm newspapers as Demaree did.

Back to the top

Brief Looks at the Farm Press

Demaree, Albert Lowther. "The Farm Journals, Their Editors, and Their Public, 1830-1860." Agricultural History 15(4)(October 1941): 182-188.

Farrell, Richard T. "Advice to Farmers: The Content of Agricultural Newspapers, 1860-1910." Agricultural History 51(1)(January 1977): 209-217.

Galambos, Louis. "The Agrarian Image of the Large Corporation, 1879-1920: A Study in Social Accommodation." Journal of Economic History 28(3)(September 1968): 341-362. Uses farm newspapers to assess farmers' views of big business.

Lemmer, George F. "Early Agricultural Editors and their Farm Philosophies." Agricultural History 31(4)(October 1957): 3-23.

McMurry, Sally. "Who Read the Agricultural Journals?: Evidence from Chenango County, New York, 1839-1865." Agricultural History 63(4)(Fall 1989): 1-18. An excellent examination of a club-raiser's subscription list.

Schapsmeier, Edward L. and Frederick H. Schapsmeier. "The Wallaces and Their Farm Paper: a Story of Agrarian Leadership." Journalism Quarterly 44(2)(1967): 289-296.

Shulman, Stuart W. "The Progressive Era Farm Press." Journalism History 25(1)(Spring 1999): 26-35.

Socolofsky, Homer E. "The Development of the Capper Farm Press." Agricultural History 31(4)(October 1957): 34-43.

Back to the top

Books of the New Rural History which use farm newspapers as a major source

Barron, Hal S. Mixed Harvest: The Second Great Transformation in the Rural North, 1870-1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. The most sweeping synthesis of the new rural history.

Kline, Ronald R. Consumers in the Country: Technology and Social Change in Rural America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. A synthesis like Barron's, but focusing on technology.

McMurry, Sally. Families and Farmhouses in Nineteenth Century America: Vernacular Design and Social Change. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997. (First published Oxford University Press, 1988.) A fascinating look at farmers through the lens of farmhouse architecture.

Neth, Mary. Preserving the Family Farm: Women, Community, and the Foundations of Agribusiness in the Midwest, 1900-1940. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Another excellent study. Uses farm newspapers as sources and also addresses their role in rural change.

Back to the top

Please feel free to email me if you have additions, corrections, or other comments.

Home		My Research		Send Email

Jump to my Bibliographies

This page © Copyright 2004, John J. Fry
Last Updated 5/28/2004.

This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page