Special Collections Department
Special Collections Department - Collections - Subject Guides - Agricultural Collections - Journalism and Broadcasting
Agricultural Collections - Journalism and Broadcasting
AGRICULTURAL PUBLICATIONS FILES OF THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER Collection, 1919-1991.
Extent: 0.63 linear foot.
Number: MS-219.
Description: Collection donated in 1991 by Jay Wangsgard of the Progressive Farmer, containing materials on competitive publications, consisting primarily of advertising rate cards, circulation analyses, and publishers' statements compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online.
ANDERSON, RAYMOND F. (1888-1967). Papers, 1927-1954, 1960-1966.
Extent: 0.58 linear foot.
Number: MS-061.
Description: Agricultural journalist. Raymond F. Anderson graduated from Park College in 1913 and farmed until 1924, when he became a reporter for the Oelwein [Iowa] Daily Register and the West Union [Iowa] Weekly Argus-Gazette. In 1927 he became farm editor for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Anderson wrote a daily farm page until 1944 when he accepted a position as associate editor of the Farm Journal. He was stationed in Cedar Rapids and worked for the Farm Journal until 1955. Collection contains correspondence, articles, talks, and scrapbooks.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online.
BAKER, JOHN C. (1909- ). Papers, 1922-1980.
Extent: 13.08 linear feet.
Number: MS-546.
Description: Farm radio broadcaster and author. John C. Baker grew up on an apple orchard farm in Indiana and studied agriculture at Purdue University, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1930. He began broadcasting at Purdue the same year and continued in Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois. He worked as an information specialist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and as a public information officer with the U.S. Census Bureau until he retired in 1970. Collection includes farm radio directories, news clippings, correspondence, scripts of slide presentations, speeches, and materials assembled for his book, Farm Broadcasting: The First Sixty Years (1981), including drafts of the book. Correspondents include Dix Harper, Richard B. Hull, Lawrence F. Haeg, Forest A. Harness, Don Lerch, and E. B. Reid.
Status: Container listed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
BENTLY, RONALD C. (1899- ). Papers, 1926-1933, 1937-1963.
Extent: 5.25 linear feet.
Number: RS 13/09/53.
Description: Farm broadcaster and extension marketing specialist. Ronald Bently was on the Iowa State University staff from 1927 to 1965. Collection includes correspondence, printed materials, news broadcasts, market research data, surveys, writings relating to market news broadcasting on WOI radio and television, market news analysis, and audience response. It also includes materials dealing with a trip taken by Iowans to Western Europe and the Soviet Union in 1958.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
BERRY, DON L. (1880-1974). Papers, 1936-1970 (bulk 1936-1945).
Extent: 2.1 linear feet (4 manuscript boxes and 2 half manuscript boxes).
Number: MS-033.
Description: Editor and publisher of the Indianola [Iowa] Record and Republican activist. Don L. Berry was born on October 8, 1880, in Indianola, Iowa. He graduated from Simpson College in 1903, joined the staff of the Des Moines Register and Leader, and married Bertha Sloan in 1905. Berry left the Register and Leader in 1904 for farming, returning to journalism in 1920 when he bought the Indianola Record. He remained the editor and publisher until retiring in 1960. Berry was also active in Republican politics, and his correspondence offers insights on many of the leaders of the party and contenders for the presidential nominations from 1936 to the early 1940s. Collection includes correspondence, news releases, clippings, expense accounts, addresses, and other materials documenting the Republican convention (1936), the anti-Harrison Spangler editorial campaign (1939), and the Republican Farm Study Committee (1941), of which Berry was executive secretary. Of particular interest are summaries of findings from the Iowa Farm Tenancy Committee (1938). Berry was in charge of hearings in Madison, Marion, and Warren Counties investigating the large increase in farm renters. Also included is the final report of the Highway Committee of the Iowa Postwar Rehabilitation Commission (1944), for which Berry served as chair. Correspondents include Myers Y. Cooper, Clifford Hope, Alfred M. Landon, Harrison Spangler, Walter A. Shaeffer, Daniel W. Turner, William W. Waymack, and Kenneth S. Wherry.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online.
BLACK, NEAL (1928- ). Papers, 1960-1975.
Extent: 1.26 linear feet.
Number: MS-078.
Description: Journalist and administrator. Neal Black began his career as a reporter (1949-1953) and then farm editor (1953-1957) for the Waterloo [Iowa] Courier. He was managing editor of the National Hog Farmer from 1957-1973, when he became the magazine's editor, a position he held through 1979. From 1980 to 1988 he served as president of the Livestock Conservation Institute, an organization which works to promote methods of livestock management to prevent losses reducing the value of livestock and animal products. Black also served as secretary of the National Pork Industry Conference and chair of the Hog Cholera Eradication Committee of the Livestock Conservation Institute. Collection documents the fight against hog cholera and includes committee minutes, correspondence, news clippings, and progress reports on a cooperative agreement between the Livestock Conservation Institute and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Correspondents include Keith Myers, G. H. Wise, and Paul Zillman.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
BRETH, FRED. Papers, 1954-1985.
Extent: 11.7 linear feet.
Number: MS-464.
Description: Journalist and translator. Fred E. Breth started the American Agricultural News Service to report on American agriculture to European farm magazines, frequently under the pen name of Francis E. Bryan. In the mid-1960s, he made the decision to gradually shift from reporting on American agriculture to reporting on Soviet agricultural economics and agricultural politics. To prepare for the change, he took refresher courses in Russian and made three trips to the U.S.S.R. From 1973 on, he concentrated solely on reporting Soviet agricultural developments to American farm magazines, writing under the pen name Alexander M. Derevanny. During this period he also did a considerable amount of translation from German, French, Czech, and Russian to English. Of particular note are translations of the writings of Karl-Eugen Wadekin of Justus Liebig Universitat, considered to be one of the world's top specialists in Soviet agriculture. Correspondence between Breth and Wadekin and some of Wadekin's writings are included in the collection. Collection also includes reference files on agricultural developments in the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, scrapbooks, and writings. Breth was a contributor to both Feedstuffs and Pro Farmer, and the bulk of his correspondence is with the editorial staffs of these publications. Correspondents include Wayne S. Anderson, Jerry Carlson, Daryl Natz, Merrill Oster, Karl-Eugen Wadekin, Mike Walsten, and Rex Wilmore.
Status: Container listed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
CONN, REX B. (1900-1975). Papers, 1928-1973.
Extent: 0 .84 linear foot.
Number: RS 21/07/38.
Description: County agent and farm editor for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Rex Conn was born near Marengo, Iowa, and received a B.S. in animal husbandry from Iowa State University in 1922. He engaged in farming until 1928 when he became a county extension agent in Sioux County, Iowa. In 1935, Conn became extension director for Linn County. He was farm editor for the Cedar Rapids Gazette from 1944-1969. While working for the Gazette, Conn served as president of the Newspaper Farm Editors Association (1955-1956) and as president of the All-Iowa Fair Board (1961-1962). After retirement, he accepted an unpaid position as a communications specialist at Kirkwood Community College. Collection contains correspondence, printed materials, a taped interview covering his career with transcription and index, newspaper clippings, and articles written by Conn.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
DARROW, WAYNE (1894-1982). Papers, 1936-1972.
Extent: 0.84 linear foot.
Number: MS-021.
Description: Public official and journalist. Wayne Darrow was born on April 12, 1894, in Lakewood, New York. He received a B.S. from Cornell University in 1916. Darrow was a farm manager in Hale County, Texas (1916-1918); county and district agent for the Texas A&M University extension service (1919-1926); and an extension editor (1926-1934). Beginning in 1934, he was Southwestern information representative for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1934-1937), chief of the AAA Regional Contact Section (1937-1938), director of the AAA Information Division (1939-1942), and director of the Agricultural Labor Administration in 1943. That year, Darrow resigned from the USDA and began the Washington Farmletter, serving as editor until 1969. Collection includes correspondence, articles, publications, and newspaper clippings. Topics covered include two Robert Flaherty films, Harvest for Tomorrow and The Land; the publication of The Spade and Farmer's Guard; R. M. Evans' campaign for U.S. senator from Iowa; Henry A. Wallace's appointment as Secretary of Commerce; and Darrow's recollections of Wallace. Correspondents include Henry A. Wallace and Claude Wickard.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online.
DRIPS, WILLIAM E. (1890-1964). Papers, 1924-1964.
Extent: 2.08 linear feet.
Number: RS 13/13/53.
Description: Agricultural journalist and broadcaster. William E. Drips attended Iowa State University for one year and graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a B.S. in agriculture (1920). From 1920 to 1923 he was an instructor in journalism at Iowa State. Drips was credited with the first remote broadcast of a farm event from the field when he used the facilities of WOI Radio to broadcast a cornhusking contest held in 1923 at a farm in Story County, Iowa. In 1923 he joined the staff of Wallaces' Farmer as service bureau editor. He worked there until 1934, when he joined the National Broadcasting Company as director of agriculture, a position he held until retiring in 1950. He then moved to Welches, Oregon, where he worked as a farm broadcaster for KOIN-TV. Collection includes biographical information, photographs, radio scripts, television visual aids, news clippings, materials on the 25th anniversary of NBC's National Farm and Home Hour, correspondence, and two scrapbooks. Correspondents include Henry A. Wallace, Lauren Soth, and Henry Ford II.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
HEYER, CLAIR B. (1910- ). Papers, ca. 1910-1990.
Extent: ca. 5 linear feet.
Number: MS-334.
Description: Radio advertising director, photographer, and local historian. Clair B. Heyer studied two years at the University of Northern Iowa (1926-1928), then began working in newspaper advertising in Freeport, Illinois, in 1929. He was in radio advertising from 1935-1940 in several Midwestern locations, including Waterloo, Iowa; Janesville, Wisconsin; York, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; Rock Island, Illinois; and Davenport, Iowa. From 1940-1946, Heyer was with Armour & Company in Chicago as assistant advertising manager, radio advertising director, and assistant to Colonel Edward W. Wentworth, director of Armour's livestock bureau. In 1946, he went to Milledgeville, Illinois, where he established a small manufacturing company. He returned to college in 1961, earning a B.A. in history from Shimer College and an M.A. from the University of Northern Illinois. Heyer then taught school, was an archivist at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, and worked at the University of Iowa until he retired in 1973. Collection includes scrapbooks of photographs from Heyer's radio advertising work and his work with Armour & Company; correspondence; files on Iowa rural history, including that of Tingley, Iowa; and numerous photographs spanning several decades.
Status: Unprocessed.
Finding Aid: Online.
MILLEN, CLIFFORD HENRY (1901-1972). Papers, ca. 1920-1971.
Extent: 0.42 linear foot.
Number: MS-193.
Description: Journalist. Clifford Millen graduated from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in 1922. He joined the Des Moines Tribune in 1923 and went on to write for the Des Moines Register and Tribune for 44 years. As a political and editorial writer, Millen became well known within the Iowa legislature and was honored with a resolution by the Senate regarding his contribution to Iowa government and acknowledging his "counsel, fairness, and integrity" in his dealings with that body. He was also awarded the Iowa Associated Press Sweepstake award in 1960 for his story, "Did Iowa Change Nikita [Khrushchev]?" Collection includes correspondence, reapportionment speeches, Iowa Bar citations, news clippings, and photographs.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online.
MURPHY, DONALD R. (1895-1974). Papers, 1920-1960.
Extent: 10.92 linear feet.
Number: MS-155.
Description: Agricultural journalist. Donald R. Murphy attended Oregon State University. He joined Wallaces' Farmer in 1919, and was an editor from 1933 to 1968. Murphy was a pioneer in farm opinion polls, establishing them in Wallaces' Farmer in 1937. For a half century he was an associate, close friend, and confidant of Henry A. Wallace. Collection includes correspondence of the Wallaces' Farmer editorial staff with subscribers, non-staff contributors, cartoonists, and those interested in agriculture and agribusiness. Members of the editorial staff represented include Donald R. Murphy, Merrill Gregory, Wallace Inman, Leon Thompson, and Homer Hush.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
MURPHY, ZOE R. (1899-1983). Papers, 1955-1968.
Extent: 1.68 linear feet.
Number: MS-162.
Description: Agricultural journalist. Zoe R. Murphy was born at West Bend, Iowa, and grew up on a farm in northern Minnesota. She attended North Dakota State Teachers College, George Washington University, and Drake University, and also took nurse's training at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. For two years she taught school in Minnesota, and in 1923 she married Donald R. Murphy. In 1936 Zoe Murphy joined the staff of Wallaces' Farmer as homemaking editor. In that capacity she supervised homemaking copy, wrote three or four lead articles each year, ran the State Fair booth, was associated with the Rural Teacher Award, and traveled extensively throughout the state to meet with homemakers and 4-H groups. In the 1940s she took over the annual Master Homemaker Award. She helped organize the National Farm Home Editors Association in 1947 and became its president in 1958. Collection contains bulletins, pamphlets, correspondence, photographs, minutes, newsletters, and biographical information. There are also records for the Master Farm Homemaker, including minutes, a charter, a constitution, and bylaws. Other materials deal with the activities of the Regenerative Agriculture Association. The collection also documents the selection of the Rural School Teacher of the Year Award and contains information on the winners (1958-1967).
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online.
NEWSPAPER FARM EDITORS OF AMERICA. Records, 1979-1983.
Extent: 0.21 linear feet.
Number: MS-633.
Description: The Newspaper Farm Editors of America was formed in 1952 to promote the highest ideals of journalism and agricultural coverage. The name was first changed to the National Association of Agricultural Journalists and then in 2000, was changed again to reflect the contributions of Canadian members and is now known as the North American Agricultural Journalists (NAAJ). Collection contains correspondence and newsletters.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online.
ORNDUFF, DON. Papers, n.d, 1939-1948.
Extent: 0.42 linear foot.
Number: MS-277.
Description: Editor. Collection consists of papers and photographs collected by Don Ornduff, former editor of the Hereford Journal, dealing with farm life. Collection contains typescript articles by Alvin H. Sanders (1860-1948), editor of the Breeder's Gazette, and by Dan D. Casement (1868-1953), a cattleman from Kansas who wrote for the Hereford Journal and who was an editor of the Breeder's Gazette from 1920-1926. Collection includes photographs of Sanders and R. J. Kinzer, Secretary of the American Hereford Association.
Status: Unprocessed.
Finding Aid: Unavailable.
PLAMBECK, HERBERT (1908- 2001). Papers, 1920-2001.
Extent: 26.57 linear feet.
Number: RS 21/07/42.
Description: Farm broadcaster and public official. Herb Plambeck was born in Davenport, Iowa, and attended Iowa State University as a two-year agriculture student. The program was cancelled and Plambeck was admitted as an undergraduate, but he did not receive a degree. Plambeck worked as a farm worker, youth leader, and extension agent before becoming farm editor of the Davenport Times-Democrat in 1935. In 1936, he became farm director for WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa, a position he held until 1970. He then joined the U.S. Department of Agiculture as a public affairs assistant to Secretary Clifford Hardin and later to Secretary Earl Butz. Plambeck retired from the USDA in 1973. He returned to Iowa and to broadcasting, assisted in governing Living History Farms, and worked with the World Plowing Matches held in the Amanas in 1988. Collection includes correspondence, reports, newspaper clippings, and other papers concerning Plambeck's career as head of the farm department of WHO Radio. Other materials relate to his syndicated column on agriculture; trips to Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, and the U.S.S.R. with the U.S. farm exchange delegation (1955); and his activities in Kiwanis and with the national plowing matches.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online. (pdf file)
RISSER, JAMES V., JR. (1938- ). Papers, 1963-1983.
Extent: 7.4 linear feet.
Number: MS-438.
Description: Journalist and educator. James V. Risser, Jr., received a B.A. (1959) and a certificate in journalism (1964) from the University of Nebraska; in 1962 he earned a law degree from the University of San Francisco. He was employed by the Des Moines Register from 1964-1985, and was in its Washington, D.C., bureau from 1969 to 1985. Risser has been a member of the Communications Department at Stanford University since 1985. While working at the Des Moines Register, Risser won two Pulitzer Prizes for national reporting in 1976 and 1979. The first was for his 1975 series of articles exposing corruption in grain inspection for grain shipped overseas. The second was for a 1978 series of articles on environmental damage caused by farming. He also won the Thomas L. Stokes award for environmental reporting in 1971. Collection includes correspondence, photographs, news clippings, research notes on grain standards, awards and honors, and publications. Correspondents include Barry Barrids, Willard W. Griffen, and B. T. Skeels.
Status: Container listed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
RUSSELL, J. STUART (1892-1960). Papers, 1943-1960.
Extent: 1.26 linear feet.
Number: MS-012.
Description: Agricultural journalist. J. Stuart Russell was born on a farm near Newton in Jasper County, Iowa. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1913, then farmed until 1918, when he joined the U.S. Army. From 1920-1925 he operated a weekly newspaper in Sac City, Iowa. Russell became farm editor of the Des Moines Register and Tribune in 1925, a post he held until his death in 1960. In the fall of 1942 he served as regional administrator for Midwestern states for the Agricultural Marketing Administration; in 1943 he was deputy administrator of the Food Distribution Administration in Washington, D.C., with responsibility for civilian food rationing. Later he was an assistant to Food Administrators Chester C. Davis and Marvin Jones, served as an assistant to the chair of the President's Famine Emergency Committee (1946), and was a consultant on food and agriculture to the Technical Cooperation Administration (Point 4). He made European visits in 1947 and 1953 to report on food and agricultural conditions. In 1952 he went around the world, concentrating on the Far East and South Asia, reporting on land tenure and rural credit problems. Collection includes correspondence, newspaper articles and editorials, magazine articles, speeches, and photographs. Events covered include trips to the Far East and Europe to survey farm conditions, the Russian-American agricultural exchange (1955), and the Wolf Ladejinsky affair (1953-1959). Correspondents include Chester Davis and Wolf Ladejinsky.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.
SOTH, LAUREN K. (1910- ). Papers, 1945-1975.
Extent: 17.82 linear feet.
Number: RS 16/03/54.
Description: Agricultural economist and editor at the Des Moines Register and Tribune. Lauren Soth was born in Sibley, Iowa, in 1910. He received B.S. (1932) and M.S. (1938) degrees from Iowa State University. Soth was in charge of economic information at Iowa State from 1934-1947 and was an editorial writer for the Des Moines Register and Tribune from 1947-1954. He was editor of the newspaper's editorial pages from 1954 until his retirement in 1975. Soth received a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1956 for encouraging U.S.-Soviet agricultural exchange. He is the author of Farm Trouble (1957), Farm Policy for the Sixties (1961), An Embarrassment of Plenty (1965), Agriculture in an Industrial Society (1966), and The Farm Policy Game Play by Play (1989). Collection includes correspondence, manuscripts of publications, photographs, publications, and speeches. There is material documenting the U.S.-Russian agricultural exchange of 1955 and Soth's U.S.S.R. trip the same year, including 750 photographs. Collection also contains speeches and talks on the Wolf Ladejinsky affair, the oleomargarine controversy at Iowa State University during World War II, agricultural economics, and the National Planning Association. There is correspondence about farm policy in the 1970s and 1980s, and material on agricultural issues such as animal rights, food and export policy, and land usage. Correspondents include Harold F. Breimyer, Robert K. Buck, Erwin D. Canham, Marion Clawson, Willard W. Cochrane, Joseph Dunner, Paul Engle, Orville Freeman, John Kenneth Galbraith, Roswell Garst, Charles M. Hardin, Earl O. Heady, A. C. Hoffman, Dale Hoover, Raymond M. Hughes, Gale D. Johnson, Allan B. Kline, Alfred A. Knopf, L. G. Ligutti, James G. Maddox, George McGovern, Donald R. Murphy, Harrison E. Salisbury, Theodore W. Schultz, H. Christian Sonne, Carroll P. Streeter, George S. Talley, Frederick V. Waugh, and Walter W. Wilcox.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Online.
STREETER, CARROLL P. (1898-1975). Papers, ca. 1931-1973.
Extent: 5.2 linear feet.
Number: RS 21/07/25.
Description: Agricultural journalist. Carroll P. Streeter was born in Groton, South Dakota, in 1898, and received degrees in agricultural economics and animal husbandry from Iowa State University in 1923. He was farm editor of the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette (1924-1927); field editor of the Farmer's Wife Magazine (1927-1939); and associate editor (1939-1944), managing editor (1944-1955), and editor (1955-1969) of the Farm Journal. Streeter received the Reuben Brigham award for outstanding contributions to a better agriculture (1947), given by the American Association of Agricultural College Editors. Collection includes drafts of speeches, notebooks and miscellaneous notes, scrapbooks of articles published by Streeter, and photographs.
Status: Unprocessed.
Finding Aid: Unavailable.
WALLACES' FARMER. Editorial Records, 1950-1975.
Extent: 9.5 linear feet.
Number: MS-207.
Description: Iowa agricultural periodical edited from 1895-1916 by Henry Wallace, from 1916-1921 by Henry C. Wallace, and from 1921-1933 by Henry A. Wallace. The records in this collection are largely those of Richard E. Albrecht (1919- ), who served as editor (1957-1965) and later editor and assistant publisher (1965-1967) of Wallaces' Farmer. Collection contains correspondence, interoffice memoranda, and files on the Farm Progress Show, an annual farm field day. Correspondents include Robert K. Buck, Carl Hamilton, Francis Kutish, Charles B. Shuman, George M. Strayer, Carroll P. Streeter, Neal Smith, and Walter W. Wilcox. The interoffice memoranda files include memos written by Albrecht to staff of the Wallace-Homestead Company and also to staff at the associated Prairie Farmer Publishing Company. The Farm Progress Show materials contain correspondence, photographs, programs, and promotional files, and cover the shows held from 1958 to 1977.
Status: Processed.
Finding Aid: Available in Special Collections.