Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Oral Histories
Oral histories conducted with staff members who have served more than 40 years at Iowa State University
Contents: About the collection | Related resources | Accessibility| Tech
About the collection
This collection contains oral histories conducted with staff members who have served more than 40 years at Iowa State University.
The ISU Extension and Outreach predates the national Extension movement. In 1903, Sioux County farmers and Iowa State University (then called the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts) cooperated on seed corn improvement, thereby establishing the “extension idea” that would later be enacted nationwide through the Smith-Lever Act of 1914.The Smith-Lever Act created a nationwide system of cooperative extension services that provided outreach activities through land-grant universities. The Department of Extension was founded eight years prior to the passage of the Act with funding from the Iowa General Assembly. Perry G. Holden served as its first superintendent. Early extension activities included educational trains, demonstrations, and short courses. In 1966, University Extension was established by merging the Agricultural Short Course Office, Cooperative Extension, Engineering Extension, and the Center for Industrial Research and Service into a single administrative unit. In 2006, University Extension became Extension and Outreach.
The purpose of University Extension and Outreach is to carry the University’s land-grant mission to all 99 counties by providing research-based educational programs through the development of diverse and meaningful partnerships.
Related resources
Accessibility information
The Iowa State University Library is committed to providing access to its digital content. Certain material, particularly older materials, handwritten documents, and visual content, present unique challenges in providing fully accessible resources. If you are experiencing barriers to accessing, viewing, or navigating the Digital Collections site please contact us for assistance or to request additional formats.
Technical Credits - CollectionBuilder
This digital collection is built with CollectionBuilder, an open source framework for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that is developed by faculty librarians at the University of Idaho Library following the Lib-Static methodology.
Using the CollectionBuilder-CSV template and the static website generator Jekyll, this project creates an engaging interface to explore driven by metadata.