The document discusses Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission (CLC) of 1909 and its roots in the progressive era. It aimed to improve rural life and advocate for farmers. The CLC promoted community development, conservation of natural resources, and sustainability. It emphasized community organizations, schools, cooperation and planning. Though it did not last, the CLC influenced later rural organizations and the study of agriculture economics and sociology. It helped launch efforts to build sustainable rural communities.

1. Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission and Community Sustainability1909-2009 Timothy Collins and Stephen R. Hicks Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455 t-collins@wiu.edu Community Development Society Memphis, TN, July 29, 2009 Western Illinois University is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity institution.

2. Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission and Community Sustainability 1909-2009 Purpose “Not to help farmers raise better crops, but to call his attention to the opportunities for better business and better living on the farm. If the country life is to become what it should be, and what I believe it ultimately will be—one of the most dignified, desirable, and sought-after ways of earning a living—the farmer must take advantage not only of the agricultural knowledge which is at his disposal, but of the methods which have raised and continue to raise the standards of living and of intelligence in other callings.” The Report of the Country Life Commission, 1909, p. 4

4. ‘Golden Era’ of agriculture

5. Part of the Conservation Movement

7. Liberty Hyde Bailey

8. Gifford Pinchot

9. Kenyon L. ButterfieldProblem: CLC was top down instead of bottom up

13. Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission and Community Sustainability 1909-2009 Roots of Community Development “The organization of the local farming community is in some ways the biggest single development for the farmer in the New Day. It means the effort to persuade all the people and all the local associations and agencies of the community to pull together for the common good. By ‘community’ is meant that local area, not always clearly defined, which has or may have its own school and church and organizations, a region large enough to organize well and small enough so that everybody may become acquainted.” Kenyon L. Butterfield, The Farmer and the New Day, 1919, p. 134

14. Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission and Community Sustainability 1909-2009 Roots of Community Development A new social order must be evolved in the open country, and every farmer of the new time must lend a strong hand to produce it. We have been training our youth merely to be better farmers; this of course, is the first thing to do, but the man is only half trained when this is done. What to do with the school, the church, the rural organizations, the combinations of trade, the highways, the architecture, the library, the beauty of the landscape, the country store, the rousing of a fine community helpfulness to take the place of the old selfish individualism, and a hundred other activities, is enough to fire the imagination and strengthen the arm of any young man or woman. Liberty Hyde Bailey, The Country Life Movement in the United States , 1911, p. 56-57

15. Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission and Community Sustainability 1909-2009 Roots of Community Development In general, the scope of the term “country life” … will be understood to include the life of the open country, the rural village and most country towns of 8,000 people or less, whose outlook is the sky and the soil rather than the brick walls and limited horizon of the city streets. Walter G. Fiske, The Challenge of the Country, 1919, p. 3

17. Production

18. Marketing and other business interests

19. Conservation

20. Community life

22. A community study

23. A community program

24. The work of each agency in carrying out the program

25. Community meetings and conferences relative to the program and its progress

26. The need of new association

27. Bringing the community into touch with other communities and with county, state and national activities

29. What are the needs of the community?

30. What are the best things that exist in the community?

31. What are its resources, natural and human?

32. What are the possibilities of the community?

33. Might use farm bureau or agricultural college specialists to help.

35. People of the community decide the policy direction they want to follow

36. Develop a community program

37. Consists of successive steps needed to make the policy work

38. Is designed to arouse community will

39. Hold regular community meetings

40. To discuss common needs and purposes

42. Improved farming practices

44. Inland Waterways

45. National Conservation Commission

46. Joint Conservation Congress

47. Conference of Governors

49. Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission and Community Sustainability 1909-2009 Roots of Community Sustainability Kenyon L. Butterfield “The ideal is the most complete possible cooperation of all individuals and all groups in a small natural area, making their best efforts in the common task of securing the greatest possible improvement in all things that make for the common good.” -- The Farmer and the New Day, 1919, p. 165

50. Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission and Community Sustainability 1909-2009 Roots of Community Sustainability Theland ethicsimply enlarges the boundaries of thecommunityto include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1968, 203-204

52. ‘Trust Buster’

53. Ardent conservationist

55. Chief of USDA Division of Forestry

56. Set up state forests as Pennsylvania governor

58. Advocate for nature education in schools

59. Author, The Holy Earth in 1915

61. President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College and Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Arts

64. Thousands became active participants in community-based activities to improve their own lives in their own ways

66. American Farm Bureau Federation

67. Cooperative Extension

68. Academic disciplines such as ag econ and rural sociology flourished