On July 24, 1911, Oregon Agricultural College's Board of Regents organized the Oregon Extension Service in response to requests from citizens of Oregon for assistance (particularly in agriculture) from the college. In May of 1914, nearly three years after Oregon had established its Extension Service, President Woodrow Wilson signed the federal Smith-Lever law, which provided federal money for the establishment of extension services in all states for developing off-campus programs, primarily in agriculture and home economics. The first home extension agents were hired in August 1917 to do wartime emergency work; several of the agents were retained by counties after World War I. By 1937, all counties had at least one county extension agent. During the Extension Service's first forty years, it concentrated on three traditional programmatic areas -- agriculture, home economics, and 4-H.
The Extension Bulletin Illustrations Photograph Collection consists of images (primarily black-and-white photographic prints) that were created and assembled for use in Oregon State College Extension Service publications and county reports. They document extension activities in agriculture, home economics, and youth programs. Of particular note are images of the World War II period including Bracero and other farm workers in the Emergency Farm Labor Service; other wartime extension activities; and the relocation of Japanese-Americans residing in Oregon.
Most of the images are individually numbered, beginning with item number 379. The preliminary container list presents the images in numerical order with descriptions transcribed from the photographic prints.
Collection is open for research.
Extension Bulletin Illustrations Photograph Collection (P 020), Oregon State University Archives, Corvallis, Oregon.
This collection is not fully processed; this guide is preliminary.
Photographs of the Bracero workers are also available online in the