Rural Uplook Service

Liberty Hyde Bailey was an influential horticulturist in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He founded Cornell University's College of Agriculture and was its first dean. In 1908 President Teddy Roosevelt selected Prof. Bailey to chair a National Commission on Country Life. The report published by this commission influenced the founding of the Cooperative Extension Service in 1914, the evolution of 4-H, and the creation of the Farm Credit System in 1916.

More info on Liberty Hyde Bailey: National 4-H Hall of Fame entry, Cornell University bio, Wikipedia entry.

Much of Prof. Bailey's work built on the foundation of the land grant university system—see my earlier post about Justin Smith Morrill. Cornell University is New York's land grant university. It has both a Morrill Hall and a Bailey Hall. Cornell further honors Prof. Bailey with the Liberty Hyde Bailey Leadership Society. Several northeast Farm Credit employees are members of this society, and many employees are Cornell graduates. Other employees, like me, graduated from New England land grant universities, but the influence of Cornell University on Farm Credit is strong and it began with Liberty Hyde Bailey.

I recently encountered Liberty Hyde Bailey in another context, outside of Farm Credit. A few days ago Nancy found a box in our attic that I had forgotten about. It was a box of papers that my mother had given to me about her father. One of the things in the box was a book by Prof. L. H. Bailey titled RUS. The title stands for Rural Uplook Service ("rus" is also Latin for "the country"). The goal of RUS was to "compile compact information about those persons who are now contributing through their achievements to the betterment and advancement of country life." It was basically a "who's who" of rural United States and Canada.

There were two editions of RUS. The 1918 edition listed 2,746 names and the 1920 edition listed 4,631 names. I had not heard of RUS before, but both editions are now in the public domain and available online in full, searchable versions at Google Books (links below). The book in the box in our attic was the 1920 edition.

The reason the book was in the box was because my grandfather was in it. But I also discovered that my great-grandfather on my father's side was in it, too. At the time, my mother's father was a minister in Cambridge, where my father's grandfather was a farmer and church member. If you are curious, see the entry for Walter Hollis Gould on page 181 and the entry for Luther Putnam on page 368 in the 1920 edition. Neither is in the 1918 edition.

(For notes about Luther Putnam's farm see my earlier post on Westview Farm.)

Another item in the box was a church newsletter written by Rev. Walter H. Gould and featuring a photo of Luther Putnam—"one of our oldest members." Here is the first page of the 12-page newsletter:

(Click on the image to enlarge.) The newsletter is also dated 1920.

The young minister (age 35) and the old farmer (age 78) clearly knew each other in 1920, the year they both appeared in RUS. The farmer lived his entire life in the adjoining towns of Cambridge and Westford. The minister had only been in Cambridge for three years and would leave within a year for other towns in Vermont. But it was enough time to establish a connection between the two families. The minister's oldest daughter, then four years old, would return in later years, after graduating from UVM, and marry one of the old farmer's grandsons. The old farmer would not live to see that, but the minister would return to Cambridge, where the newlyweds would live on the family farm, to perform the wedding ceremony.