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Table of Contents
Introduction
The USDA Division of Agricultural Engineering Records contains materials on the subjects of agricultural engineering, rural electrification, irrigation, drainage, farm buildings, farm power and machinery, crops and crop conditioning, harvesting, care and handling of products, and road construction. The materials span the years 1913 to 1981, with the bulk produced from the 1920s to the 1940s. The materials are in fair to good condition. Researchers may use the collection without restrictions.
The National Agricultural Library’s Special Collections received the materials prior to 1995 from M. Conner Ahrens, former assistant chief of USDA’s Farm Electrification Branch. Ahrens was writing a book on the history of rural electrification to be published by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers. It is unknown whether the book was published. The original collection was arranged and described in 2018 by Sara Lee, Special Collections Archivist.
Historical Sketch
| 1898 | Agricultural engineering research began in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Office of Experiment Stations, Division of Irrigation Investigations |
| 1915 | Division of Agricultural Engineering created within the Bureau of Plant Industry’s Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering |
| 1931 | Agricultural engineering attained bureau status and included the Divisions of Irrigation; Drainage and Soil Erosion Control; Mechanical Equipment; Structures; and Plans and Services |
| 1939 | Bureau of Agricultural Chemistry and Engineering created |
| 1943 | Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering established |
| 1953 | Agricultural Engineering Research Branch became part of the Agricultural Research Service |
| 1957 | Agricultural Engineering Research Branch became its own division with four branches including Crop Production, Livestock Engineering and Farm Structures, Harvesting and Farm Processing, and Farm Electrification |
Scope and Content Note
The USDA Division of Agricultural Engineering Records contain photographs, glass and acetate negatives, and films related to agricultural engineering and rural electrification. Some of the subjects include irrigation, drainage, farm buildings, farm power and machinery, crops and crop conditioning, harvesting, care and handling of products, road construction, and farm electrification.
In addition to photographic formats, the collection includes print materials on agricultural engineering and farm electrification written by various authors. There are also speeches and papers by Arthur William Turner, assistant chief, Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering in 1943.
Container List
Box 001 – Glass negatives and photographs
Farmhouse interiors – sinks, tubs, showers, and stoves
Pumps – windmill-powered and water pumped into houses
Electric light and power plant machinery including generators
Box 002 – Photographs
Irrigation of fields and pumping plant for irrigation
Stump removal
Grain elevators in action
Milk separators and milk coolers
Stock tank water warmer
Interior of dairy barns
Assorted farming devices
Box 003 – Photographs
Farm scenes – dairy, pigs, cows, rabbits, hay
Grain elevators, grain conveyors, electric heaters, potato handling equipment
Milk houses
Poultry and egg packing plants
Water troughs and tanks (sheep and cows included)
Box 004 – Photographs
Indoor plumbing – kitchens, washing machines, water heaters, pump for electric water system
Egg handling machine, egg cooler, egg heater
Pig and chicken brooders
Box 005 – Photographs
Water pumps, water storage, wells
Indoor plumbing – bathrooms
Box 006 – Photographs
Indoor plumbing
Dryers – hay, seed, and cotton
Cotton storage houses
Egg incubators
Wooden fences and farm gates
Cold storage rooms and buildings
Box 007 – Negatives and Photographs
Painting of buildings
Electric motor equipment – cord dryer, crosscut saw
Product demonstrations
Electric fences
Stable lights
Plumbing and pumps
Box 008 – Photographs
Cold storage, refrigeration, milk coolers
Outdoor lighting
Water heaters
Feed grinders, grain elevators
Kitchen interiors
Dairy – bottle washer, utensil sterilizer, auto feeding device
Results of 1934 survey of farm houses indicating the percentage of families using various methods of water retrieval and clothes washing techniques
Box 009 – Photographs
House interiors - light switches and fixtures, vacuuming, stoves, kitchens
1919 motor driven water pump
Box 010 – Photographs
Cold storage plants
Photographs of scenes from movie “Turn on the Water” (cows, mother bathing daughter)
Water related equipment such as portable well rigs (labeled “resettlement project”), lawn watering, outdoor laundry, springhouse, waterwheel, hydraulic rams, and bathroom plumbing
Duplicate of survey of farm houses found in Box 8
Box 011 – Negatives
Home lighting – dining room and living room scenes
Machinery – assorted
Hand pumps, wells, windmills
Construction
Potato processing
Box 012 – Photographs
Apple processing
Grain elevator, corn cribs, hay driers
Water systems, watering troughs (heated, insulated)
Family around table with ceiling light fixture
Kitchens
USDA building in Washington, DC
Box 013 – Photographs
Machinery
Greenhouse images
Pig and chicken brooders
Examples of indoor lighting
Household appliances such as sewing machine, waffle iron, Western Electric washing machine (advertisements)
Dairy farm – interior of cow milking barn (some from Bethesda, Maryland)
Ping pong table
Box 014 – Negatives and Photographs
Water power - hydro-generator, water wheel
Fences - wooden, wire, gates
Grain separator
Spinning Mule
Bushel baskets in cold storage
House foundations
Box 015 – Negatives
Farmsteads
House construction - interior and exterior – roofing, plastering, walls, framing, bathroom construction
House construction – Paul Deadwyler houses in Maysville, Georgia
The Stout Institute (architecture school) – models of farm houses
Dairy barn and milk house
Multiple interior shots of various rooms
Vine-shading studies test house
Irrigation – pipes, trenches
Commercial cold storage buildings
Box 016 – Negatives
House construction
House interiors - normal and under construction
Testing equipment
Singer House, Steckelberg farmhouses
Box 017 – Photographs
Farm equipment – tobacco, corn, grain equipment; soil sterilizer; hay dryer, egg warmer
House interiors (some duplicates from earlier boxes) – washing machines; toaster; electric heater (General Electric photographs)
Chicken houses
Meter boxes
Laying cables, telephone poles
Box 018 – Photographs
Harvesting ice
Hand pumps
Water power on farms – dams, flumes, water wheels
Box 019 – Negatives and Photographs
Wisconsin Power & Light Company Photograph Album – electricity on the farm including electrical appliances, household appliances, farm equipment and machinery
Pumps
Coal bin
Ice-cutting
Box 020 – Print Materials
Box 021 – Print Materials
Box 022 – Print Materials
Box 023 – Glass lantern slides and short films
Box 024 – Photographs
Kitchens – ovens, water heaters, sinks, flat iron
Laundry related – washing machines, buckets, ringers
Stump harvesting – 1921 Capstan stump harvester, 1922 Hamilton stump saw machine, Bissell stump harvester, Williamson stump puller, 1927 Paul Bunyon hammer
Use of explosives for stump removal
Rail fences
Hand power techniques – corn sheller, cream separator, churn
Milk cooler, pre-electrification
Outhouses
Thresher explosions
Road construction (dirt roads)
Gas generator
National Rural Electrification Project – Group photograph of Project Lighting Committee and others (names listed)
Drawing entitled “Sowing by Hand”
Box 025 – Photographs
Farmhouses – Farms Project - bad water system for farm house, painting of house exterior, electricity including light in bathroom, light switches, and ironing
Chick brooder, checking eggs
Shelling corn, corn crib, wheat bins
Grain elevator
Stumps
Box 026 – Negatives and Photographs
Stump removal
1934 Farmhouse heating survey
Rammed earth buildings
Men working in the fields
Brooder
Hand drill and drill press, electric grinder to sharpen tools
Vacuuming
VA soil pasteurization studies
Examples of farmstead lighting
Box 027 – Photographs
Corn, cane and bean harvesters
Care and handling of products – packaging of tomato plants for shipment (1941 FSA Resettlement Project); tobacco cropping
Rural and community organization – first subsistence homestead unit
Field crops – field of cotton ready to be picked in Georgia - mother and children
Fruits and nuts
Cement
Removal of stumps with mechanical equipment
Farmstead planning
Removal of tree by poisoning
Potato planters,
Corn and cotton planters
Grain seeders, drills
Seeding machinery
Drage, floats and smoothers
Box 028 – Photographs
Harrows and rollers
Subsoilers (drawings of early colonial plows included)
Plows and ridging devices - many kinds, 1919, 1920s, 1930s
Cultivating cotton, corn, sugar beets, tobacco
Tillage – tillage machinery, charts about effectiveness of tillage tools
Dynamometer
Box 029 – Negatives
Barn and shed exteriors
Greenhouse interiors
Farm house exteriors
Farm machinery
Streams, waterways or machinery relating to waterways from Washington DC; Delaware; and Trenton, New Jersey
Box 030 – Negatives
Farm houses and barns, including G.L. Blood’s property in Wichita, Kansas
Box 031 – Negatives
Crops
Land clearing
Farm machinery
Torsion dynamometer
Barn exteriors
Box 032 – Photographs
Land clearing exhibit by the Division of Agricultural Engineering at Minnesota State Fair, 1921
Construction
Exploding stumps of trees and blasting boulders
Experimental dirt road
Combine thresher
Farmsteads – trees, windbreaks, and winter scenes
Model of farm layout
Secretary Wallace and Dr. Charles Edward Munroe, Bureau of Mines
Plowing fields – tractors
Various pieces of farm equipment
Box 033 – Negatives and Photographs
Farm houses
Tractors and combines
Threshing – machines, explosions, extinguishers
Box 034 – Negatives
Houses – Revolutionary War era, modern 1913 homes
Box 035 – Negatives
Houses and farmsteads – remodeling
Bathrooms
University of Georgia, Athens - equipment & material experiments
Photo of birthplace of Elias Howe, inventor of sewing machine
Milking cows
Box 036 – Photographs
Farmhouses – new construction and remodeling
Heitmiller House remodeling, Beltsville, Maryland
House of Jonathan Harrington - Revolutionary War era
Farmhouse built of 3 refrigerator cars - 1939
University of Wisconsin – farm equipment
Box 037 – Photographs
Farmhouses (interior/exterior) - remodeling and reconstruction
Box 038 – Photographs
Farmhouses (interior/exterior) - remodeling and reconstruction
New construction
Sketches of houses
Box 039 – Photographs
Barns (interior/exterior) – dairy, cattle, sheep and goat
Barn equipment, stalls and stanchions, manger and gutters
Hoghouses, poultry houses, small animal and crop storage
Hay and feed storage barns; grains, seed, and corn cribs
Hydro thermograph
Photographs of slides about dairy production
Box 040 – Photographs
Food storage, granary, shed, cribs
Experimental steel cribs
Box 041 – Photographs
University of Maryland farm
Megohmmeter
York temperature control unit and other experiments
Sketches of granaries
Barns and storage buildings
Box 042 – Photographs
Silos
Corn cribs
Root and fruit storage
Box 043 – Print Materials
Speeches and papers by A.W. Turner, Assistant Chief, Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering