Mrs. Edna Westbrook Trigg
Cameron, Milam County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(December 30, 1868 - November 15, 1946) Pioneer leader of Texas women in rural club work. While serving as principal of a school near Milano, Mrs. Trigg was asked by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1911 to supervise Texas' first Girls' Tomato Club. Her role included organization, teaching, and experimentation. In Aug. 1912, her clubs showed canned products at Milano Fair-- the state's first exhibit of this kind, and a great success. In 1913-14, she worked in Childress and Milam counties, holding canning schools financed by local groups and the U. S. Department of Agriculture. After enactment of national and state legislation (1914-1915) established the Agricultural Extension Service at land grant colleges, Mrs. Trigg became (in 1916) the first county home demonstration agent in Texas. Stationed in Denton, she also served on staff of the College of Industrial Arts (now Texas Woman's University), overseeing courses in methods for home demonstration work, assuring its professionalism. Edna Trigg was a native of Milam County, daughter of Ervin and Rachel Walker Westbrook. She married (in 1892) Charles Letman Trigg, and was mother of Charles Westbrook Trigg and Eloise Trigg (later Mrs. Johnson). Mrs. Trigg is buried in I. O. O. F. Cemetery, Denton.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Edna Westbrook Trigg, a Milam County native and schoolteacher, was tapped by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1911 to supervise Texas' first Girls' Tomato Club, teaching rural girls to grow and can their own produce. Her 1912 canning exhibit at the Milano Fair was a state first, and in 1916 she became Texas' first county home demonstration agent. She went on to train other agents at the College of Industrial Arts, now Texas Woman's University.
Why it matters
Trigg helped launch the home demonstration movement that carried modern nutrition, sanitation, and economic skills into rural households, expanding the public role of women across the early-twentieth-century South.
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Related people
- · Edna Westbrook Trigg
- · Charles Letman Trigg
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Girl's Tomato Club in Texas
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In 1912 Milam County launched Texas's first Girls' Tomato Clubs, teaching rural young women to grow and can tomatoes on a tenth of an acre. At the U.S. Department of Agriculture's request, high school principal Edna Westbrook Trigg organized eleven clubs for members aged ten to eighteen. The girls sold their canned goods at fairs from Rockdale to the State Fair in Dallas, several funding college with the proceeds—making the clubs a direct forerunner of 4-H.
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