The Beginning of Agricultural Cooperative Extension Service
Schellsburg, Bedford County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
One of the nation's earliest cooperative extension offices was established in 1910 in Schellsburg, Bedford County with A. B. Ross as county agent. The innovative program sought to educate farmers about agricultural science to increase their productivity. County Extension offices are now found throughout the US. Farmers and other citizens continue to benefit from agents' expertise on agriculture, 4-H programs, and family and consumer science.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1910, as the Progressive Era's faith in applied science reached into rural life, Bedford County opened one of the country's first cooperative extension offices in the small town of Schellsburg, with A. B. Ross serving as its county agent. The idea was radical in its simplicity: send a trained expert to teach working farmers the new agricultural science and lift their yields. The model spread until nearly every county in America had an extension office, carrying practical knowledge on crops, 4-H, and home economics to millions.
Why it matters
Cooperative Extension became one of the most successful public-education experiments in American history, quietly modernizing rural life for generations and knitting land-grant universities to the farms they served.
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Related people
- · A. B. Ross
Themes & tags
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