Jesup Wagons
With this in mind, Tuskegee pioneered the use of agricultural demonstration wagons (commonly known as Jesup wagons in honor Morris Jesup, the New York banker and philanthropist who underwrote the cost for their fitting and equipment) to instruct farmers and sharecroppers in far-flung regions of the state about efficient farming methods. Carver not only drafted the plans for the wagons but also selected the equipment, drew instructional charts and suggested lecture topics to be delivered at each visit.
The wagons were so successful that they eventually were adopted as an integral part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s outreach program.
Thomas Monroe Campbell, of Tuskegee Institute, was appointed the nation’s first black extension agent in 1906 and assigned to operate the Jesup wagons under Carver’s oversight. By 1925, African American (known at the time as Negro) Extension work encompassed 31 agents working in 21 Alabama counties.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Alabama Cooperative Extension System
Famous quotes containing the word wagons:
“My father and mother in 1817 were forty-nine days on the road with their emigrant wagons [from Vermont] to Ohio. More than two days for each hour that I spent in the same journey.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)