Significance
The Twenty Acre Dairy Barn, the Dairy Horse Barn, and the Dairy Experiment Barn were all listed as contributing properties within the University of Illinois Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District when it joined the National Register of Historic Places on February 4, 1994. The barns played a broader role in the history of American agriculture, specifically in the Midwest states. The barns at the University of Illinois were part of a larger move by Agricultural Experiment Stations meant to promote round barn design, mostly on account of their "efficiency." For a time, the round barn became a popular design across the Midwest, with hundreds being constructed in Illinois and Indiana alone. While the earliest round barns date to the 1820s, earlier if the round barn at Mount Vernon is included, the "round barn era" spanned the decades from 1880 to 1920.
In Illinois the round barns at the University of Illinois led to an increase in the style's popularity statewide. This was due, in part, to the access to audience that the U of I's Agricultural Experiment Station has through the publication of regular "Bulletins." The Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin coupled with an article by H.C. Crouch touting round barns in the Illinois Agriculturalist led to the construction of round barns across the state. Anecdotal evidence of the impact of the University of Illinois round barns can be collected from farmers today. Stories about fathers and grandfathers recollect round barns being constructed on account of what was going on "over at the University."
Read more about this topic: University Of Illinois Round Barns
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)