Penn State Extension records

In 1911 Pennsylvania State College president Edwin E. Sparks requested money from the state legislature to begin a system of county agricultural agents to act as conduits of information between the School of Agriculture and Experiment Station and practicing farmers. Not until 1913 did the General Assembly allocate $18,000 for agricultural extension which provided agents in Bradford, Chester, and Lancaster counties, to start. By 1921 sixty-two of the sixty-seven counties had full-time agents. Pennsylvania was one of only six states that had a centralized extension organization independent of local control. The agents provided technical information from the USDA and the experiment station, supervised experimental plantings, judged at local fairs, organized 4H youth clubs, publicized their activities in newspapers, and recruited students for Penn State.

The extension service employed specialists in economics, forestry, pesticides, soils, agronomy, family life, and other subjects. The College of Agriculture administered Pennsylvania Cooperative Extension until 1998 when it was centralized as Penn State Outreach and Cooperative Extension.

Correspondence Courses began in 1892 under the title, Chautauqua Agriculture Course, based on independent reading and local discussion groups. The earliest Penn State correspondence courses were on technical agriculture, animal husbandry, and horticulture (plant science). It enrolled 2,,000 students by 1896, offering sixty lessons in five subject divisions; crop production, livestock production, horticulture and floriculture, dairying, and domestic economy. The aim of the free correspondence program was to provide a better understanding of the underlying principles of farming to practitioners. The courses were open to anyone to study at their own convenience but the College encouraged students to participate in local circles of five to twenty students. In 1898, title was changed to Correspondence Courses in Agriculture. By 1917, there were 5,500 active students. Online courses replaced correspondence courses in the 1990s.