Celebrating Virginia’s First Extension Agent Dedicated to Helping African-American Families
Today, Cooperative Extension resources are offered in every state in the United States to advance the wellbeing of everyone. Empowering its communities, stewarding its resources and shaping a healthy future is at the heart of the nation’s Cooperative Extension program, launched in 1914 by the United States Department of Agriculture in partnership with land-grant universities. However, in the program’s early days, many Cooperative Extension programs and opportunities were offered to whites only.
In 1901, there were Corn Clubs for Boys in the Midwest, where farm boys under 19 would submit seeds for a corn-growing content. While boys were competing in corn-growing competitions, the U.S. Department of Agriculture promoted tomato canning clubs for girls. The first club was officially organized in 1910 in South Carolina.
Meanwhile, in rural Virginia, the first boy's corn club was organized in 1909, with 100 boys participating across Dinwiddie and Chesterfield counties. In 1910, Ella G. Agnew became the first home agent in the state, working with 46 girls in Halifax and Nottoway counties to form the area's first girl's tomato canning club. To date, only white boys and girls had the opportunity to participate in these clubs. That changed in 1913, when Lizze A. Jenkins was appointed to conduct demonstration outreach with African-American families and organize canning clubs in counties in southeast Virginia.
One of the first African-American home demonstration agents in Virginia, Jenkins graduated in 1902 from the Hampton Institute and was a teacher in an African-American school1. She was intimately familiar with the agricultural demands on her students. "Early in September, as soon as the school was fairly settled, I had to close because the children were needed to harvest the peanuts, cotton, corn, potatoes, and other crops," she wrote of her first teaching experience. "There was work for even the smallest ones. We went back in January, and then there was no trouble in filling the little room to overflowing"1 .
At first, Jenkins' work as an Extension agent centered around individual families. She would make home visits as she began her work organizing canning clubs. According to T.T. Hewlett’s 1974 “History of Extension Work with Negros”, Jenkins "...assisted rural families in the summer months after schools had closed. She worked with mother-daughter teams in the home. The girls' home economics program grew out of the needs of the home."1 According to “College of the Fields, Highlights of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service 1914 – 1980”, by working closely with women and girls in their homes, she "...learned quickly what families needed, and based her program on these needs…what the farm homes needed was wood and water…enough wood to keep the house warm and do the cooking and some way to get water without going to the well or spring."
Her experience working in the homes with families informed her curriculum as she developed her home demonstration program. She directed the efforts of a group of people called Jeanes teachers, whose pay came from a fund established to provide education for African-Americans in rural areas, and under Jenkins' guidance, they conducted home demonstration outreach around southeast Virginia.
By 1915, Lizzie Jenkins was serving as the Assistant District Agent in Charge of Negro Home Demonstration Clubs. In Jenkins' 1915 annual report, she stated, "A number of women hesitated about joining the clubs until they saw what was being accomplished by the girls and women who were in already." The following year, she wrote, "It is most gratifying to see how the women are becoming more and more interested each year. In most cases, they ask to be instructed in the same things the girls are learning. Many of them have told us that they became interested in the work because of information brought home by their daughters…and they are no longer content to be left out of the worthwhile things." This effect that spread through families had an enormously positive impact on communities.
Jenkins kept accurate reports and detailed the involvement of girls in various activities. In 1916, she reported 2,416 in clubs for canning, sewing, cooking, and gardening, with an additional 246 in poultry clubs. In their gardens, they grew fruit and vegetables, and some girls were able to sell their produce. Sewing was a critical skill, as many families struggled to afford clothes, and girls could instead make their own. She tracked her efforts meticulously, noting that "since December 1, 1915, I have traveled 12,405 miles by rail…attended 114 meetings with an estimated attendance of 15,149…visited 247 club members, 90 schools, and made…150 visits to homes.”
Her work didn't stop as the programs grew. Corn clubs evolved into 4-H, which by 1922 had expanded to include outreach among African Americans. In 1923, Lizzie Jenkins contributed to the establishment of Virginia's first short course for African-American youth at Hampton Institute called the Negro Farm and Home Makers' State Club Short Course.1 Students lived on campus, attended lectures, tested seeds, worked with different cotton fabrics, and enjoyed social activities.
Today, the Cooperative Extension Program at Virginia State University carries on Lizzie Jenkins' legacy of extending university-based education to not only Black citizens, but all residents of Virginia. Maybe some of them are descended from the girls and women in Jenkins' clubs, who might have passed down the knowledge and skills they learned from her that improved their lives.
Sources:
1 Meadows, R. R. (1995). History of Virginia’s 4-H camping program: a case study on events leading to the development of the 4-H educational centers [Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Tech University].
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