”…I
went to Washington with the hope of helping in the further
development of
an economic service in the Department of Agriculture which
would enable the farmer to carry
on his farm operations with a clear mental vision of what
was going on in the
whole world…” Henry
C. Taylor,A Farm Economist in Washington
In 1991, the American Agricultural Economics
Association (AAEA) christened Henry Charles Taylor as “dean
of agricultural economics” to
herald his lifelong influence on the profession. Taylor grew up
on an Iowa farm during the latter 19th century, when growing concerns
about agricultural commodity prices and low incomes fostered national
consensus on greater equality for farmers. During the first half
of the 20th century, Taylor pioneered the science of agricultural
economics within the land grant university system and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Over the course of his life, he headed
the Farm Foundation, the American Country Life Association, and
other organizations with similar commitments to rural America.
Taylor received a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
in 1901 and joined their economics faculty the following year.
Much of his research explored how economics could be applied to
ease the plight of struggling American farmers. He served as the
first professor of agricultural economics in a land grant institution,
wrote the first agricultural economics textbook in 1905, helped
found the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Agricultural
Economics in 1909, and chaired that department for a decade.
Pioneering
Economic Research in USDA
In 1919, Taylor was invited by Secretary of Agriculture David Houston
to broaden USDA’s farm management activities and consolidate
its disparate economic research efforts into one agency. Appointed
chief of both the Office of Farm Management and Farm Economics
and the Bureau of Markets and Crop Estimates, he worked with
bureau chiefs, economists, farmer advocates, and others to foster
his vision for a USDA-based economics research agency.
The Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), a predecessor of
the Economic Research Service (ERS), was inaugurated under Secretary
of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace, who appointed Taylor its first
chief in 1922. During Taylor’s three-year tenure, he established
many of the economic research and service activities currently
undertaken by ERS. His research agenda emphasized data collection
and studies on farm production, prices, costs, markets, exports,
and demand for major farm commodities, and he initiated several
studies on the demand for alternative crops.
Taylor promoted practical, accessible, and beneficial research
for farmers. In 1923, the BAE sponsored the first USDA Outlook
Conference, a major annual event that continues to this day. Under
Taylor’s leadership, the BAE produced the first analyses
of the economic impacts of grain standards, export tariffs, and
other newly promulgated USDA farm policies. However, as disagreements
over farm policy in Congress and USDA grew, Taylor left the department
in 1925.
Leadership
in Other Agriculture Organizations
After leaving the USDA, Taylor served in a variety of national
and international leadership posts. Nonprofit institutions interested
in advancing the welfare of rural people began forming early
in the 20th century, and their missions matched Taylor’s
aspirations. The founders of the Farm Foundation (1933) for example,
sought to make rural life more economically rewarding and “wanted
farmers to prosper and wanted all rural people to have access
to all the social benefits enjoyed by their urban counterparts.” They
selected Taylor as the first director in 1935, a post he held
for over a decade.
Taylor also served as president of the American Country Life
Association (1919) and presided over one of its landmark conferences, “National
Policies Affecting Country Life,” held in Blacksburg, Virginia,
in 1933. In conjunction with the conference, Taylor authored an
influential two-part series on agricultural policy in the Association’s
magazine, Rural Life, illuminating the wide spectrum of agricultural
policy approaches being considered and implemented in the United
States, and confronting fallacies associated with several of them.
Also in the early 1930s, Taylor served as the United States Member
of the Permanent Committee of the International Institute of
Agriculture in Rome, Italy, under
an appointment by President Roosevelt. Taylor wrote numerous books and articles
about agricultural economics over the course of his career and coauthored
a comprehensive history in 1952. He remained active in the profession
until his death in 1969.
Selected References:
About
Henry C. Taylor:
- Parsons, Kenneth. “Henry Charles Taylor, 1873-1969:
Organizer and First Head of USDA’s BAE,” published
by the American Association of Agricultural Economists, Choices,
2nd
quarter,
1991.
- The Farm Foundation includes a short biography of Taylor and
other directors on their website.
- Wunderlich, Gene. American Country Life, published by University
Press of America: Lanham, MD, 2003.
- Shaars, Marvin. “The Story of Agricultural Economics,
1909-1972,” Univ.
of Wisconsin, Madison, 1972.
By Henry C. and
Anne Dewees Taylor:
- Taylor, Henry Charles. 1992 (Abridged edition). A Farm Economist
in Washington 1919-1925. Department of Agricultural Economics,
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Taylor, Henry C. 1970. Tarpleywick: A Century of Iowa Farming,
Ames: Iowa State University Press.
- Taylor, Anne Dewees. 1958. “Bibliographic Guide to the
Writings of Henry C. Taylor, 1893-1957,” Agricultural
History, Vol. 32, no. 3, July.
- Taylor, Henry C., and Anne Dewees Taylor. 1952. The Story
of Agricultural Economics in the United States, 1840-1932,
State College Press, Ames, Iowa.
- Taylor, Henry C. (coauthor). 1943. World Trade in Agricultural
Products. Macmillan Company, New York.
- Taylor, Henry C. 1925. Outlines of Agricultural Economics.
Macmillan Company, New York.
- Taylor, Henry C. 1919. Agricultural Economics. Macmillan
Company, New York.
- Taylor, Henry C. 1905. An Introduction to the Study of Agricultural
Economics, Macmillan Company, New York.
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