Northwest Farm Managers Association (United States)

Photograph collection, 1918-1984 (Photo 2046)
529 photographic prints
40 slides

History

The Northwest Farm Managers Association was organized in 1909 to help solve problems confronting agriculture. Thomas Cooper, of the Minnesota Agricultural College, is credited with originating the farm management movement. Charles R. Wright, of Fergus Falls, Minn. got together with Cooper and sent letters to farmers. The best response was from North Dakota, so they decided to organize in Fargo.

The first meeting was held during the Tri-State Grain Growers Association meeting in Fargo. Mr. Wright was the first president, and R.C. Doneghue was the first executive secretary. Among the original members were Walter Reed, Robert Reed and John Dalrymple. The original name was The Farm Managers Association, with Northwest being added to the name later.

At present the association meets twice a year. In February the annual winter conference is held. This is a two day meeting to discuss and introduce new ideas and technology to aid in farm management. With this conference is the Pioneer of the Year Banquet which honors an individual for service and achievement.

The association meets in the summer for NDSU Field Day. Here they observe the university's experimental plots and other new ideas. This meeting is what used to be two meetings: The Idea Hunting Tour and the NDAC Field Day. The tour was in June and the field day in July.

Today the Northwest Farm Managers Association has between three and four hundred members, most of whom live in the Red River Valley. It is one of the main groups promoting new ideas and developments in agriculture. In 1985 a history of the association was published: Drache, Hiram M. Plowshares to printouts: Farm management as viewed through 75 years of the Northwest Farm Managers Association (Danville, Ill.: Interstate Printers & Publishers, 1985)

Scope and Content

The Northwest Farm Managers Association Photograph Collection contains 535 photographic prints varying in size from 2½ x 2½ inches to 8 x 10 inches. There is also a small number of slides (in files 6 and 22) that have been integrated into the proper series and files. The collection was organized into three series: Meetings, Tours and Demonstrations, and Topical. Many of the photographs were taken by NDAC photographers and the original negatives are on file in the NDSU Archives as part of its glass negative collection.

The Meetings Series is made up of photographs taken at annual meetings and banquets for the years 1957-1960, 1968 and 1978 plus color slides from unidentified years. Officers from various years between 1922 and 1984 are pictured as well as individuals and groups from different years between 1929 and 1977. Special presentations and speakers are featured. There is a photograph of Prof. R.C. Doneghue who was secretary of Northwest Farm Managers Association until 1918. The 1959 meeting was the 50th anniversary and the file contains good coverage of the event. The 1960 file is also quite complete.

The Tours and Demonstrations Series contains chiefly photographs of farm tours the Northwest Farm Managers members took between the years 1919 and 1940. They are divided into categories of buildings, cars & people, farms, field tours and the 1929 tour. There are also photographs of tours to Butte-Leonard Mine, a corn drying plant at Amenia, N.D., the Schermerhorn Ranch as well as photographs of demonstrations and displays, farmsteads and fields. The people file of the Farm Tours Series contains interesting group photographs of the tours made in the early twenties. Many photographs portray the line of cars and people at the beginning of the tours and also at the various farms.

The Topical Series covers approximately the years from 1918 to1943 with the majority of photographs having been taken in the 1920s. Farm activities such as harvesting, haying, plowing, hog, cattle, and sheep raising are featured as well as photographs of gadgets and machinery. The sheep file features photographs pertaining to the "no tails sheep project" carried out in the 1930s. The gadgets & inventions file has photographs of Cap Miller with some of these inventions.

Apiaries (2)