The 4-H Turns 100

Four-H has existed for 100 years, and Allison Agle’s family has been there for most of it.

Four-H has existed for 100 years, and Allison Agle’s family has been there for most of it.

“It’s good to look back and see how 4-H has been a part of my family for 60 years or so,” Allison, 14, says. “It’s who we are.”

Indeed, her grandparents, Jim and Catherine Agle, are synonymous with 4-H, as are friends Richard and Mary Troxell. The Ohio farming couples share a love for the 4-H Club, which began 100 years ago in Springfield, Ohio, just 30 miles west of the Agles’ Beaverdale Farm. Club members across the country are honoring the milestone this year with parties and special conferences.

“It’s been good for us and our kids. It’s just become a part of our lives. Life would have been a lot less interesting and, for sure, a lot less fun if we had done without it,’’ Richard says.

Each of the four has chalked up four-plus decades of service as volunteer leaders with the organization and before that were 4-H members themselves, completing projects pertaining to farm and home, going to summer camp, and making friends to last a lifetime.

Catherine and Mary were members of the Stitch-a-Bit 4-H Club when they were girls. “We had so much fun, learning new things, getting to know somebody from another part of the county that you didn’t know,’’ Mary says. Indeed, Mary met her husband at a 4-H activity.

Jim was an assistant to Richard’s father in 1947 when he was a 4-H leader. “I said I’d stay in it as long as my kids were active. Now, I’m saying I’ll stay in it until my grandkids go through,” he says.’’ Allison, an eighth-grader, is their youngest, so he has a few more years before he can retire.

In the beginning

Such devotion from the Agles and Troxells would no doubt please Albert B. Graham, the Ohio educator who in January 1902 ignited a rural youth movement now considered the birth of 4-H.

Springfield Township was then a small farming community in Clark County, about halfway between Columbus and Dayton. On that Saturday a century ago, Graham—then superintendent of the township’s schools—invited about 30 boys and girls to the county building to learn about agricultural experiments.

That first meeting—in which students received litmus paper to conduct soil tests on their family farms—was so well received that the gatherings continued on a regular basis. The boys had the Agricultural Club; the girls had the Flower Club.

Those names didn’t stand the test of time, but the structure laid out by Graham—groups of boys and girls with officers, projects, regular meetings, and achievement requirements—continues even now.

Today, the world knows Graham’s work to amalgamate the best efforts of head, heart, hands, and health, as the 4-H Club. It has been “making the best better”—as the club’s motto ascribes—for 100 years.

No one, certainly not young Superintendent Graham, even in his wildest imagination, could have predicted how quickly this “club” movement of the early 20th century would grow. Around the time he organized Springfield’s youngsters, educators in Iowa, Nebraska, and numerous Southern states developed “Corn Clubs” for boys and “Home Culture Clubs” for girls to promote a “learning by doing” philosophy of instruction.

These separate groups with similar goals united as the 4-H Club in 1911, when the four-leaf clover, symbol of the Iowa rural youth movement, became the national symbol as well. The club’s growth was advanced by passage of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914, which created the Agricultural Extension Service, the official sponsor of 4-H Club work.

Soon university-trained county agents reported for duty and joined with volunteers to organize even more clubs.

Changing with the times

While 4-H turns 100 this year, this grand dame of youth organizations has no intention of acting her age. Membership now stands at about 7 million, with clubs in every county of the nation, from Manhattan, N.Y., to San Francisco, and from Okeechobee, Fla., to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Club work is not all about increasing crop yields or learning to hem a dress, either. It includes opportunities to travel and to reap rewards for award-winning projects.

“When I was growing up I thought a vacation was going to the Champaign County Fair,’’ Mary says.

Now, 4-H members go to the National 4-H Center outside of Washington, D.C., for conferences such as the National Conversation on 4-H in the 21st Century. On the state level, 4-H organizations across the country have camps or conference centers where the youth gather for workshops or competitions.

Today, 4-H’ers in most states have hundreds of project choices, from photography to consumer education to lake ecology, as well as the traditional interest groups for those who raise and show cows, pigs, sheep, and other livestock.

In fast-growing Walton County, Ga., east of Atlanta, where many 4-H members’ interests lean more toward computers than animal science, the club has kept the attention of older 4-H’ers by making them webmasters.

“They develop and maintain a 4-H website that keeps the community aware of what the organization is doing,’’ says Judy Ashley, county extension service coordinator.

“They also do some unique community projects. Last Christmas two of our 4-H’ers fixed up five donated computers and gave them away to disadvantaged kids who didn’t have access to a computer. They used their heart on that one,’’ Ashley notes with substantial pride.

In many other suburban areas where most club members live in subdivisions and can’t raise a steer or pig, 4-H offers non-traditional projects such as computers and performing arts.

“That’s the thing that has kept 4-H strong—being able to change with the times and offer a variety of projects,’’ Catherine says. As for her granddaughter, Allison, who wants to be a veterinarian, she still enjoys the livestock projects.

“We’ve been on the farm ever since I was a baby,” says Allison, whose family lives about a mile from her grandparents. “Being in 4-H was something I couldn’t wait to do because I’ve always loved animals and because my sister and cousins were involved.’’

“It’s a lot of work. I’ve learned that you’ve really got to be dedicated and set your priorities and keep working, even when you might rather be doing something else,” says Allison, who is showing two steers and sheep this year.

The young woman also is beginning to understand how 4-H has connected the generations of her family.

“It’s hard to believe. I saw a picture of my grandpa when he was a boy showing a pig at the fair,” she says. “It’s hard to believe he was ever that small.’’

4-H equals success

Four-H yields productive citizens, says Jim, whose Agle’s Eager Beavers 4-H Club now includes the children and grandchildren of former members.

“I’ve seen it in the years I’ve been a volunteer. You get a kid and you give him a responsibility to do a project, complete it all the way through. Now they might not get the blue ribbon or win first place, but they’ve learned something about themselves and what they can do if they put their mind to it,’’ he says.

“This time of year I look forward to working with the youth. I still get a kick out of it.”

Although Richard officially hung up his volunteer leader hat several years ago, after 40 years of service he still likes to attend the livestock shows and see how the 4-H’ers are doing.

“That’s what keeps me young.’’

President Truman awards Margie Siler, of Idaho, for her grand champion 4-H lamb in Spokane, Wash., in 1950.

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