Today, March 15, marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Liberty Hyde Bailey. Liberty Hyde Bailey was an American botanist, author and poet who wrote hundreds of books and scientific papers over a very long professional career. He coined the word ‘cultivar’, helped establish the 4-H program for kids, created agricultural extension offices, rural electrification, parcel posts, and is considered the father of rural sociology. President Theodore Roosevelt, appointed him to head The Commission on Country Life in 1908 for “the working out of the desire to make rural civilization as effective and satisfying as other civilization. ”
Liberty was born in South Haven, Michigan in 1858. He was educated at Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State) where he graduated in 1882. He went on to work for the famous botanist Asa Gray at Harvard University and was the Dean of Agricultural Sciences at Cornell University until he retired.
Most of his work was produced after his retirement. From 1923 - 1953 he published hundreds of papers and books. He became a specialist in the systematics of plants, mainly Cyad (palms) and Rubus (blackberries). He also published revisions of Vitis (grapes), Brassica (cabbages and kales), Cucurbita (pumpkins and squashes), Hosta (plantain-lilies), and monographs on Dianthus, Delphinium, Campanula, and the gourds. He published over 100 papers on pure taxonomy. His writing skills so impressed George P. Brett, president of Macmillan and Co., that he told Bailey to send along the title whenever he had a book under way because Macmillan would publish anything he wrote. The books sold well; from his first book, The Horticulturist’s Rule Book, published in 1885, to his last, The Garden of Bellflowers, in 1953, almost one million copies sold.
From 1890 to 1940, Bailey edited 117 titles by 99 authors from all over the country, covering subjects in agronomy, rural economics, botany, pomology, animal husbandry, dairy issues, soils and fertilizers, plant pathology, commercial floriculture, and home economics. He edited the popular monthly magazine, American Garden, from 1890 to 1892, and Country Life in America, from 1901 to 1903. He originated many series of books, including Rural Life, Garden Craft, Open Country, Rural Science, Rural Text-Book, and Rural Manual. He published at least 1,300 articles in total.
Quite a body of work. He also encouraged women’s education in America, helping colleges turn co-ed. Because of his accomplishments, a number of buildings at Michigan State and Cornell University have been named for him. The Bailey Scholars Program which emphasizes trans-disciplinary learning for undergrads, designed to develop ”the whole person,” was initiated at Michigan State in 1998.
Liberty died on Christmas day, 1954 at the age of 97. Today, he is not very well known, but his influence is widespread. On the 150th anniversary of his birth, Liberty Hyde Bailey is very worthy of attention and recognition.
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/state/whatwedo.html Illinois Extension Office
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/bailey/cornellu/index.html A great interactive museum
http://lhbm.south-haven.com/ The LHB Museum
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