Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
(Olin 1968; Starr 1985). Second, Cooperative Extension's genesis was
inspired in part by a Progressive movement intended to improve the living
and working conditions of rural farm families: the Country Life move-
ment. Studying Progressive thought and its infl uence on the Country Life
movement helps to explain the rationale for state-based intervention
exemplifi ed by Cooperative Extension. Third, a key concern of Progressive
thought—the social consequences associated with industrialization—was
a central, controversial issue in California agriculture.
Perhaps the most important feature of Progressivism was the belief in
progress and the power of rational planning by qualifi ed experts to guide
this positive growth. Danbom terms this perspective “scientifi c progressiv-
ism” and describes the Progressives' emphasis on the “effi cient society”:
Though they were not always clear on specifi cs, scientifi c progressives agreed on the
general shape of the effi cient society. The effi cient society, like the effi cient factory,
would be composed of happy, productive people who would cooperate with one
another harmoniously and would accept orders from and defer to an educated elite.
This elite would be composed of experts who would make social policy in the inter-
est of the public. Effi ciency, at once the means to and the end of the model society,
would be the guiding principle for the policies made. (1987, 120)
Given this set of beliefs, Progressivism is often tagged a modernist move-
ment, allied with larger modernist concerns about education, individual
reason, and the proper foundation of morality in modern society. Danbom,
however, also points to another set of concerns that question Progressives'
commitment to modernity: their mixed feelings toward industrialization.
Progressives, he writes, looked backward to middle- and upper-class
Victorian morals and sensibilities as they also looked forward to a future
of increasingly industrialized social patterns and concomitant social prob-
lems. In this respect, Progressivism was as much about redemption and
repair as it was about progress (Danbom 1987, chs. 1, 2; Bowers 1974,
ch. 3). Progressives wanted progress, but it had to be an orderly form of
progress. Although Progressives used a discursive frame of “knowledge
versus ignorance” to argue for reform, they believed that knowledge was
not an easy thing to apply and that experts were required to carry out this
intellectual and moral improvement. Therefore, scientifi c progressivism
emphasized the power of state-based planning and intervention to facili-
tate and oversee this progress.
