urn:taro:tamu.cush.00101 Inventory of the Ide Peebles Trotter Papers: 1922-1964 Finding aid prepared by Charles R. Schultz; revised by Aletha Andrew Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A & M University
College Station, TX 77843-5000 Phone: 979/845-1951 Fax: 979/845-1441 Email: cushing-library@tamu.edu
1972 Finding aid encoded by Amber Amescua in EAD Version 1.0 as part of the TARO project, December 2002; revised by Aletha Andrew, January 2003 and April 2003 Finding aid written inEnglish. Tue Jul 22 14:56:44 CDT 2003 urn:taro:tamu.cush.00101 converted from EAD 1.0 to 2002 by v1to02.xsl (20030505). Descriptive Summary and Abstract Cushing Memorial Library
College Station, TX 77843-5000
Trotter, Ide Peebles, 1895- Inventory of the Ide Peebles Trotter Papers 1922-1964 2.5 linear feet. Ide Peebles Trotter was born in Brownsville, Tenn. on 12 December 1895, the son of Isham Patten and Susie Eager Trotter. Most of his working career was devoted to education, mainly in Texas, though he also spent several years in Missouri. Trotter received a B.A. from Mississippi College in 1915, and a B.S. (1918) and M.S. (1921) from Mississippi A & M. In 1933 the University of Wisconsin awarded him a Ph.D. in Agriculture. During 1923-1936, Trotter served as the Extension Agronomist at the Missouri College of Agriculture. In 1936, Trotter came to Texas A & M University, then called the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, serving until 1944 as Head of the Department of Agronomy, and from 1944 until 1949, as Director of the Agricultural Extension Service. Between 1949 and 1956, Trotter was Dean of the Graduate School and thereafter served as Associate Dean until his retirement in 1960. Upon retiring from Texas A & M University, Trotter accepted a position on the faculty of the University of Missouri. He served on the U.S. AID team for India until 1964, and, in 1948, Trotter also served as an International Commodity Specialist in cotton, surveying cotton activities in Japan, China, India, Pakistan, and Greece for the office of Foreign Agricultural Relations. Throughout his career, Trotter was committed to religious and civic involvement, demonstrated by numerous early morning radio talks on various agricultural topics as well as New Years and Thanksgiving greetings. He was largely responsible for the planning for and organization of the first Rural Church Conference in College Station in 1946. Trotter and his wife, Lena Ann Breeze Trotter, live in Bryan, Texas. They have two sons, Ide Peebles Trotter, Jr., and Benjamin Breeze Trotter, both of whom are graduates of Texas A & M University. The Ide Peebles Trotter Papers (1922-1969) consist of correspondence, telegrams, notes, reports, speeches, newspaper clippings, and publications which span most of Trotter's career in Agricultural Education. Trotter's move from Missouri to Texas is well documented in letters, bills, and telegrams, but his transfer to Agricultural Extension and then to the Graduate School at Texas A & M University in College Station, Tex. are poorly covered. The only documentation on Trotter's two periods of foreign service is in the reports he wrote on his cotton surveys in 1948. Some special activities such as his service on the Postwar Planning Committee and Subcommittees thereof, and his participation in Rural Church Conferences are fairly well documented. TAMU MSS 00101 English. Biographical Note

Ide Peebles Trotter was born in Brownsville, Tenn. on 12 December 1895, the son of Isham Patten and Susie Eager Trotter. Most of his working career was devoted to education, mainly in Texas, though he also spent several years in Missouri.

Trotter received a B.A. from Mississippi College in 1915, and a B.S. (1918) and M.S. (1921) from Mississippi A & M. In 1933 the University of Wisconsin awarded him a Ph.D. in Agriculture. His dissertation topic was A Comparative Study of the Individual and Group Behavior of Farmers as Influenced by Certain Methods of Soils and Crops Extension Teaching Used in Missouri.

For one year following the receipt of his B.A., Trotter served as the Assistant Principal of the High School in Hernando, Miss. He then re-entered college. Immediately after receiving his B.S., he entered the military and served as Director of Agriculture for the military base hospitals at Camp Travis, Tex. and Fort Sam Houston, Tex.. Upon being released from military duties, he entered graduate school. For slightly more than two years after receiving his M.S., Trotter worked at the Delta Branch Experiment Station in Sloneville, Miss., serving first as Foreman and later as Assistant to the Superintendent.

During 1923-1936, Trotter served as the Extension Agronomist at the Missouri College of Agriculture. While serving in this capacity, he was charged with several additional responsibilities, in 1933 being placed in charge of the Federal Cotton Plow-up Program, and in 1934, the A.A.A. Program in eighteen counties in Southeastern Missouri.Trotter also represented the University of Missouri on the Bankhead Committee, and, during 1935-1936, served as Agronomy Advisor to the Administrator of the U.S.D.A., the A.A.A., and Soil Conservation Programs.

In 1936, Trotter came to Texas A & M University , then called the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, where he held several responsible positions before his retirement in 1960. Until 1944, he served as Head of the Department of Agronomy. From 1944 until 1949, he was Director of the Agricultural Extension Service. During these years, he made several changes, such as having regional directors reside in the regions in which they served rather than in College Station, and, in order to avoid duplication of effort, having subject specialists in the Extension Service work more closely with the people in their subject area in the School of Agriculture. Trotter also devoted a great deal of effort to the professional improvement of Extension personnel. Between 1949 and 1956, Trotter was Dean of the Graduate School and thereafter served as Associate Dean until his retirement in 1960. In addition, he was Extension Consultant on Personnel and Professional Improvement during all of this time. He was particularly active in the training of African American Extension personnel.

Twice during his long career, Trotter was engaged in activities which took him abroad for extended periods. Upon retiring from Texas A & M University, Trotter accepted a position on the faculty of the University of Missouri. He served on the U.S. AID team for India until 1964, during which time he helped organize the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology on the Pattern of U.S. Land Grant colleges, where research, teaching, and extension are coordinated.

In 1948 Trotter also served as an International Commodity Specialist in cotton, and surveyed cotton activities in Japan, China, India, Pakistan, and Greece for the office of Foreign Agricultural Relations.

Throughout his career, Trotter was committed to religious and civic involvement. His numerous early morning radio talks on various agricultural topics as well as New Years and Thanksgiving greetings demonstrate this. He was largely responsible for the planning for and organization of the first Rural Church Conference in College Station in 1946. His speech on that occasion, Soils and Souls, was reprinted several times in church and agricultural publications.

Trotter and his wife, Lena Ann Breeze Trotter, live in Bryan, Texas. They have two sons, Ide Peebles Trotter, Jr., and Benjamin Breeze Trotter, both of whom are graduates of Texas A & M University. Ide Peebles Trotter has also long been an active member of numerous societies and social and fraternal organizations.

Scope and Content Note

The Ide Peebles Trotter Papers (1922-1969) consist of correspondence, telegrams, notes, reports, speeches, newspaper clippings, and publications which span most of Trotter's career in Agricultural Education.

Some periods are much better documented than are others. Materials for the period before 1936 include some leaflets, a few letters, circulars and clippings, and one pamphlet. Trotter's move from Missouri to Texas is well documented in letters, bills, and telegrams, but his transfer to Agricultural Extension and then to the Graduate School at Texas A & M University in College Station, Tex. are poorly covered. Most of the available information is in the newspaper clippings. Both moves were made during periods of controversy. Hopefully additional documenation can be found elsewhere in the records of Texas A & M University.

Trotter's activities as Director of Extension and Dean of the Graduate School at Texas A & M University should be fairly well covered in the records of those two offices. Unfortunately his personal papers conatain very little information on them. The only documentation on Trotter's two periods of foreign service is in the reports he wrote on his cotton surveys in 1948. Some special activities such as service on the Postwar Planning Committee and participation in Rural Church Conference are fairly well documented.

 Organization of the Papers

This collection is organized into 5 series.

Series 1. General correspondence and other academic materials,1925-1969. Series 2. Rural Church Conferences, 1940-1955 and undated. Series 3. Postwar Planning and Policy Committees and Subcommittees, 1943-1960 and undated. Series 4. Speeches, radio talks, and publications by Trotter, 1922-1957 and undated. Series 5. Miscellaneous publications and speeches by others, 1925-1964 and undated . Access

No restrictions.

 Usage Restrictions

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

 Online Index Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog of Cushing Memorial Library. Researchers wishing to find related materials should search the catalog under these index terms.

Organizations Texas A & M University--History--Sources. Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas--History--Sources. Texas Agricultural Extension Service--History--Sources. Subjects Agriculture teachers--Texas--College Station. Agriculture teachers--Missouri. Agricultural education--Missouri. Agricultural education--Texas. Agricultural extension workers--Training of--Texas--College Station. Agriculture--Missouri--History Sources. Agriculture--Texas--History--Sources Rural churches--Congress and conventions. Places College Station (Tex.)--History--Sources. Provenance

Received from Ide Peebles Trotter of Bryan, Tex. in 1971.

 Processing Information

Processed by Charles R. Schultz in 1971.

 Detailed Description of the Papers

Series 1. General correspondence and other academic materials,1925-1969. 1/1 Correspondence and telegrams. Regard appointment of Trotter as Head of the Agronomy Department at Texas A & M, 1936. 1/2 Bills. For Trotter's household move from Missouri to College Station, [ca. 1936?] 1/3 Course outlines and other papers. Pertain to the training of Agricultural Extension workers in Texas, 1937-1938. 1/4 Correspondence. Regards summer cooperative training for Agricultural Extension workers, 1938-1939. 1/5 Correspondence. About the Summer Cotton School, 1943-1944, 1/6 Correspondence. Regards the history of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, 1949. 1/7-2/1 General Personal Correspondence, 1925-1969. Series 2. Rural Church Conferences, 1940-1955 and undated 2/2-5 Correspondence and programs, 1940-1955

Regard Rural Church Conferences in which Trotter participated. Noteworthy are conferences held at Southwestern University in 1944, and one in College Station in 1946.

2/6 Miscellaneous publications, undated

Used by Trotter in preparing for Rural Church Conferences.

Series 3. Postwar Planning and Policy Committees and Subcommittees, 1938-1960 and undated

Correspondence, reports, and newspaper clippings concerning: the Postwar Committee on Planning and Policy, including the Subcommittee on Research, the Subcommittee on Student Life; the State Postwar Agricultural Planning Steering Committee.

 2/7 Report, 1938

Report of a faculty committee appointed in 1937 to study problems which affect the general welfare of the college. The report was used as a resource document by the Postwar Committee on Planning and Policy.

2/8 Correspondence, notes, reports, newspaper clippings, and other papers, 1943-1945

Pertain to the work of the Postwar Committee on Planning and Policy.

 2/9 Correspondence, notes, reports (including final,) and other papers, 1943-1944

From the Subcommittee on Research of the Postwar Planning and Policy Committee.

 3/1 Reports, 1944

From the Subcommittee on Growth of the College of the Postwar Planning and Policy Committee.

 3/2 Report, undated

From the Subcommittee on Student Life of the Postwar Planning and Policy Committee

3/3 Correspondence and reports, 1944

From the State Postwar Agricultural Planning Steering Committee.

 3/4-6 Newspaper clippings and news releases, 1926-1960.

About Trotter and others

 3/7 Miscellaneous honors, programs, and other papers, undated

Concern Trotter and his sons, Ide P. Trotter, Jr., and Ben Trotter

Series 4. Speeches, radio talks and publications, 1922-1957 and undated 4/1 Speech. Alfalfa—The Cadillac of the Crops Kingdom, ca. 1936-1944 4/2 Speech. Better Crops in Southeast Missouri Through Improvement of Planning Seed, undated 4/3 Outline. The Cotton Producers Problems and For Information on Cotton, undated 4/4 Speech. Damaged Corn Best Perserved in Silos, undated 4/5 Speech. Facts for Future Farmers or Facts Future Farmers Must Face, undated 4/6 Outline for a speech. Feed Crop Rotation, undated 4/7 Speech. A Plant Food Football Team, undated 4/8 Speech. Great Agricultural Leaders are Essential Now, undated 4/9 Speech. The Importance of Legumes in a Livestock Farming System, undated 4/10 Speech. Missouri Clover and Prosperity Conferences Gain in Interest to Farmers, undated 4/11 Speech. The Missouri Plan for Soil Improvement, undated 4/12 Speech. Recommendations for Planning Fall Pasture, undated 4/13 Speech and notes. A Reviving Empire (Southeast Missouri is Staging a Remarkably Rapid Recovery), undated 4/14 Speech. Save the Soil, undated 4/15 Speech. Soils and Souls, undated 4/16 Speech. State Clover and Prosperity Program Reaches 20,000 People Per Year, undated 4/17 Speech. Tobacco Shortens Life (for use in Agr. 105.), undated 4/18 Publication. Nitrogenous Fertilizer Experiments Bulletin 207 of the Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station, April 1922 4/19 Miscellaneous leaflets and circulars, 1928-1933 and 1936

Written by Trotter and produced by the Agricultural Extension Service of the College of Agriculture at the University of Missouri. Titles include: Thick Spacing of Cotton for Missouri Better Practices in Oat Producation Rape for Pasture; Oats and Canada Field Peas for Hay Grain Sogrhums for Grain Producation Cotton Varieties for Missouri Testing Seed Corn Millet for Forage and Grain Growing Cowpeas for Hay Soybeans and Winter Barley in One-Year Rotation

4/20 Publication. The Effectiveness of Ten Years of Agronomic Extension in the Missouri Clover and Prosperity Program, in the Journal of the American Society of Agronomy, July 1934 4/21 Speech. Reaching and Teaching the Farmer's of the <emph render="doublequote">Show Me</emph> State delivered before the county agents' meeting of Mississippi State College, 12 December 1932 4/22 Speech. Soils and Crops Information Necessary for Should Agricultural Development, 22 April 1935, 4/23 Publication. The Missouri Program for cooperative Hay Producation, 1936 4/24 Radio talk. Notes on Fall Care of Pastures, 3 October 1939 4/25 Radio talk. New Cotton Information Presented to Agronomists, 28 November 1939 4/26 Radio talk. Alfalfa Fiesta, 28 May 1940 4/27 Radio talk. What for Winter Pasture? 10 September 1940 4/28 Radio talk. Rest the Range for Reseeding, 17 September 1940 4/29 Radio talk. Winter Legumes for Pasture, 24 September 1940 4/30 Radio talk. Fall Pasture Cautions, 12 November1940 4/31 Radio talk. Grass was Featured at the International Livestock Exposition, 28 January 1941 4/32 Radio talk. Wet Field Suggestions, 29 July 1941 4/33 Notes for Oklahoma speech. 23 April 1944. 4/34 Outline. The Soils that Support Us in Texas (For Pastors Conference), 8 August 1944 4/35 Speech. A Proposal for Agricultural Scholarships for Developing Agricultural Leaders, June 1945 4/36 Speech. Nation Faces a Critical Deficit in Training Leadership, June 1945 4/37 Speech. Applying Research for Rural Progress, 4 December 1945

Delivered before the Annual Convention of the County Judges and Commissioners Association of Texas at Ft. Worth, Texas.

4/38 Speeches, June 1945

Nation Faces a Critical Deficit in Training Leadership, and A Proposal for Agricultural Scholarships for Developing Outstanding Agricultural Leaders.

4/39 Speech. Report on Migratory Phase of the Extension Service Farm Labor Program, 1946 4/40 Speech. Soils and Souls, 11 July 1946

Delivered before the First Annual Rural Church Conference at College Station (Note: includes seven copies in various forms and formats).

 4/41 Speech. Preservation, Patriotism, and Piety-Three Motives for Saving the Soil, 14 April 1947 4/42 New Years greetings, 1 January 1948

Given by Trotter on behalf of Texas A & M College to the listening audience of the Texas Farm and Home Program.

 4/43 Publication. Agricultural Workers' Part in Farm Electrification, 1947 4/44 Publication. Save the Soil for Our Personal Preservation, as an Expression of Our Patriotism, and as a Demonstration of Our Piety, in Acco Press, 1947 4/45 Speech. Teamwork and its Importance in Agriculture, 20 February 1948 4/46 Radio talk. A Family Thanksgiving for Today, 25 November 1948 4/47 Speech. Texas Agriculture in World Trade, 18 February 1949

Delivered at the Fifth Annual Session of the Texas Dirt Farmers Congress in Austin, Texas.

4/48 Radio talk, 29 December 1949

On the Graduate School at Texas A & M.

 4/49 Publication. Observations on the Cotton Situation in China in 1948, 1949 4/50 Publication. Observations on the Cotton Situation in Japan in 1948, 1949 4/51 Publication. Observations on the Cotton Situation in the Dominions of India and Pakistan in 1948, 1949 4/52 Publication. Your Extension Service, 1949 4/53 Publication. The New Agriculture, 1949 4/54 Speech. How to Make Extension More Effective, 11 December 1950 4/55 Speech. How to Make Extension More Effective, 11 December 1950

Delivered at the American Farm Research Association and Service Cooperatives Conference at the American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Convention in Dallas, Texas. Also included is a copy of the Conference program.

 4/56 Speech. Regional Education on the Graduate Level, 5 February 1951 4/57 Rotary Radio Program. Why Graduate Work Grows, 19 June 1952 4/58 Notes for a Speech. United Nations Ninth Birthday, 22 October 1954

Delivered at the celebration commemorating the ninth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations held at Texas A & M.

4/59 Speech. What About Graduate Work, 19 March 1956 4/60 Excerpts and notes, 16 July 1957.

For a talk presented at a banquet honoring 11 District winners in the State FFA Tractor Operators Contest, Ft. Worth, Texas.

 4/61 Background Information, July 16, 1957.

For Future Farmer Contestants in Texas FFA Tractor Operators Contest, Ft. Worth, Texas.

Series 5. Miscellaneous publications and speeches by others, 1925-1964 and undated 5/1-2 Miscellaneous publications, 1925-1953,

Publications collected by Trotter, written by authors other than himself. All but one deals with some phase of agronomy or agricultural extension.

 5/3 Speeches and summary of a Speech. 1946-1947 5/3 Speech dealing with the history of agricultural extension by H. E. Babcock regarding public relations. 5/3 Gearing Research to Rural Progress, The Origin, Development, and Outlook of Cooperative Extension Work Among Farm and Ranch Families, by Tyrus R. Tinm.

Delivered at the Fourth Southwest Regional Conference on Adult Education.

5/3 Let's Look Around, by H. H. Williamson.

Delivered at the Annual Conference of State Leaders for Negro Extension Work.

5/4 Publication. Comparative State Appropriatons for Agricultural Research and Extension for Texas and the Ten Other States Having Highest Farm Income in the U.S. and for the States Boarding Texas, Fiscal Year 1954-1955, 1956 5/5 Publication. Fifteenth Annual Regional School for Extension Workers, 1964 5/6-7 Speeches by others pertaining to church and other topics, undated 5/6-7 The College and the Church, undated 5/6-7 If I were a Rural Pastor, undated 5/6-7 Influence of Soils on the Effectiveness of theCountry Church, undated 5/6-7 Evangelistic Agriculture, undated 5/6-7 Rejoice, Oh Ye Gamma Alpha, undated 5/6-7 Philosophy and Operation of Credit Union, undated 5/6-7 How Shall the College Recognize the Place of Radio in Present Day Life? undated