Agricultural Information and the State in the Late 19th Century: The Annual Reports of the United States Department of Agriculture

D'Arpa, Christine

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/47345 Copy

Description

Title

Agricultural Information and the State in the Late 19th Century: The Annual Reports of the United States Department of Agriculture

Author(s)

D'Arpa, Christine

Issue Date

2014-03-01

Keyword(s)

• history
• theory
• and philosophy of information
• political economy of information
• public information policy
• science and society
• government information policy

Abstract

"Prior to the establishment of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1862 farmers in the U.S. had myriad ways of sharing and communicating agricultural information that was rooted in experimental practice and based on years of experience. Farmers both needed and used that information - information they created, circulated, and consumed. The introduction of information work at the Department of Agriculture not only altered the kind and amount of information farmers had access to but effectively sought to redefine who the ""experts"" were through the production and dissemination of the results of applied scientific research conducted by scientists at the Department or work by others filtered through the institution. The vehicle for much of this information transfer was the annual reports of the Department. My research is an historical examination of the Department of Agriculture that looks specifically at its information functions from 1862-1888. Using the annual reports to identify and examine those functions, I situate that information work within the context of the emergence of the modern state and American empire, industrializing capitalism, and the history of information."

Publisher

iSchools

Series/Report Name or Number

iConference 2014 Proceedings

Type of Resource

text

Language

english

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/47345

DOI

https://doi.org/10.9776/14415

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Copyright 2014 is held by the authors of individual items in the proceedings. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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