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STORIES FROM IOWA'S PAST
The famous (and infamous) who have had a lasting impact on the state and the world
How act of kindness changed the world
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A Guide For Newbies and Out-Of-Staters.
THERules
Ask questions, leave a comment, talk about Iowa food and travel, at our new message boards.
A Guide For Newbies and Out-Of-Staters.
INDEPTHIowa
Etta Budd grew up at Iowa State University where her father, Joseph Budd, was a professor of horticulture at ISU. Etta studied art on the east coast and then took a job at Simpson College in Indianola.
At Simpson, Budd met a young African-American, the son of former slaves, who wanted to be an artist. He loved to paint plants and flowers and was a talented gardener. One day Budd took Carver aside and told him that he was a better gardener than an artist and urged him to transfer to Iowa State University to study under her father. After thinking about it, Carver agreed to enroll there.
Some time later, Etta visited her friend, Carver, at Ames and discovered that because he was black, he had to eat his meals in the kitchen. She was dismayed by this and brought him into the dining hall, eating several meals with him until the other student’s accepted him.
At Iowa State, Carver was a brilliant biology student, taking graduate courses and eventually becoming the first black teacher at the school. Carver liked to take long walks through the research fields at theschool. Sometimes he took a young friend with him, a six-year-old boy who was the son of a dairy sciences professor. Carver patiently answered the boys questions and when his young charge turned 11, he began working to develop new strains of corn. The boy’s name was Henry A. Wallace.
As an adult, Wallace developed some of the first hybrid corn varieties, founded Pioneer Hi-bred International, Inc, and boosted corn production across the Midwest. His reputation grew to the point that in 1933, Wallace became Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin Roosevelt; in 1940, Roosevelt made him Vice President.
But his interest in corn production never waned. During vacation to Mexico in 1940. Wallace noticed that corn played an important role in the diets of Mexican people. But local farmers struggled to develop a crop. So Wallace decided to create agriculture experimental stations like those in Iowa to develop improved corn varieties adapted for the climate and soil of Mexico.
One of the first scientists to join the station was Cresco native Norman Borlaug, who enjoyed considerable success with his experiments in Latin America and around the world. Twenty years after the station was built, corn production in Mexico had doubled, and wheat production had increased five-fold. Borlaug went on to win the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize
It is estimated that his work resulted in saving the lives of billions who would have starved. Not the history lesson I was expecting on Tuesday, but not a bad substitution either.
George Washington Carver
Henry A. Wallace
Norman Borlaug