Gene F Summers - Technology And Social Change In Rural Areas

Editorial Board

Chairman, David L. Brown, ERS, USDA, Washington, D.C.

Jere L. Gilles, University of Missouri

Denton E. Morrison, Michigan State University

Sonya Salamon, University of Illinois

Marta Tienda, University of Wisconsin

Kenneth P. Wilkinson, Pennsylvania State University

James J. Zuiches, Cornell University

Thomas A. Heberlein, Professor

Doris P. Slesinger, Associate Professor

Caty Ahrens, Secretary to the Committee

Lorna Miller, Staff Specialist

A. Eugene Havens, Ex Officio

Gene F. Summers, Professor and Committee Chairman

Editorial Consultants

First published 1983 by Westview Press

Published 2019 by Routledge

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2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1983 Taylor & Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 83-50118

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28966-9 (hbk)

, William H. Sewell

, Gene F. Summers

, Frederick C. Fliegel and J. C. van Es

, Allan Mazur

, Sheldon Krimsky

, Peter Dorner

, Frederick H. Buttel

, Howard Newby

, Boguslaw Galeski

, John W. Gartrell

, David A. McGranahan

, Wava Gillespie Haney

, Denton E. Morrison

, Allan Schnaiberg

, William C. Thiesenhusen

We wish to express our appreciation to David L. Brown and other members of the Rural Studies Series Editorial Board for their encouragement and helpful guidance in the preparation of the Festschrift. Financial support was provided by the Rural Sociological Society, the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences of the University of Wisconsin and the Department of Rural Sociology; these funds have made possible this celebration of Gene Wilkenings accomplishments.

For their many hours of skilled and cheerful efforts in the preparation of the manuscript, I want to express my personal appreciation to Caty Ahrens, Kathy Reinhard and Loma Miller. A very special debt of gratitude is owed to Doris Slesinger for her excellent skill in proofreading.

G.F.S .

Eugene A. Wilkening was born and raised on a farm in Southeastern Missouri. His father was a hard-working, business-like man who operated a 200-acre general farm. His mother, in addition to her household and farm duties, was a rural school teacher. Gene attended a nearby one-room school through eighth grade and went on to high school in the nearby Village of Oak Ridge from which he was graduated in 1933 in a class of 13 students. It was his mother who insisted that the children go on to higher education. All four graduated from college. The three boys eventually earned Ph.D.s and have had highly successful academic careers. Gene first attended Cape Girardeau State Teachers College. At the end of his sophomore year he decided to transfer to the University of Missouri to study horticulture. To help pay his expenses he worked in the laboratories of the Veterinary and the Horticulture Departments. He fully intended to devote his life to horticulture and was particularly interested in the research that was being done on new crop varieties. In fact his first experience with the diffusion of new farm practices came when he brought home some of the new hybrid seed corn from the University and induced his reluctant father to plant it. His father became an early champion of hybrid corn once the harvest was in and his yields had increased.