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