By Jim Patrico, Freelancer
We are writing a book to commemorate AAEA’s 100th anniversary, and you can help.
When AAEA was founded in 1920, farm publications were writing about soldiers coming home from World War I, the best ways to raise chickens in the barnyard and the latest in both horse-drawn and tractor implements. To tell the stories, 1920s farm editors experimented with photography. It wasn’t a new technology, but it was just coming into its own in the publishing world. Ag editors were among the first to take full advantage of the storytelling capabilities photography brought to print.
Photo from The Progressive Farmer archives shows a milk delivery truck in 1929.
Almost 100 years later, as AAEA plans to celebrate its centennial in 2020, a committee is planning a photo book to commemorate the occasion. We have not yet nailed down the title, but it will be something like: “The First 100 Years in Pictures: How Farm Publications Have Used Photos to Tell North American Agriculture’s Story.”
The book is a big project that promises to be fun. It will consist of 10 chapters, each dedicated to a decade of AAEA’s 100 years. The chapters will explore the key stories ag editors have told, and how they used words and photos to inform their readers.
The committee (Elaine Shein, Harlen Persinger, Ryan Ebert, Maggie Seiler, Christy Couch Lee and Jim Patrico) is looking for help. We need photos from your publication’s archives that illustrate important stories from the 1920s to the today. The oldest photos, of course, will be hardest to find. But if you have any to share—both old and new–please make hi res scans and email them to us.
We also want page layouts that illustrate how editors and art directors have worked together to make the most of photos. Photocopies of publication pages will be important elements in the book.
If you can help by digging through your archives, or if you have questions about the project, please contact Jim Patrico, [email protected]; 816-806-4612 or any other committee member.