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4 Finding Women in the division’s Research Over its thirty-four-year history, the Division produced more than 1,200 research publications, including 21 books and 234 restricteduse reports and manuscripts (Larson, Moe, and Zimmerman 1992c). This body of work covered forty-four states and thirteen regions in the United States as well as countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Major areas of research included the rural and farm population, levels and standards of living, services and institutions, the social organization of communities, the sociology of agriculture, and farm labor. The Division conducted applied research in areas such as the impact of the Second World War on rural communities and on social security for farmers, to name just a few. The unit worked with many federal agencies and programs, including the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration’s programs such as the Rural Rehabilitation loan program for low-income farmers, the subsistence homesteads projects, and planning for the Columbia River Basin Irrigation Project.1 Within the Division’s body of research, there are three areas in particular where women’s lives can be found: the early standard of living studies (e.g., E. Kirkpatrick 1923; Bibliography 3); the social organization of community studies (e.g., Bell 1942; Bibliography 4, 5, 6); and the hired farm labor and wage rate studies (e.g., Ducoff and Hagood 1946; Reagan 1946; Metzler and Sayin 1950; Metzler 1946a, 1946b; Bibliography 7). The embeddedness of women is not limited to these areas (Bibliography 1, 2),2 but is most clear and consistent within them. 1. For a full description of the applied work of the Division, see Larson and Zimmerman (2003, chaps. 12, 13). 2. For instance, research on the farm and rural family or, at times, research on social participation and rural organizations such as that conducted by Kirkpatrick et al. (1929) also included women. finding Women in the diviSion’S reSearCh 47 situating the division’s research In order to understand the nature of the research conducted by the Division, it is important to understand the context within which it was conducted. For the Division, part of that context included its location as a unit of the federal government. This location influenced the Division’s research and the areas within which women were embedded. At times the influence was positive, while at others it was negative (Larson and Zimmerman 2003). While in academia researchers are ostensibly free to pursue their own interests, being a part of the federal government meant that the unit’s work also needed to respond to changing national needs. One such instance came with the Second World War in the area of farm population and agricultural employment (Taeuber 1945, 170–73). In order to understand the labor needs of agriculture, a special appropriation from Congress led to the Division’s studies on the farm labor force, which, among other factors, included information on women (Bibliography 7). Changing national needs also greatly increased the demands placed on the Division. During the New Deal, for instance, Division head Carl Taylor characterized his unit as being “swamped almost to the point of confusion” (1939b, 225). According to a 1942 annual report, “many of the special studies in progress earlier in the year have either been greatly curtailed or abandoned entirely” (USDA, BAE, DFPRW 1942, 15). One of the projects that was never completed was the summary report for the community stability/instability studies (Bibliography 5). As a unit of the federal government, the Division also sought to remain true to both its charge and its mission. For instance, “rural home life” had been at the top of the list of topics for study outlined by the 1919 committee establishing the unit (USDA, Office of the Secretary 1919b). This led to the early standard of living studies (Bibliography 3). The Division’s federal location also meant that the unit needed to be able to respond to the information needs placed on it. For this to be possible, a systematic knowledge base upon which Division staff could draw needed to be built. Indeed, this was one of Carl Taylor’s motivations for examining the social organization of rural communities across the country (Taylor 1944), leading to the community stability/instability studies that Jellison found (1991) and the most ambitious project pursued by the Division, the 71-county “laboratory” study (Bibliography 6). Being a part of the federal government also influenced the environment within which the Division conducted its research. At times, this...

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