Jane S. McKimmon
and the Greening of North C
by Louise Benner*
t's not easy being green! If you are
“green," you try to do things that
promote and protect clean air, healthy
plants, fresh water, and good health.
Associating the
color green with
good food and healthful liv¬
ing is not a new idea.
In 1945 Jane Simpson
McKimmon wrote a book
called When We're Green We
Grow. The book told the story
of McKimmon's career as
leader of North Carolina's
home demonstration agents,
who traveled the state teach¬
ing homemaking skills to
farm women. When
McKimmon began her work
in 1911, she was one of only
five agents in the entire
United States. She was a pio¬
neer in a new career for women: home eco¬
nomics. Home economists use science to
improve home and family life.
Jane Simpson was born in Raleigh in 1867.
She graduated from Peace Institute (now Peace
College) at age sixteen. At age eighteen she
married Charles McKimmon. The McKimmons
lived in Raleigh, but even through the mid-
1940s, most North Carolinians lived on farms.
Farm families usually occupied drafty houses
with no electricity, no indoor bathrooms, no
running water, no heat except from a fireplace
or woodstove, and no evening light other than
what kerosene lamps might provide. Endless
chores for children included chopping wood,
getting water from the well, pulling weeds,
taking care of livestock, and preparing and
cooking food. Other than a few things like
sugar, coffee, and salt, a family's food came
from the farm. Rural areas had no supermar¬
kets, only small neighborhood stores.
Jane McKimmon, interested in improving
the lives of farm families, became a speaker for
the Farmers' Institute, a group that shared agri¬
cultural research with the public. She traveled
the state talking to women about preparing
food. Her specialty was
bread making. McKimmon
not only talked about baking
bread; she showed audi¬
ences how to do it and
helped them better use their
equipment. For instance, at
that time, wood usually
heated the ovens in farm
households. To check the
temperature, agents told
women to place a piece of
white paper in the oven for
one minute. If the paper a
burned or turned
really brown, the oven was
too hot. Audience members
could see and taste breads
made using McKimmon's methods. They
remembered these demonstrations better than
words alone.
When the federal government began to set
up programs to help farmers grow larger and
better crops, some efforts targeted young peo¬
ple. In Ahoskie in 1909, 1. O. Schaub — the first
appointed farm extension agent for any state —
started Corn Clubs for boys. Members received
one-acre plots of land, learned new farming
methods, and kept the profits from their crop.
Many Corn Club boys doubled, tripled, and
even quadrupled plot yield. Girls who saw
their brothers making money and enjoying the
process wanted to participate. A few girls were
allowed into Corn Clubs, but growing corn
was not considered suitable for girls.
Schaub was a neighbor of the McKimmons
in Raleigh and knew about Jane McKimmon's
work with the Farmers' Institute. He recom¬
mended that she head North Carolina's pro¬
gram for girls, and she became the state's first
Eighty-two-year-old Jane S. McKimmon (civile r) chats
with Academy Award-winning actress Jane Darwell and
another admirer during a 1949 trip to New York City for
the Cavalcade of America radio program about her life.
Image courtesy of the Special Collection s Research Center,
North Carolina State University Libraries. (Top right )
McKimmon in earlier days. Image courtesy of the State
Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and History.
"Louise Dewier works as a curator of costume and textiles at the North Carolina Museum of
History To learn more about the history of Home Demonstration and 4-H. access a major online
protect developed by the North Carolina State University Libraries' Special Collections Research
Center at wiviv.lib ncsii.edu/spcciakollectious/greenngroiviug.
1 Hill, Spring 2007
