Agriculture Special Collections

These are the personal and business papers of the Hillenmeyer family and their nursery business, Hillenmeyer Nurseries. The Hillenmeyers are one of Kentucky's biggest and oldest horticultural families, dating back to the family's arrival in the United States in the 1835, and settlement in Lexington, Kentucky in 1844. Their materials span five generations of nurserymen, and include business and personal correspondence, bills and receipts, catalogs, advertisements, legal papers, memorabilia, and photographs.

The Kentucky 4-H records contain materials which provide rich documentation for the history and mission of the organization on the national, regional, and local levels from the 1920s through the 1990s. Events and programs are represented through records, minutes, statistics, newspaper clippings, educational aids, photographs and audiovisual materials.

Thomas Poe Cooper was born in Pekin, Illinois, on March 2, 1881. He received a bachelor of science degree in 1908 from the University of Minnesota for his work in agriculture. In 1911 he left Minnesota to direct North Dakota's Better Farm Association. He directed the North Dakota Agriculture Experiment Station and Extension Service from 1913 to 1918. In 1918 he began work for U.K., and in 1925 he was given leave by the University to assume a job as chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Agricultural Economics.

The College of Agriculture records are comprised of both paper and photographic materials dating from 1901 through 1974. The paper materials were created by individuals associated with Agricultural Extension at the University of Kentucky as well as agriculture throughout the state. Correspondence, reports, public papers, soil studies, and personal papers were created by University of Kentucky professors, employees of the Experiment Station, and state employees. Other topics include home economics, ESAR, soil study, Experiment Station, and tobacco materials.