From Our Collections: ISU Extension Resources

ISU Extension and Outreach Week is this week, April 16-21. This year, ISU Extension is celebrating 100 years of organized extension work in fifty-one Iowa counties! In anticipation of these anniversary celebrations, Digital Initiatives developed a landing page for extension materials and exhibits, and includes links to resources outside of DSI.

One of the resources created for the anniversary (by our own Lori Bousson) was a Browse by Map feature which allows users to view aq selection of images in our digital collections which document specific counties.

Digital Collections provides a variety of other resources related to Extension, including resources digitized from the University Archives. A guide to a selection of these is available here.

For this year’s ISU Extension and Outreach Week, extension offices throughout the state will be hosting community service activities. Historical images of Extension’s past service work can be found in our digital collections. Below is an image of Extension’s mattress program during World War II, which used surplus cotton owned by the government to create mattresses for low-income families.

Women preparing to stuff a mattress for Extension’s mattress
program during World War II. Original photograph in Special
Collections and University Archives, University Photographs, box 1350.

If you’re interested in learning about ISU Extension and Outreach’s history through the resources we have online, please explore our Extension resources in the ISU Library’s Digital Initiatives!