Annual Reports, 1949 - 1960

This subseries is arranged by year. Within years the arrangement is as follows: first the Director's annual report followed by the white district supervisory reports, departmental reports in alphabetical order, white county agent statistical reports (statewide), white county agent narrative reports, negro supervisory reports, negro statistical reports (statewide), and negro county agent narrative reports. Home Demonstration comprises a second major division and is arranged as follows: annual reports, district supervisory reports, specialists' reports, white county agent reports, and negro county agent reports.

Subseries 91b contains the annual reports of the directors, district agents and county agents of the Florida Cooperative Extension Service, which included throughout the period noted the divisions of white men county agents, negro men county agents, white women home demonstration agents and negro women home demonstration agents. The series also contains departmental or specialist reports covering specific fields in agriculture (i.e. agronomy, dairy husbandry, soil and water Conservation, and vegetable production).

The county agent reports, comprising the bulk of the series, focus primarily on the activities of the county agent and his assistants. Frequently the narrative description of the agent's activities reveal directly, or by implication, the principal challenges to local agriculture for the year in question. Such challenges range from disease and adverse weather conditions to major marketing crises, such as that with which the citrus industry was forced to deal in the postwar years. Additionally, these reports document the general introduction of chemical and mechanized agriculture in Florida, the beginning of the decline of the family farm and the rise of the agribusiness corporation, particularly in the specialized agriculture of South and Central Florida.

Departmental reports, the second largest group of records in the subseries, are less descriptive, more rote and repetitive than in Subseries 91a. Nevertheless, many of the same specialists continue to provide economic analyses of contemporary industries, especially through the various exhibits which serve as supportive material behind the main reports.

The home demonstration reports offer a description of the various activities of the home demonstration agents. However, unlike Subseries 91a, there are few photographs, nor the anecdotal material. These reports do reflect the sweeping changes which occurred in U. S. society in the postwar era including the widespread availability of rural electric power and the concomitant introduction of labor-saving devices, especially for women in the home. One file documents the rapid transformation of Seminole life as epitomized by the transition from the traditional palm-thatched Chickee to air-conditioned concrete block on slab with carport.