USDA Sugar Crops Section Records

Collection

Identifier: MS0239

Staff Only

Content Description

The USDA Sugar Crops Section Records include data sheets, reports, and manuscripts written by various employees; slides, negatives, and photographs of sugar beets; correspondence of George Herbert Coons and Dewey Stewart; and other research files related to sugar beets. The materials are primarily from the administrations of George Herbert Coons and Dewey Stewart. Coons was the principal pathologist of the Division of Sugar Plant Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry during the 1930s and 1940s. Stewart was the head of the Sugar Beet Section, Agricultural Research Service during the 1950s and 1960s.

Dates

Creation: 1926-1960

Conditions Governing Access

Contact Special Collections for access.

Organizational History

Research to improve sugar production began in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Division of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology during the 1890s. By 1926, the section was named the Office of Sugar Plants, Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI).

Other name changes and office re-designations occurred as follows: the Division of Sugar Plant Investigations, BPI, in 1931; divisional component of the Field Crops Divisions, Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering (BPISAE), in 1946; Field Crops Group, BPSIAE, in 1951; and Sugar Crops Section, Field Crops Research Branch, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), in 1953. This unit was re-designated the Crops Research Division during the 1950s. In 1970, it became the Plant Science Research Division, and in 1972 the research was divided into units located in the regional laboratories of the ARS.