Ralph BLISS was born on October 30, 1880, on a stock and grain farm near Diagonal in southern Iowa, the son of Horace and Mary (DAY) BLISS. His father died when he was 13 years old, leaving him and his older brother to run the farm. At the Iowa State Fair, BLISS learned that "any boy of good character" could enter a preparatory program at Iowa State College and he became Ringgold County’s first student there. He graduated with a degree in Animal Husbandry in 1905, and after a year on the home farm, returned to Iowa State as head of animal husbandry in the newly established Extension Service. He was appointed director in 1914. When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, he served as secretary of the War Emergency Food Committee. Extension distributed more than 560,000 bulletins on food and clothing economy, food production and food preservation. By 1918, there was an extension office in every Iowa county. Early anticipation of the national need for increased food production for World War II gave Bliss a head start in helping coordinate federal and state agency activities that increased Iowa food production far beyond national averages.

BLISS was the treasurer of the American County Life Association, chair of the state advisory committee of the Soil Conservation Service, a member of the Iowa Corn-Hog Commission (1933-1935), a member of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and a member of the U.S. Department of Agriculture War Board (1941-1946). Although he retired from the Extension service, BLISS continued as Director Emeritus of Extension. BLISS began weekly radio talks on WOI Radio in 1932, which he continued until 1968 at the age of 87.

Ralph Kenneth BLISS married in 1912 to Ethel McKINLEY (1881-1945), a fellow classmate at the Ames College [later Iowa State University].

Mrs. BLISS was active in the Iowa State College faculty women's club and the Ames Women's Club, and was a charter member of Chapter AA of P.E.O. She served as radio chairman for the Iowa Federation of Women's Club's for several years, broadcasting news and statewide club information on WOI, Iowa State's pioneering public service radio station.

Mr. and Mrs. BLISS were parents of three sons: Robert M. (1916 -1994), William R. (1918-1992), and Richard K. (1923- ).

During the Great Depression years, Ethel BLISS opened her Ames home to many Iowa State College students arriving from her home town of St. Ansgar, providing living quarters every year for a student or two, finding campus jobs for those who were working their way through college, and offering emergency shelter or meals for young men or women in need of help. Taking a personal interest in their studies and well-being, she became an advocate for men and women students needing tutoring or her personal encouragement to obtain their degrees. Many of them kept in close touch with Mr. and Mrs. Bliss in following decades, and those in the armed services wrote to her from Europe and the Pacific during the war years. Ethel McKINLEY BLISS typified the dedicated women homemakers of her era who readily contributed their skills and untiring efforts toward bettering their communities, devotedly serving their families, and unselfishly helping needy young students reach their educational goals.

The greatest contribution Ethel McKINLEY BLISS made to the Ames area was three outstanding sons. Robert married Clara Mae SIMS of Grundy Center. He was a Professor of Journalism at Drake University for many years. William married Jane HELSER of Ames. He was a surgeon and staff member at Mary Greeley Hospital in Ames. The BLISS cancer clinic at the hospital is named after him. Richard married Patricia LOUNSBURY of Des Moines. In the construction business in Ames for years he built many fine homes. Now retired in Sedona, Arizona he enjoys living in an area where he can play golf every week of the year.

Ralph Kenneth BLISS died on April 16, 1972.

SOURCE:
www.ag.iastate.edu/coa150/pop8_20.php
www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/exhibits/150/template/alumni.html
www.las.iastate.edu/kiosk/plazaContent.aspx?plazaID=2740

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, June of 2009

Ralph Kenneth BLISS, farm manager, animal husbandry professor, and director of Agricultural and Home Economics Cooperative Extension, was born near Diagonal, Iowa, to Horace and Mary (DAY) BLISS. He attended the Diagonal public schools and graduated from Iowa State College (ISC - present-day Iowa State University at Ames) in 1905 with a degree in agronomy. He managed the family's farm for one year, but in 1906, when the Iowa legislature created the Iowa Extension Service, BLISS returned to ISC to head Extension's animal husbandry department; he also served one year as acting superintendent of the Iowa Extension Service. In 1912, he accepted an offier to head the University of Nebraska's animal husbandry department. That year he married Ethel McKINLEY, also an ISC graduate.

In 1914, when Congress passed the Smith-Lever Cooperative Extension Act, BLISS returned to ISC to become the first director of the Cooperative Extension Service. He remained in that position for 32 years, retiring in 1946. Under BLISS' tutelage, the ISC Cooperative Extension Service was viewed as on of the best in the nation and served as a model for Extension Service programs in other states. He guided the service through three major events: World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Colleagues hailed his exemplary leadership qualitities and innovative methods.

During World War I, the slogan "Food will win the War!" was heard everywhere. The newly organized Cooperative Extension Service had the main responsibility for organizing Iowans' wartime effort to conserve food and increase food production. BLISS also served as secretary of Iowa's War Emergency Food Committee, which laid out statewide wartime food and agricultural goals. Both town and country residents were asked to plant victory gardens, conserve food, and preserve as much food as possible, while the state's farmers produced record yields in corn, oats, wheat, barley, and rye. Hog production rose some 15 percent during the war.

A major problem facing Exentsion was the timely dispensing of agricultural and home ecomonics information to the state's farm families. BLISS solved that problem by setting up the War Food Production Cooperators, whereby some 1,400 coopeartors statewide passed along infomration from the federal and state extension services to farm families.

During the 1920's, specialists were added at the state level in home economics, crop and livestock production, and 4-H. In the same decade, BLISS appointed a rural sociologist to promote educational and social programs for farm families, and a landscape architecture specialist to help farm families with landscaping. Iowa was one of the first states to do so.

During the Great Depression, even though the Extension Service was faced with financial problems, BLISS promoted a five-point program: efficient agricultural production, better agricultural marketing, home project work, club work for boys and girls, and community organization. The Extension Service played a major role in helping Iowa farmer sign up for the acreage reduction program under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.

In the 1930's Bliss also began a weekly radio program over WOI that he continued into the mid-1960's, well past his retirement. By the late 1930's, BLISS and other Extension personnel were promoting soil conservation measures that they continued to emphasize during and after the war.

The greatest test for both BLISS and Cooperative Extension came during World War II. Then, as in World War I, food production was essential for an Allied victory. BLISS' experience as Extension director in World War I was invaluable in helping solve production problems in World War II. By 1942 most programs not directly related to the war were eliminated. County Extension personnel helped farmer locate farm laborers and promoted the sale of war bonds. Farmer increased their yields every year during the war.

Throughout his life, BLISS was an innovator. On his family's farm, after studying swine production at ISC, he constructed A-frame swine shelters. Local farmer belittled the effort but quickly learned that BLISS' shelters resulted in a higher number of pigs per litter. During the 1920's, he revived the earlier touring exhibits on crops, crop use, and pork production. BLISS developed cow testing associations to help farmer increase milk production, and he was one of the first in Extension to write and disseminate Extension publications. He was also a leader in the short course and farm institute movement, sometimes planting test plots himself.

In 1946 BLISS retired as Extension Service director but continued to promote Extension programs and soil conservation measures through his radio addresses. In 1952 he edited The Spirit and Philosophy of Extension Work, as Recorded in Significant Extension Papers, and in 1960 he published his History of Cooperative and Home Economics Extension in Iowa - The First Fifty Years. He received many honors, including the American Farm Bureau Federation's Distinguished Service to American Agriculture Award; Honorary Master Swine Producer; Alumni Merit Award, ISC; National Citation for Leadership in 4-H Club Work; Outstanding Leadership in Soil Conservation State Conservation Committee; American Country Life Association's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Rural Life (twice); ISC Faculty Citation; and Epsilon Sigma Phi National distinguished Service Ruby Award. He received an honorary doctor of science degree from Iowa State College in 1958.

BLISS died in Ames in 1972.

SOURCE: SCHWIEDER, Dorothy. "Ralph K. BLISS" The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa University of Iowa Press. Pp. 46-7. 2009.

OTHER SOURCES:
The BLISS Papers, 1904–1971, and his "Addresses and Radio Talks" (1932–1968), University Archives, Special Collections, Iowa State University (ISU) Library, Ames
Duane E. DEWEL Papers, 1955–1968
Robert Earle BUCHANAN Papers, 1901–1972
MUHM, Don & WADSLEY, Virginia. "Ralph K. BLISS" Iowans Who Made a Difference: 150 Years of Agricultural Progress 1996.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, July of 2010