Boswell Stevens Papers

Collection

Identifier: MSS-132

Staff Only

Scope and Content

Correspondence, reports, clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, publications, and other records of Boswell Stevens (1896-1986), farmer of Noxubee County, Mississippi, and president of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation (1950-1972). Among the many organizations with which he was associated were the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cotton Council of America, the American Dairy Association of Mississippi, the Mississippi Federated Cooperatives, the Southern Farm Bureau insurance companies, the Mississippi Chemical Corporation, the Coastal Chemical Association, the Mississippi Board of Trustees for Institutions of Higher Learning, Mississippi State University, and the Mississippi Industrial and Technological Research Commission. The collection reflects the varied activities of Stevens, with emphasis on agricultural and economic development issues. Included is correspondence with many United States congressman and Mississippi governmental officials.

Dates

1918 - 1986

Biographical Note

Arthur Boswell ("Mr. Bos") Stevens, son of Nelson and Sallie Boswell Stevens, was born on September 4, 1897, in the X-Prairie Community, Noxubee County. He married Sallie Ethel Lovelace Stevens (1899-1975) and they had four children: Arthur Boswell, Jr., Katherine (Mrs. George Hollister),Sara (Mrs. Gordon Hazard), Nelson (Mrs. Marlin George). He died on January 14, 1986, in West Point, MS.

Stevens attended Mississippi A&M College from 1914-1918, and then served in World War I; he later received an honorary degree from Mississippi State College.

After the war he returned to Mississippi, where he was a farmer (dairy, cotton, beef cattle, grain) in Noxubee County, Mississippi from 1919-1986.

He served as the President of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation from 1950-1972 and held offices in numerous other organizations, inclding the American Farm Bureau Federation, Noxubee County Farm Bureau, National Cotton Council of America, American Dairy Association of Mississippi and the Mississippi Federated Cooperatives, the Mississippi Marketing Council, and the Mississippi Board of Trustees for Institutions of Higher Learning, 1968-1980.