Eugene Butler Papers

The Eugene Butler papers contain the personal and business correspondence of Progressive Farmer editor-in-chief Eugene Butler. There is also a small amount of correspondence related to his father, Dr. Tait Butler, particularly in regard to a memorial plaque for the Tennessee Agricultural Hall of Fame. The largest proportion of the collection materials is concerned with Eugene Butler’s position as editor and senior executive of the Progressive Farmer Company. These include correspondence, office memoranda and reports related to the company’s affairs, drafts of editorials and photocopies of editorials and articles written by Butler and others. There are a large number of files containing information on agricultural and other subjects in the form of correspondence, clippings, brochures, press releases and other material collected by Butler as the basis of his editorials. Copies of articles Butler wrote to document the history of the Progressive Farmer Company are included. Butler’s involvement with Mississippi State University’s Class of 1913, the Development Foundation and Alumni Association are documented in extensive correspondence. The collection also contains a copy of a family scrapbook compiled by Robert Britt Butler and copies of the photographs contained therein. There are also a small collection of files collected by Eugene Butler’s biographer, Dr. Lin Wright.

The papers are divided into five series. The first, Progressive Farmer, is the largest series and contains material related to the workings of the company and Eugene Butler’s role within it, including departmental reports and financial data. The correspondence and office memoranda date back to 1927 and cover a wide range of the company’s affairs, including editorials from 1948 to 1975, as well as letters and memoranda involving company management and directors. There are a number of folders of photocopies made by Butler of Progressive Farmer editorials written by him and others dating back to 1924, as well as drafts and correspondence about editorials. The series also includes copies of speeches made by Butler and others to company editors and sales people, and to outside groups. Boxes 3 to 11 contain the files Butler compiled on a large number of subjects related directly and indirectly to agriculture upon which he based his editorials and articles. These include correspondence, press releases, clippings and brochures. A significant number concern cotton farming, including the boll weevil and other pests, cotton organizations and government regulation. Other files cover agricultural topics such as crop yields, fertilizers, environmental issues and soil conservation. Among subjects not directly related to agriculture in the South that Butler was also interested in were education, especially racial integration in the early 1970s, the workings of government and politics, and international issues such as world food shortages and Rhodesia. Boxes 10 and 11 contain material related to Butler’s overseas trips, including his visits to Africa and Australasia in the 1960s, as well as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace-sponsored tour of South America by agricultural journalists in 1941 and a similar tour of Europe sponsored by the Mutual Security Agency in 1952. Three folders deal with the launch of the lifestyle magazine Southern Living in 1966. Long before he retired, Butler began writing articles on the history of the Progressive Farmer Company and Boxes 12 and 13 contain the drafts and final copies of these unpublished articles that document the company and its journalistic crusades. The series also include some publications, most notably an 1872 copy of The Southern Cultivator and an 1878 issue of The Southern Planter and Farmer, and five issues of The Progressive Farmer published between 1939 and 1972.

The second series, Tait Butler, comprises correspondence by and concerning Eugene Butler’s father, Dr. Tait Butler. Much of the material is correspondence, publications and other research materials gathered by Eugene Butler in preparation for a biographical sketch to accompany the plaque of Dr. Butler which was placed in the Tennessee Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1957, and correspondence relating to the execution of the plaque and the dedication ceremony. The series also includes some of Dr Butler’s correspondence with Eugene Butler and others dating between 1911 and 1942. One folder concerns Eugene Butler’s efforts to dispose of his father’s collection of experiment station bulletins.

Series three, Eugene Butler, concerns Butler’s activities outside the Progressive Farmer Company. These document his interest in the Alpha Zeta fraternity and the Butler family history, as well as his love of books and membership of the Newcomen Society. There are three folders of personal correspondence, and correspondence and drafts concerning a chapter titled “Tall Grass” which he wrote for the book This is the South published in 1959. Butler was life president of the Mississippi State University Class of 1913 and the series contains extensive correspondence on his activities with the group, their meetings and relationship with the Alumni Association. He was also a board member of the university’s development foundation during the late 1960s and 1970s and a highly-regarded alumnus, and there are folders of correspondence documenting his close relationship with the university.

The fourth series, Robert Britt Butler scrapbook, is a photocopy of the contents of a scrapbook put together by Eugene Butler’s grandson of family photographs, clippings and other miscellany. Copies of the photographs themselves are also included.

Series five, Shy Giant of the South: Linsey H. Wright research files, includes thirty folders of material used by Dr. Linsey H. Wright of Mississippi State University during the writing of Eugene Butler’s biography published in 1980.