The Farmer's War

This Food Administration poster, which features the slogan “Food is Ammunition – Don’t Waste It!” reminded Americans of the importance of food conservation. 

This political cartoon stresses the importance of the Food Administration initiatives “Meatless Mondays” and “Wheatless Wednesdays,” designed to limit domestic food consumption. 

This 1917 Wooster Daily Republican article describes the ways in which the experiment station helped Ohio farmers increase production during the food crisis. 

This Wooster Daily Republican article relayed Mabel Corbould’s advice for limiting the use of wheat flour, and instead using substitute flour, to limit the cost of bread. 

The food grown in the fields of Wayne County was perhaps the region’s greatest contribution to the war effort. With much of Europe’s agricultural land destroyed, American farmers took on the job of feeding the Allied troops. Shortly after the outbreak of war, the director of the Ohio Experiment Station, Charles Thorne asked:

What is the duty of the Ohio farmer in this terrible catastrophe? He is remote from the scene of the conflict; he has no military training; but he has been trained in the production of food, and in this work he can perform a service not less important and necessary than that of the soldier in the trenches.¹

The Experiment Station helped lead the effort to feed the troops as well as the local community. With the men who usually labored on farms fighting overseas and the demand for agricultural products greater than ever, Ohio’s farmers looked to the Station for new ways of expanding production. The Station also taught wives and mothers to the best ways to stretch their budgets and conserve food for the good of the war effort. Mabel Corbould, a baking specialist at the Station, pioneered a number of conservation cooking techniques which she shared at OES meetings and published in local papers.²