William Henry Daughtrey (29 September 1905–27 October 1988), director of the Agricultural Extension Service (later Virginia Cooperative Extension) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (later Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), was born in Handsom, Southampton County, and was the son of Virginius Kemper Daughtrey and Helen Morecock Daughtrey. During his youth he worked on the family farm, thus establishing a solid background for his chosen career. Daughtrey graduated with honors and a B.S. in agronomy from Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute in 1927. For the next two years he worked as an extension agent in Dinwiddie County. After receiving an M.S. from Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science (later Michigan State University) in 1930, Daughtrey served until 1939 as an assistant agronomist with Virginia Tech's agricultural extension division.
The Great Depression brought tremendous hardships for United States agriculture. High tariffs that discouraged exportation led to large surpluses and low prices for farm products. The Agricultural Adjustment Act, passed in 1933, established a program to compensate farmers who curbed production of certain crops. Daughtrey was assigned to implement in Virginia the portion of the act that dealt with cotton and tobacco, and in 1936 he was appointed Virginia administrator of the AAA. He traveled the state explaining the program to farmers and enlisting their cooperation, often a difficult task. He later recalled once asking a boy for directions to a meeting in Lawrenceville. When the young man heard where Daughtrey was going, he offered to sell him guns and ammunition so that he could protect himself. Nevertheless, Daughtrey earned a reputation for efficiency and gained popularity throughout the state.
In 1939 Daughtrey became executive assistant for the Farm Security Administration's regional office in Raleigh, North Carolina. He returned to Blacksburg to the Agricultural Extension Division (known after 1944 as the Agricultural Extension Service) in April 1940 as the district agent for southeastern Virginia. In this capacity he supervised farm demonstration work in nineteen counties. Daughtrey began work in August 1946 as administrative assistant to the director of the extension service. The following year he advanced to associate director, overseeing all farm and home demonstration agents in the state, and on 1 October 1962 he became director of the service. He retired on 30 December 1965.
Daughtrey's concerns as an extension service administrator included education for farmers and training for staff, the welfare of individual farmers and their families, and the effects of mechanization and increased efficiency on family farms. In columns for the Extension Service News he wrote about the challenges facing agricultural workers in the United States. Daughtrey predicted that farm size would increase while the number of farms decreased, that new technologies would reduce the number of workers required to run a farm, that farmers would face growing competition from industry and foreign countries, and that many farmers would need to seek supplemental employment in order to make a living. He also forecast that more women would seek employment off the farm and that farm families would increasingly find themselves in suburban and urban communities. Daughtrey believed that by adapting its educational programs and expanding them beyond traditional audiences, the extension service could play an important role in helping rural residents adjust to the changing economic and social environments.
In 1956 he led Virginia's Rural Development Committee, which developed a pilot program under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture to improve farmers' incomes. In 1959 Daughtrey chaired the Southern Extension Service Directors' section of the American Association of Land-Grant Colleges and State Universities (later the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges) and in 1961 sat on its Extension Committee on Organization and Policy. Progressive Farmer named him Man of the Year in Virginia in 1958 for his work in behalf of farmers. The United States Department of Agriculture cited his effectiveness in administering the Virginia extension program when honoring him with its Superior Service Award in 1961.
On 6 August 1932 Daughtrey married Lois Dickerson, of Kenbridge, in Lunenburg County. They had one son and one daughter. His wife died on 27 December 1983, and after a brief illness William Henry Daughtrey died on 27 October 1988 in a Radford hospital. He was buried in Westview Cemetery, in Blacksburg.
Sources Consulted:
Biographies in Richard Lee Morton, comp., Virginia Lives: The Old Dominion Who's Who (1964), 245, and Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, College of the Fields (1987), 29–31, 235–236; Marriage Register, Lunenburg Co., Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia; publications include Daughtrey, "Crop Rotation," Southern Planter 88 (15 Aug. 1927): 5, "The Small Farm's Future?" Extension Service News 5 (Nov. 1950): 2, "Biggest Job Is—Working With People," ibid. 6 (Apr. 1951): 2, and "Our Status is Not Quo!" ibid. 15 (Oct. 1960): 2–3; Extension Division News 21 (Sept. 1939): 3; ibid. 22 (May 1940): 4; Extension Service News 1 (Aug. 1946): 1; ibid. 14 (Jan. 1959): 3; ibid. 16 (June 1961): 4; ibid. 17 (Nov. 1962): 1; ibid. 21 (Jan. 1966): 1, 3; Richmond Times-Dispatch, 22 Dec. 1958; Progressive Farmer 74 (Jan. 1959): 9 (portrait); obituaries in Richmond News Leader and Richmond Times-Dispatch, both 29 Oct. 1988, and Christiansburg-Blacksburg News Messenger, 30 Oct. 1988.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Deanna M. Chavez.
How to cite this page:
Deanna M. Chavez,"William Henry Daughtrey (1905–1988)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Daughtrey_William_Henry, accessed [today's date]).
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