Food Administration in N.C. during WWI
By Jacob T. Parks, intern, and Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist, State Archives of North Carolina
Editor’s Note: This blog post is based on the historical note from the finding aid for the archival collection U.S. Food Administration — North Carolina Records (WWI 8), part of the WWI Papers of the Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina. The historical note was written based on official records and information in the collection.
The United States Food Administration was established by the Food and Fuel Control Act on August 10, 1917 by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s Executive Order 2679-A, in response to the growing threat of food shortage for the Allied cause in World War I. The executive order also called for the appointment of a federal administrator, for which position Herbert Hoover was chosen as United States Food Administrator. The order also called for the creation of the United States Fuel Administration.
Executive Order 2679-A required the Food Administration to meet the following program obligations: a) assure the supply, distribution, and conservation of food during the war; b) facilitate transportation of food and prevent monopolies and hoarding; and c) maintain governmental power over foods by using voluntary agreements and a licensing system.
However, even before this time, President Wilson had laid the foundations for the bill’s passage. Immediately following the United States’ entrance into World War I on April 6, 1917, Hoover was overseeing the Commission for Relief in Belgium. At the President’s insistence, Hoover left Europe in May of 1917 to return to the United States to help control the market on foodstuff in America. Volunteer-run Food Administration organizations were operating in each state prior to August 1917, trying to fulfill the immediate needs of military enlistees and draftees heading to training camps.
Due to the growing demand from the Allied nations, the United States’ saw its food supplies depleting in addition to rising costs for American citizens. By that time, U.S. Congressmen sought to give the President authority to conserve food, protect producers, and protect consumers; while at the same time continuing to provide valuable resources to the Allies. This broad authority was controversial, and it required extensive debate in Congress, which explains the belated passage of the Food Control Act on August 10, 1917.
The U.S. Food Administration immediately faced severe challenges as soon as it was established. The most pressing issue was the crop shortage in the United States during 1917, which was countered by an intense campaign of food conservation and waste prevention. In addition, the Food Administration sought to stop the hoarding of foodstuffs and wartime profiting of supplies by food dealers. These measures had to be balanced with the task of also ensuring that America’s civilians had sufficient food stores on the home front, and at the same time continuing to sustain the Allies’ fighting men.
These issues were exacerbated by the Central Powers cutting off supply lines that connected the Allies with other supply countries, such as Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Turkey, which had produced wartime goods and foods. The increased threat of naval control of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans during the war threatened trade to other counties — including Australia, China, and Argentina. This left North America as the nearest market for food production to sustain the Allies during World War I.
The Food Administration was made up of administrative workers who volunteered their time to assist in the cooperation of farmers, householders, and food traders. The administration was divided into different division to increase productivity. These divisions included the following Divisions: Cereals; Meats and Fats; Vegetables and Fruits; Sea Food; Dairy Products; Sugar; Enforcement of Regulations; Exports and Imports; Storage; Conservation; Railway Transportation; Overseas Transport; Distributions; Licensing; Statistics; and various others.
Hundreds of volunteer committees of workers in the U.S. food industry — in addition to scientists, politicians, and farmers — interacted to establish lines of communication and cooperation during the war. Also at the state level, with the approval of the North Carolina governor, a Federal Food Administrator was appointed to oversee the operations of the U.S. Food Administration within the state.
The Administrator picked local authorities to lead the Food Administration within each county and large city. In total, around 8,000 volunteers served the Food Administration nationally; while another 3,000 were paid salaries (mostly clerical assistants received salaries). A total of around 750,000 part-time committee members served the Food Administration nationally. Notably, most of the local committee members were women.
Even before the United States entered the war, North Carolina Governor Thomas W. Bickett recognized the necessity for increasing the production of food crops in a state that focused upon the growing of cotton and tobacco. In April 1917, he established a state food commission, composed of the state’s commissioner of agriculture, William A. Graham; director of the Agriculture Extension Service, B. W. Kilgore; president of the State College of Agriculture and Engineering, W. C. Riddick; presidents of the Farmers’ Union, Dr. H. Q. Alexander; the State Farmers’ Convention, John Paul Lucas; director of the Home Demonstration and Canning Club Work, Jane S. McKimmon; and director of Farm Demonstration Work in the state, C. R. Hudson. Attorney John Paul Lucas, a former newspaper man, was designated as the commission’s full-time executive secretary.
The commission had no authority and no state funding — as the commission was formed during the adjournment of the North Carolina state legislature. However, they set to work creating a state‐wide organization of county food commissions, to encourage the conversion from cash to food crops, the tilling of vacant lands, the heavy use of fertilizers to increase productivity, and the consumption of food products in the vicinity in which they were grown.
Chambers of commerce, local boards of trade, clergymen, leading merchants, businessmen, and farmers, were engaged by the commission to forward the work. In the four months of its existence, the Food Conservation Commission increased the value of the state’s food crop by an estimated $80 million
The state and county organizations of the Food Conservation Commission were folded into the Food Administration in North Carolina upon the creation of that body as a state agent of the U.S. Food Administration in August 1917. The organization was referred to by several names, but is recognized mostly as the “U.S. Food Administration — North Carolina office.” Henry A. Page of Aberdeen, N.C., was named as the state food administrator for North Carolina on September 1, 1917. Soon after, the Food Administration ordered the organization of county administrators to oversee food conservation efforts in each of the counties in the state. This measure of organization from North Carolina was later recommended by the Food Administration in Washington for all of the states’ food administrations.
After several efforts to reach out to the local communities in the state, the Food Administration in North Carolina held its first Conference of County Food Administrators in February of 1918, and later a second conference was held in June of the same year. These conferences were opportunities to advance the mission of the federal Food Administration at the local level, and assist county and town administrators in knowing how to conduct their work in accordance with federal directives.
(Undated).
The North Carolina Food Administration (as it was informally referred to) would continue to operate under the federal oversight of Herbert Hoover. An Executive Order dated August 21, 1920, terminated the remaining branches of the U.S. Food Administration both federally and at the state level. With the announcement of the coming Treaty of Versailles that would officially end WWI, the North Carolina Food Administration began shuttering its operations in early January 1919.
During the war, the Food Administration had been the largest administrative body in North Carolina, and was also one of the most powerful in how it affected the daily lives of the state’s citizens. On February 1, 1919, all remaining Food Administration staff — apart from Executive Secretary John Paul Lucas and chief clerk Frances P. W. Adickes, and administrator Henry Page — were released from their positions. As the war period wound down, Page and his remaining staff kept their eyes on the stability of the cottonseed industry, and watching for flagrant cases of war profiteering in food and foodstuffs. By spring of 1919, the U.S. Food Administration in North Carolina’s offices were closed.
You can learn more about North Carolina’s Food Administration and their operations in WWI from the US Food Administration — North Carolina Records (WWI 8) in the WWI Papers of the Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina. A large number of the Food Administration’s press releases, and correspondence with state and local food administrators, are available to view online here in the North Carolina Digital Collections’ WWI collection.
