John Edward Iddings' Lantern Slide Collection

About the Collection

This collection of lantern slides captures an international trip by Dean of the College of Agriculture E.J. Iddings and his wife Maude Rowell in 1927. Iddings took a sabbatical leave from June to December to study agricultural practices abroad. He visited Great Britain and overseas dominions of the British Empire, including New Zealand, Australia, India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Egypt. Other European countries in the tour included Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, and Italy. The images depict agricultural practices in the countries they visited, along with scenes of the cities, buildings, transportation, and people. There are also images of his participation as a delegate to the International Rotarians Convention in Ostend, Belgium. It may be that a few slides are not from this trip, but they are related to agriculture.

Edward John Iddings was born in 1879 in Peru, Indiana, the eldest of the four children of J.B. and Mary Iddings. He was raised on his father’s 350 acre farm. After spending a year and a half at Butler College in Indianapolis, he moved to Colorado where he worked on a dairy farm near Denver. Later Iddings earned degrees from Colorado Agricultural College.

On June 24, 1908 he married Maude Augusta Rowell. After working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for several years he accepted a teaching position at the University of Idaho in 1910. In 1915, he was named Dean of the College of Agriculture and retained that position until his retirement in 1946. During his tenure, Iddings oversaw dramatic growth in the university’s agricultural science program. Enrollment more than tripled between 1916 and 1946, a reflection of the dominant role of agriculture in Idaho’s economy during the mid-20th century. In 1945 alone, the state’s net agricultural income reached $193.8 million. Following his retirement he moved to Menat, California where he died in 1954. In 1974, following major renovations of the Agricultural Sciences Building, it was renamed in Idding’s honor.

More on the collection can be found via the finding aid for the John Edward Iddings scrapbooks and lantern slides collection.