Canadian Soule left his mark on American agriculture through his teaching and his involvement as president of the Georgia State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts and dean of the college of agriculture at University of Georgia.
1872-1934 | Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876-1936)
Impact & Accomplishments
Canadian Andrew McNairn (alternately spelled, MacNairn) Soule received his B.S.A. degree from the University of Toronto in 1893 and then settled in the United States.
After one year overseeing the livestock and dairy programs at the Missouri Experiment Station, he accepted a joint teaching/experiment station position at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1894-1899. The next four years were spent in a similar post at the University of Tennessee, with Soule as chair of the agriculture department.
From 1904 to 1907, Andrew Soule served as college dean and experiment station director at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. In 1907, Soule was named president of the Georgia State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, where he would remain for the rest of his career. Under his leadership, departments of animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, forestry, and home economics were established, as was the cooperative extension program.
In 1932, after reorganizing the college under the University of Georgia umbrella, Soule became dean of the UGA College of Agriculture.
The University of Georgia conferred two honorary degrees on President Soule, and he was named to the Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1972.
Andrew Soule was Georgia’s Federal Food Administrator during World War I, president of the American Association of Farmers’ Institute Workers, and vice president of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations.
He was a jurist at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition and a U. S. delegate to international congresses held in association with the Brazilian Centennial Exposition in 1922.
Did You Know?
Built in 1920, Soule Hall was the first women’s dormitory on the UGA campus. It was named after Andrew Soule, the president of the Georgia State College of Agriculture, who championed the creation of the home economics division and the admission of women at UGA. The dorm is still in use today.
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