Stellar educator at three major universities, charter member of the American Society of Animal Nutrition and major contributor to a national campaign to eradicate bovine tuberculosis.
1872-1962 | Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876-1936)
Impact & Accomplishments
Howard Remus Smith was born in Somerset, Michigan, and earned his bachelor’s degree from Michigan Agricultural College in 1895. For four years, he taught chemistry and physics at the high school level, while in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin.
He taught for one year at University of Missouri, and then from 1900 to 1912, was one of the first two faculty members hired for the University of Nebraska College of Agriculture, rising to professor and head of the animal husbandry department. During the period of 1905 to 1908, H. R. Smith was on the organizing committee of the American Society of Animal Nutrition, becoming a charter member and helping to establish the organization’s first annual meetings during the International Live Stock Exposition in Chicago.
He then headed the animal husbandry department at the University of Minnesota for three years. From 1915 to 1917, Smith was livestock specialist for the First National Bank of St. Paul and the Great Northern Railroad, and in 1917, he became livestock commissioner for the National Livestock Exchange, where he helped to launch a national campaign to eradicate bovine tuberculosis, publishing some of the most significant works on the subject.
H. R. Smith was president of the National Agricultural Society from 1918 to 1920. From 1934 until his retirement in 1951, he was general manager of the National Livestock Loss Prevention Board. The University of Nebraska awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1944.
Did You Know?
H.R. Smith published some of the most significant works on the subject of bovine TB and was a critical component of the launch of the national campaign to eradicate bovine TB. This Texas vehicle was an example of the educational effort.
The National Tuberculosis Eradication Program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), State animal health agencies, and U.S. livestock producers, has nearly eradicated bovine TB from the Nation's livestock population since the program's inception in 1917. The presence of bovine TB in humans has also been reduced as a result of several factors, including the eradication program and pasteurization of milk. Many consider this one of the great animal and public health achievements in the United States.