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Pollock, Josephine H. (1899-2001)
Josephine Pollock is perhaps best remembered for two things: her development of a training program for Wisconsin Extension service and her extensive handkerchief collection. When Pollock came to UW in 1937, she already had extensive experience in home economics and extension. After earning her MA at the University of Iowa in Child Development and Adult Education, she taught home economics in South Dakota, acted as an extension home advisor in Illinois, and worked as a clothing and child development specialist in Montana. Pollock's first job at UW was as the assistant state leader of the home economics cooperative extension program, during which she supervised the 18 counties with home agents. In 1946, after spending six months in Washington DC in the office of Extension Research and Training, Pollock developed the "on-the-job" training program for extension agents, one of the first of its kind in the nation. New extension agents followed a five-step training program, with one of the steps consisting of working with experienced mentors in the field. Pollock's training program was so successful that as of 1962, all Wisconsin agricultural, 4-H, and farm and home development agents were required to complete the program. When Pollock retired in 1962, she left Wisconsin's extension program with strong foundation. Pollock also earned recognition for her handkerchief collection, which began by accident when a 4-H seminar threw her a handkerchief shower. Pollock's collection consisted of 995 handkerchiefs and 22 notebooks of historical information and documentation. The handkerchiefs came from around the world and provided a kind of documentation of cultural trends. Although Pollock's collection spanned only the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, she had a personal knowledge of handkerchiefs through the ages. In 1984, Pollock donated her entire collection to the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, where it currently serves as a research and educational tool. |
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