Creator: Jeffie O. Connor
Title of Collection: Jeffie O. Connor Papers
Dates:1934 –1948
Extent: 0.5 linear feet (1 box)
Abstract: Jeffie Obrea Allen Conner was a cooperative extension worker who served as supervisor of home demonstration activities in seventeen East Texas counties and for McLennan County schools from 1948-1957. The Jeffie Conner Papers document the extension services activities of Negro Extension agents in Texas from 1934-1948.
Biographical Note: Jeffie Obrea Allen Conner was a cooperative extension worker who served as supervisor of home demonstration activities in seventeen East Texas counties and for McLennan County schools from 1948-1957.
Born August 17, 1895, Jeffie was the eldest child of Meddie Lilian and Jeff D. Allen. She grew up on her family’s farm in Harrison Switch, a small African American community in McLennan County. She attended Prairie View Normal School where she earned a teaching certificate in 1914. After graduating she returned to McLennan County and taught in several rural schools before she married a Waco doctor named George S. Conner in the 1920s.
Conner also left her job as a teacher the same year and accepted a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), as a home demonstration agent. Founded in 1912, the demonstration program sought to improve the quality of life in African American communities by teaching rural girls homemaking skills. With the help of federal funding and statewide organization, the program soon grew and provided jobs to African American women, who supported farm families by supplementing clothing, undertaking home improvement projects, and funding scholarships.
Due to racial segregation, which had been codified into federal law in 1896 after the Plessy v. Ferguson SCOTUS decision, Conner only worked with African American families. She stayed with her husband in Waco on the weekends and traveled throughout McLennan County during the week, staying in private homes, because segregation kept her from staying in hotels. With years of experience growing up on a farm, as well as teacher training, she proved an effective county agent. She taught practical skills, such as sewing, medical care, personal hygiene, and homemaking, and she also proved prodigious in helping rural schools prevent the spread of germs. Most school children, at the time, drank water from a shared ladle, but due to her influence, schools began offering individual drinking cups for schoolchildren.
Conner returned to Prairie View in the 1930s, and she earned a bachelor’s degree in home economics. After receiving her degree, she was promoted to supervisor of home demonstration agents for Central Texas. After her husband passed away in 1939, Conner returned to Prairie View in 1944 to pursue earning her master’s degree in home economics.
Conner left her position with the home demonstration program in 1948, and accepted a position as supervisor of the Black schools of McLennan County, where she fought to reform this injustice. Over the next four years, she made the most of the limited resources by consolidating thirty-five schools into fourteen.
Having accomplished the goal of school consolidation, Conner retired in 1952. She served as president of the Texas Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. In 1966, Governor John Connally asked her to work on the State’s Committee on Public School Education. She was president of the Texas Association of Colored Women's Clubs and a member of the State Committee on Public School Education, and an active member of New Hope Baptist Church until her death on June 9, 1972. Conner was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Waco, Texas.
Arrangement: Arranged in one series chronologically by date.
Series 1 Correspondence, 1934-1948
Identification: UA 0005
Repository: Special Collections/Archives Department, John B. Coleman Library, Prairie View A&M University
Access Restrictions: The collection is open for research.
Identification: UA 0005
Use Restrictions: Written permission must be obtained from the Special Collections/ Archives Department and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts, or images from any materials in this collection.
Language: English
Repository: Special Collections/Archives Department, John B. Coleman Library, Prairie View A&M University
Preferred Citation:Jeffie Connors Papers. UA 0005. Special Collections/Archives Department, John B. Coleman Library, Prairie View A&M University.
Connors, Jeffie, 1895-1972 Agricultural extension work—Texas
Home demonstration work
Cooperative Extension
4-H Clubs
Negro 4-H Clubs
Correspondence
African American Women—Texas
Agricultural extension workers—Texas--20th Century
Home demonstration work—Texas—History--20th Century
Inventory
Series 1 Correspondence
This series contains incoming and outgoing letters related to extension services in Texas.
Box Folder
1 1 Correspondence, 1934 -1939
2 Correspondence, 1942- 1943
3 Correspondence, 1944
4 Correspondence, 1945
5 Correspondence, January- June 1946
6 Correspondence, September - December 1946
7 Correspondence, January 1947
8 Correspondence, February 1947
9 Correspondence, March 1947
10 Correspondence, April 1947
11 Correspondence, May 1947
12 Correspondence, June 1947
13 Correspondence, July 1947
14 Correspondence, August 1947
15 Correspondence, September 1947
16 Correspondence, October 1947
17 Correspondence, November 1947
18 Correspondence, December 1947
19 Correspondence, January 1948
20 Correspondence, February 1948
21 Correspondence, March 1948
22 Correspondence, April 1948
23 Correspondence, May 1948
24 Correspondence, June 1948
25 Correspondence, July 1948
26 Correspondence, August 1948
27 Correspondence, September 1948
28 Correspondence, October 1948
29 Correspondence, November 1948
30 Correspondence, December 1948
31 Telegrams and Postcards, 1946-1948
32 Letters, undated
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