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Camp: 146
Unit ID: 1
Operating agency: BSC
Opened: 7 1945
Closed: 6 1946
Workers
Total number of workers who worked in this camp: 5
CPS Unit No. 146, an Agricultural Experiment Station unit located in the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, opened in July 1945. Administered by the Brethren Service Committee, the unit closed in June 1946. The four men alleviated labor shortages in the departments of animal husbandry and poultry husbandry.
Director: Wilbur Stucky
Men in Brethren camps and units tended to report diverse religious affiliation when they entered CPS, although the Brethren projects usually included about half of the men who reported affiliation with Brethren groups.
Men in Brethren projects reported considerably more education and professional experience than those who enlisted in the Army and Navy, and brought an average of 12.22 years of education. Twenty-one percent reported having completed one-three years of college, nine percent had graduated from college, and nine percent completed some postgraduate work. (Sibley and Jacob p. 171)
More men in both Mennonite and Brethren camps entered CPS from rural areas while men in Friends camps and units tended to enter from urban areas. Twenty-nine percent of men in Brethren camps reported their occupation as farming or other agricultural work upon entering CPS. Thirty-four percent of men reported their occupation as technical and professional work or business management, sales and public administration. (Sibley and Jacob p. 172)
Four men helped alleviate labor shortages in the departments of Animal Husbandry and Poultry Husbandry. All of the work related to teaching and research in the departments.
Three of the men worked in the experimental dairy farm assisting with the routine farm work of growing hay, preparing silage and grain crops for the herd. They worked as well in the dairy barn assisting in the feeding, milking and management of the cows.
One man worked in poultry caring for a flock of chickens.
During the life of the unit, the men completed 812 days of project work, according to statistics found in Selective Service Form DSS 52. (reported in Eisan p. 236)
The men lived in a boarding house on the university farm along with other single employees. The unit permitted married men to live elsewhere if they wished to provide their own living quarters.
As was true in other agricultural experiment station units, the men followed their own interests in off-duty hours at the organizations and facilities available on the campus and in town.
For more information on Brethren agricultural units see Leslie Eisan, Pathways of Peace: A History of the Civilian Public Service Program Administered by the Brethren Service Committee. Elgin, IL: Brethren Publishing House, 1948, Chapter 7 pp. 239-272.
For more information on women COs see Rachel Waltner Goossen, Women Against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and Gender on the American Home Front, 1941-47. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
See also Mulford Q. Sibley and Philip E. Jacob, Conscription of Conscience: The American State and the Conscientious Objector, 1940-47. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1952.
Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Camp periodicals database.