William D. Hoard


Episode Artwork
1.0x
0% played 00:00 00:00
Apr 08 2025 2 mins   1
fWotD Episode 2896: William D. Hoard

Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.

The featured article for Wednesday, 9 April 2025 is William D. Hoard.

William Dempster Hoard (October 10, 1836 – November 22, 1918) was an American politician, newspaper publisher, and agriculture advocate who served as the 16th governor of Wisconsin from 1889 to 1891. Called the "father of modern dairying", Hoard's advocacy for scientific agriculture and the expansion of dairy farming has been credited with changing Wisconsin's agricultural economy. He promoted the use of silos and alfalfa for cattle feed, testing for bovine tuberculosis, and raising particular breeds of cattle for milk or meat in his magazine Hoard's Dairyman. His work with the Wisconsin Dairymen's Association led to the export of Wisconsin dairy products to the East Coast and they earned national renown.

As editor of his newspaper, the Jefferson County Union, Hoard defied trends of the time for small newspapers by expanding the coverage area of the paper and including a strongly voiced editorial page, which he used to advocate for improved farming practices and dairy farming. As governor of Wisconsin, Hoard established the Dairy and Food Commission—one of the first food inspection agencies in the United States—and passed a controversial, short-lived compulsory education law that required all students in the state to be taught in English as part of the Americanization process for immigrants.

This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Wednesday, 9 April 2025.

For the full current version of the article, see William D. Hoard on Wikipedia.

This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.

Follow us on Mastodon at @[email protected].

Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.

Until next time, I'm neural Ayanda.