Nelson Antrim Crawford is professor of industrial journalism and superintendent of printing with the Kansas State Agricultural College. For several years he was instructor in English in the Agricultural College but has been head of the journalism work since April, 1914.
In his special department he has done important work for the Agricultural College. For several years of his early life he was a newspaper reporter and was thus no stranger to the practical phases of journalism when he came to his present position. He has in the past two years increased the work of the department threefold. By virtue of being professor of industrial journalism he is also editor of The Kansas Industrialist, the organ of the Kansas State Agricultural College, and has charge of the college advertising and publicity. He is also editor of The Kansas Churchman, the official paper of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas.
He was born at Miller, South Dakota, but was reared at Council Bluffs, Iowa, where for many years his father practiced law. His father, Nelson Antrim Crawford, Sr., was born in Ohio of Scotch lineage, the Crawfords being an old Pennsylvania family. The senior Crawford married Fannie Vandercook, who was born in Wisconsin of Holland Dutch origin. She is directly descended from New York Knickerbocker ancestry, and one of her forefathers was Simon Vandercook, an officer in the American Revolution. The presence of this ancestor in his family tree gives Professor Crawford memberships in the Sons of the Revolution.
Both Mr. Crawford’s parents were teachers in Dakota Territory, and while there they met and married. Subsequently they moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and many years later to Lincoln, Nebraska, where they now reside. They had two sons, the younger of whom is Robert Platt Crawford, a practical newspaper man and journalist.
After graduating from the Council Bluffs High School, Nelson A. Crawford spent several years in newspaper work, and then entered the State University of Iowa, where he was graduated B. A. in 1910. In the fall of that year he came to the Kansas State Agricultural College to become instructor in English. Later he was assistant professor of English, and resigned that position in July, 1914, to accept his present post. While teaching English at Manhattan he was also a student in the University of Kansas, and in 1914 received his Master of Arts degree.
Mr. Crawford is a member of the American Association of Teachers of Journalism; is vice president of the American Association of Agricultural College Editors; is a member of the American Dialect Society; of the Society of the Quill; of the Kansas Editorial Association; of the Kansas Authors’ Club. He is a former president of the Kansas Association of Teachers of English. He is now president of the Manhattan Press Club, and an associate member of the Topeka Press Club. Many articles from his pen that have been published in magazines attest his individual literary talents.
Mr. Crawford belongs to Phi Kappa Phi, scholarship society, and to Sigma Delta Chi, honorary journalism fraternity, and is also a Knight Templar. He is very prominent in the Episcopal Church, being a vestryman of the church at Manhattan, and in 1917 was a delegate to the Synod of the Province of the Southwest.