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Plays, Paintings, Preserves. The substantial background behind all this hullabaloo was a vast miscellany of activities without which a Fair would not be a Fair. There were countless lectures by Iowa professors, social workers, Farm Bureau Federation executives on interior decoration, weaving, child psychology, farm plumbing, "Childhood Then & Now," "The Farm Woman A World Citizen." And on shelf after shelf, through aisle after aisle were stacked the products that Iowa's women had wrought from their gardens, cook stoves and work baskets. Nine hundred prizes were offered for twelve kinds of bread and rolls, 15 kinds of layer cake, 13 kinds of loaf cake, cookies, candy, popcorn balls, potato chips, spiced apples, pickles, jellies, jams, conserves, canned fruit, sun preserved fruits; for the best pillow case, cross-stitched spread, French knot spread, Cluny centerpiece, six-piece doily set, crocheted infants' socks, cutwork, Roman embroidery, boy's suit made from cast-off garments, rompers, Afghan, artificial flowers, pieced quilt, hand-painted cake plates (professional and amateur), fruit group, picnic table. Money winnings were small (first prize: $2), but eminently satisfying to the victor was the distinction of being known as a right smart housewife back home.
Also along with the products of the barn, field and home, the Fair judged Iowa's humanity. Counties sent their candidates for healthiest boy and girl, and parents from all over the State vied with each other for the healthiest baby. When the infants had been run through the medical mill like cars in straight-line production, a solemn-eyed tot named Jimmy Miller Huntley of Ames emerged as the grand champion sweepstakes winner with a health score of 99.1%.
When it comes to a painting, Iowa gets right down to fundamentals. It divides all pictorial art into two simple classes: "Conservative" which looks like what it is supposed to be and "Modernist," which does not. Last year the "Conservatives" were indignant when a "Modernist" won the Art Salon sweepstakes prize. This year they managed to elect a judge of their own choosing, Landscapist Frederic Tellander of Chicago. Great was their chagrin when Judge Tellander looked over the lot, selected River Bend by Marvin Cone, art instructor at Coe College, Cedar Rapids. Good friend of famed Grant Wood, Artist Cone showed that eminent Iowan's stylistic influence. River Bend was a sweep of stream and a bent road over a round hill nibbled at the bottom by a quarry, all huddled under a low sky of close-flapping clouds. On Manhattan's 57th Street it would have delighted dilettantes. But Iowa "Conservatives" sent up a howl because the river was grey and did not look enough like water. Judge Tellander also gave a prize to a Country Gas Station by Harry D. Jones of Des Moines, which showed pumps leaning crazily on a steep hill. Secretary Alice McKee Gumming of the Iowa Art Guild damned this as a caricature. It was all most painful to Zenobia Ness, instructor in the home economics department of the State College at Ames and supervisor of the Fair's Art Salon. Tactfully taking no sides, she could not help admitting: "It certainly was a surprise."