"American Country Life chronicles both rural living in the 20th century and an organization that championed the interests of rural people for many of those years. It offers lessons about changing values, appraisals and uses of rural space, and organizational development and survival. The American Country Life Association was the direct descendant of Theodore Roosevelt's historic Country Life Commission. The ACLA became an umbrella organization representing all major farm organizations, most mainline churches, educational and health organizations, youth groups, universities, and governmental agencies at all levels." "The ACLA held that rural meant more than agriculture. Its leaders and adherents were more concerned with farmers than farms, rural people than rural industries. This "people" orientation fostered ACLA's community view of rural development and predated much current thinking about well being in the countryside." "The relation of land to people is the essence of rural. ACLA's history paralleled a shift in public perception of space as isolation to space as insulation from urban density. This book honors the primacy of space and, in its final chapter, considers space - its increasing scarcity - in the 21st century."--BOOK JACKET.