“C” is for Camp, Wofford Benjamin (1894-1986)

“C” is for Camp, Wofford Benjamin (1894-1986). Agriculturalist, entrepreneur. Born near Gaffney, Camp attended Clemson where he majored in agronomy with a special emphasis on cotton breeding. In 1917 he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cotton Section. The agency sent Camp to California to conduct cotton experiments. With the boll weevil ravaging the South, the agency hoped to foster cotton culture west of the Rocky Mountains. Camp introduced the long staple Pima variety in California’s San Joaquin Valley and as far south as Arizona. Californians hailed him as the state’s Cotton Man.” In the 1930s he went to Washington as a policy maker with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Returning to California, he began his own farming operation. Wofford Benjamin Camp prospered and endowed institutions in California as well as his native South Carolina.