Jules Cool Cunningham (1878-1948) was a professor of Horticulture at Iowa State. He came to the college in 1911 and rose through the ranks to full professor by 1917. In 1935, he was assigned to the Bulletin Division of the Agriculture Experiment Station. One of his projects was to create and maintain a bibliography of corn. Cunningham quickly started to gain a reputation as a corn historian.
Cunningham had the idea to establish a National Maize Museum at Iowa State. He began a collection of corn related artifacts and archeologically recovered samples of corn. These samples came from sites in the American Southwest, Arkansas, Mexico and Peru. Artifacts he collected included prehistoric pottery, corn grinding and processing stones, and 19th century corn planting and harvesting tools including a mill stone. The idea for a museum gained traction throughout the college even receiving the attention of then college President Friley. The college’s need for housing for retuning students using the G.I. Bill after World War II overshadowed the idea of a corn museum and soon thereafter the idea’s proponent, Cunningham, died in 1948. What happened to these maize/corn collections is a mystery.
Cunningham and Christian Petersen had a friendship. In 1936, Petersen made a portrait bust of Cunningham. According to Petersen biographer Patricia Bliss, Cunningham was the source of an Osage chant that influenced Petersen’s concept for the Fountain of the Four Seasons sculptures.
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