Home| Introduction | Literature Review | Data Analysis | Conclusion | Sources

The scientific education movement and garden study movement contributed to the environment from which the USGA was able to arise. During its tenure, the USGA perpetuated nationalistic views inspired by the pioneer ideal through organizational structure, labor, and imagery. This was a reaction both to the needs created by WWI and increasing urbanization, which threatened the pioneer image of the nation and masculinity. While urbanization started to establish the idea of children as consumers, the USGA framed children as having agency and participating in the civic sphere as meaningful producers with pioneer-like trappings. However, the USGA was a short-lived program, and popular interpretations of what school gardens were for started to shift soon after it ended, so its long-term impact on the interpretation of the civic role of children was likely minimal.

Future areas of research could include comparing the School Garden Army and its advertising to the Victory Gardens of WWII or present-day school gardens. This comparison could be a useful way to illuminate differences in societal values and expectations for children across generations. It would also be interesting to compare present-day school gardens in the US to those in other countries that did not have similar programs to the USGA, in order to determine what lingering effects the USGA may have on present-day programs. Finally, one dimension of the USGA that could be explored in deeper depth is gender and how that influenced expectations and experiences of students within the USGA given the masculine-oriented pioneer ideal.