---
title: "Jeremiah M. Rusk"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Jeremiah McLain Rusk"
aliases: ["Jeremiah M. Rusk","J. M. Rusk"]
first_seen: "2026-09-10T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["US Weather Bureau","Department of Agriculture","Signal Corps","Adolphus Greely","agricultural lobbying"]
seek_code_commit: "98503b7"
---


Union Army general, three-term governor of Wisconsin, and the first US
Secretary of Agriculture (1889–93), appointed when Agriculture was elevated
to a Cabinet-level department. Matters to this vault as the civilian-side
driver of the 1890–91 transfer of the US weather service from the Army
Signal Corps to a new Weather Bureau housed in his department: per Bob
Glahn's NOAA-published institutional history, Rusk, "head of the very new
Department of Agriculture, wanted the weather responsibility"
([[claim-1880s-agricultural-lobby-pressure-drove-weather-bureau-transfer]]),
the executive-branch counterpart to Chief Signal Officer
[[entity-adolphus-greely|Adolphus Greely]]'s non-opposition to losing it
([[claim-1890-organic-act-split-civilian-weather-duties-from-army-signal-corps]]).

## References
- [[claim-1880s-agricultural-lobby-pressure-drove-weather-bureau-transfer]]
- [[claim-1890-organic-act-split-civilian-weather-duties-from-army-signal-corps]]