Before going to graduate school, Banfield got an undergraduate degree in English and worked for the federal government as a public information officer.

Professor Mordecai Lee and I (Kevin R. Kosar) have published an article in the January 2013 issue of Federal History journal on this period of Banfield’s life. We had toyed with the idea of titling it, “Edward C. Banfield: The Liberal Who Got Mugged On the Way to the Academy.”

Instead, the article is the less cheeky, “Defending a Controversial Agency: Edward C. Banfield As Farm Security Agency Public Relations Officer, 1941–1946.”

We drew heavily upon mid-1940s memoranda and other materials authored by Banfield himself for the progressive Farm Security Administration.