Virginia Claypool Meredith (November 5, 1848 – December 10, 1936) was an American farmer and livestock breeder, a writer and lecturer on the topics of agriculture and home economics, and an active clubwoman and a leader of women's organizations.

Meredith chose an unusual vocation for women of her time, successfully managing the day-to-day operations of her family's Indiana farm from 1882 until 1915.

[1][2][3] Newton Claypool, her paternal grandfather, was an early Indiana pioneer from Virginia who brought his wife from Ohio to settle in the wilderness.

[1] Following their marriage the young couple resided at General Meredith's Oakland Farm, settling into the family's Federal-style home along the National Road near Cambridge City, Indiana.

While her husband served in the state legislature, Virginia Meredith oversaw the management of the family farm and began to show and sell livestock.

When she was widowed at the age of thirty-three, after her thirty-eight-year-old husband died from pneumonia on July 5, 1882, Virginia Meredith became sole owner of the family farm and assumed management of its operation.

In the 1880s Meredith began speaking at Farmers' Institutes, forerunner to the Cooperative Extension Service, addressing audiences on various agricultural subjects.

Meredith was a writer and editor for several years for the Breeders' Gazette, a livestock journal,[9][10] and is considered the first woman to be hired by Purdue University's Agricultural Extension Department.

[17] Between 1897 and 1903 Meredith served for six years as head of the home economic department at Minnesota, in addition to spending time at her Indiana farm when school was not in session.

[10][17] Meredith returned to Indiana on a permanent basis following a disagreement with Frederich D. Ticker, the School of Agriculture's principal, that later led the University of Minnesota's board to request both of their resignations.

[7] After returning to Indiana, Meredith resumed speaking at farmers' institutes while lobbying for support to establish a home economics program at Purdue University.

"[18] She gave up day-to-day management of her Cambridge City farm in 1915 due to her advancing age and moved to West Lafayette, Indiana, in 1916 to live with her adopted daughter, Mary Matthews.

Her public lectures and lobbying efforts also helped to pave the way toward the establishment in 1905 of a home economics department at Purdue University, predecessor to its present-day College of Consumer and Family Sciences.