Born on a farm in the town of Lisbon, northwest of the village of Sussex, in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, on July 2, 1896, Arthur F. Wileden spent his youth on four different Waukesha County farms while his father (in the words of the son) attempted to “climb the agricultural ladder.” Arthur Wileden's half century of teaching, which culminated in 1966 with elevation to the rank of emeritus professor of rural sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, began at Ottawa school district #1, near Dousman, Wisconsin. Influenced considerably by elementary school teacher Henry G. Brock at the North Lisbon school, Wileden viewed the process of learning as one that extends beyond classroom walls and instinctively developed unorthodox teaching methods to put his belief into practice. Over the years his thousands of students, ranging from those enrolled in the agricultural short course to doctoral candidates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were subjected to a teaching and research strategy that took them far beyond the walls of the classroom.
In both teaching and research, Wileden's instincts remained essentially those of a generalist as opposed to the specialized social scientist of today. Wileden's community organization research and analysis, beginning in the 1920's, by the mid-1940's had quite naturally led him into an area now called rural community development. Wileden's key ideas and contributions to the field, developed from a half century of experience and observation, are embodied in Community Development: The Dynamics of Planned Change (1970). Other publications as well as a listing of professional and personal activities are contained in Wileden's vita, filed in the Historical Society's Archives Division.
