John Rector Barton was born on a farm near Fayette, Missouri, on September 23, 1897. He attended school in Fayette, graduating from high school in 1916. He studied three years at Central College in Fayette, moved to Ohio State for a short time, and then spent the rest of the 1919-20 school year teaching social sciences at Pinson College, a Methodist mission college in Camaguey, Cuba. He returned to Central College in 1920, and received his B.A. in 1921.
The governor of Missouri appointed Barton as chaplain and physical director of a state reform school where he remained until enrolling in Yale Divinity School in the fall of 1922. He received a B.D. degree from Yale in 1925 and then did graduate work in the sociology of religion, completing the requirements for a master's degree. During the summer of 1926, Barton served as private secretary to Sir Wilfred Grenfell during a medical mission to Labrador. He began graduate work in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1927. In June 1928, he married Rebecca Chalmers.
At the end of the summer they accepted an offer to teach at the International People's College in Elsinore, Denmark. During their seven years in Denmark, Barton taught sociology and international relations and served as Acting Director of the school between 1933 and 1935. Barton also did research on the Danish cooperative movement and Danish folk schools. At the invitation of Dean Chris L. Christensen of the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture, Barton spent several winter sessions in Madison teaching the Farm Short Course. The Barton's two children, Eloise and Norman, were born in Denmark.
Concerned about Hitler's rise in Germany, the Bartons returned to the United States in 1935. In 1936, Barton received a temporary appointment as assistant professor of rural sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and started teaching the Farm Short Course on a yearly basis. The temporary appointment was extended, and Barton served as Director of the Farm Short Course from 1942 to 1945. He was named an associate professor in 1942.
During his 25 years at the UW, Barton was heavily involved with many clubs and organizations devoted to agriculture and rural life. He was one of the main organizers of the Wisconsin Rural Life conferences between 1938 and 1951, and he worked with the American Country Life Association and the Blue Shield Country Life Club. In 1939, Barton prepared a research project on Danish rural social organization and spent that summer doing background research in Denmark. The start of World War II prevented the project from being carried out.
One of Barton's major interests was rural art. His work with John Steuart Curry, U.W. Artist in Residence, and his annual rural art shows, led him to produce the book Rural Artists of Wisconsin, a series of biographical sketches on 30 Wisconsin artists, published in 1948. Barton also served on the committee which selected Aaron Bohrod to serve as Artist in Residence after Curry's death in 1946.
Between 1947 and 1959, Barton was a member of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, serving as chairman from 1951 to 1953. His work led him to co-author The Public Library in Wisconsin with Dr. Franklin Rector in 1951.
Poor health forced Barton to retire from teaching in 1962. He and his wife moved to Santa Barbara, California, where he died on March 17, 1965.
