Arthur F. Wileden was born in Waukesha County, Wisconsin on July 2, 1896. He received his early education at Menomonee Falls High School and Milwaukee State Teachers College, after which he taught for four years at Ottawa #1 Rural School in Waukesha County. He then attended the University of Wisconsin and received his B.S. in Agricultural Education in 1924, and his M.S. in Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology in 1925. He married Harriet McKinley Acklam on June 23, 1926 and they have two children: Mary Wileden Binning and John Frederick Wileden.
In 1925 he began his teaching career at the University of Wisconsin in Rural Sociology where he taught from 1925 to 1965, and where he continues to act as an Emeritus Professor of Rural Sociology. He was also a Social Science Research Council Fellow (1928-1929) at Cornell University and carried out additional advanced study at Columbia University (1926) and the University of Chicago (1929). His other activities include memberships in numerous organizations such as the North Central Rural Sociology Committee of Wisconsin. In 1957 he was elected President of the American Country Life Association and in recent years has served as a consultant to many different organizations and agencies (e.g. Wisconsin Farm Bureau, Field Staff of Cooperative Extension Service, American Baptist Convention-Rural Program) in their attempts to adjust to rapidly changing conditions.
In the course of his academic career he has published four books: Making Good Communities Better, with Irwin Sanders and others, 1950, revised 1953; Rural Community Development, 1961; A Place to Live, with others, 1963; and Community Development, A Process Approach, 1965. He is now working on a fifth book with J. P. Schmidt and others, Rural Sociologist Practitioner. He has also published numerous articles in such professional journals and magazines as Rural America and the Journal of Rural Sociology, in addition to many bulletins and circulars.
