Soil erosion is an age-old problem recorded in many documents of human civilizations. In the United States, Simms traces concern for soil erosion, and attempts to combat it, back to the very first European settlers. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) bulletins on soil erosion date back at least to "Washed Soils: How to Prevent and Reclaim Them," dated 1894.

The contemporary Soil Conservation Service (SCS) was predated by the Bureau of Soils in the USDA, later called the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. The catalyst for an action agency was Hugh Hammond Bennett, a soils scientist who went to work for the Bureau of Soils in 1903. From his urging, the USDA published the classic circular on "Soil Erosion, A National Menace," in 1928. Further pressure by Bennett resulted in the establishment of a temporary agency, the Soil Erosion Service, in the U.S. Department of...