This article is about a specific 19th-century movement in the United States. For other movements, see peasant movement.
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The farmers' movement was, in American political history, the general name for a movement between 1867 and 1896. In this movement, there were three periods, popularly known as the Grange, Alliance and Populist movements.[1]
The Grange, or Order of the Patrons of Husbandry (the latter official name of the national organization, while the former was the name of local chapters, including a supervisory National Grange at Washington), was a secret order founded in 1867 to advance the social needs and combat the economic backwardness of farm life.[1] It was founded by Oliver H. Kelley, at that time an official working in Washington DC for the Department of Agriculture. He had been sent to Virginia to assess Southern agricultural resources and practices. He found them to be generally poor, and became determined to found an organization of farmers for the dissemination of information. As a Government official from the North, he must have received a generally hostile reception, but he was a Mason, and ended by founding his organization on the structure of that order. In addition to farming practices, it was to provide insurance and benevolent aid to members.[2]
Kelley and other leaders promoted the equal status of women. The women formed active auxiliaries.[3]
The Grange grew remarkably during the early years: at its peak, its membership rose to 1.5 million. The causes of its growth were much broader than just the financial crisis of 1873; a high tariff, railway freight rates and other grievances were mingled with agricultural troubles like the fall of wheat prices and the increase of mortgages.[1][4]
The condition of the farmer seemed desperate. The original objects of the Grange were primarily educational, but these were soon overborne by an anti-middleman, co-operative movement. Grange agents bought everything from farm machinery to women's dresses; hundreds of grain elevators and cotton and tobacco warehouses were bought, and even steamboat lines; mutual insurance companies were formed and joint-stock stores. Nor was co-operation limited to distributive processes; crop reports were circulated, co-operative dairies multiplied, flour mills were operated, and patents were purchased, that the Grange might manufacture farm machinery.[1]
The outcome in some states was ruin[how?], and the name, Grange, became a reproach[why?]. Nevertheless, these efforts in co-operation were exceedingly important both for the results obtained and for their wider significance. Nor could politics be excluded, though officially taboo, for economics must be considered by social idealists, and economics everywhere ran into politics. Thus it was with the railway question.[1]
Railways had been extended into frontier states; there were heavy crops in sparsely settled regions where freight-rates were high, so that given the existing distributive system there were over production and waste; there was notorious stock manipulation and discrimination in rates; and the farmers regarded absentee ownership of railways by New York capitalists much as absentee ownership of land has been regarded in Ireland. The Grange officially disclaimed enmity to railways: Though the organization did not attack them, the Grangers, through political farmers clubs and the like, did. In 1867, the Grange began efforts to establish regulation of the railways as common-carriers, by the states. Such laws were known as Granger Laws, and their general principles, endorsed in 1876 by the Supreme Court of the United States, have become an important chapter in the laws of the land.[1]
In a declaration of principles in 1874 Grangers were declared not to be enemies of railroads, and their cause to stand for no communism nor agrarianism. To conservatives, however, cooperation seemed communism, and Grange laws agrarianism; thus, in 1873-1874, the growth of the movement aroused extraordinary interest and much uneasiness. In 1874, the order was reorganized, membership being limited to persons directly interested in the farmers' cause (there had been a millionaire manufacturers Grange on Broadway), and after this there were constant quarrels in the order; moreover, in 1875, the National Grange largely lost control of the state Granges, which discredited the organization by their disastrous co-operation ventures. Thus, by 1876, it had already ceased to be of national political importance.[1]
About 1880, a renaissance began, particularly in the Middle States and New England; this revival was marked by a recurrence to the original social and educational objects. The national Grange and state Granges (in all, or nearly all, of the states) were still active in 1909, especially in the old cultural movement and in such economic movements, notably the improvement of highways as most directly concern the farmers. The initiative and referendum, and other proposals of reform politics in the direction of a democratic advance, also enter in a measure into their propaganda.[1]
The Alliance carried the movement further into economics. The National Farmers Alliance and Industrial Union, formed in 1889, embraced several originally independent organizations (including The Agricultural Wheel) formed from 1873 onwards; it was largely confined to the South and was secret. The National Farmers Alliance, formed in 1880, went back similarly to 1877, was much smaller, Northern and non-secret. The Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union (formed 1888, merged in the above Southern Alliance in 1890) was the second greatest organization. With these three were associated many others, state and national, including an annual, non-partisan, deliberative and advisory Farmers National Congress. The Alliance movement reached its greatest power about 1890, in which year twelve national farmers organizations were represented in conventions in St Louis, and the six leading ones alone probably had a membership of 5,000,000. Membership usually included males or females above 16 years of age. As with the Grange, so in the ends and declarations of the whole later movement, concrete remedial legislation for agricultural or economic ills was mingled with principles of vague radical tendency and with lofty idealism.[1] Thus, the Southern Alliance in 1890 (the chief platforms were the one at Ocala, Florida, and that of 1889 at St Louis, Missouri, in conjunction with the Knights of Labor) declared its principles to be:
(1) To labour for the education of the agricultural classes in the science of economical government in a strictly non-partisan way, and to bring about a more perfect union of such classes. (2) To demand equal rights to all, and special privileges to none. (3) To endorse the motto: In things essential, unity; in all things, charity. (4) To develop a better state, mentally, morally, socially and financially - - - (6) To suppress personal, local, sectional and national prejudices.[5]
For the Southern farmer a chief concrete evil was the crop-lien system, mortgages on their future crops for furnished supplies by which cotton farmers fell into debt to country merchants. In the North, agricultural labor forces opposed a wide range of capitalistic legislation in solidarity with other industries, notably legislation sought by railway owners.[citation needed]
Practically all the great organizations demanded the abolition of national banks, the free coinage of silver, a sufficient issue of government paper money, tariff revision, and a secret ballot (the last was soon realized). Only less commonly demanded were an income tax, taxation of evidence of debt, and government loans on lands. All of these were principles of the two great Alliances (the Northern and the Southern), as were also pure food legislation, abolition of landholding by aliens, reclamation of unused or unearned land grants (to railways, e.g.), and either rigid federal regulation of railways and other means of communication or government ownership thereof. The Southern Alliance put in the forefront a subtreasury scheme according to which cheap loans should be made by government from local sub-treasuries on non-perishable farm products (such as grain and cotton) stored in government warehouses; while the Northern Alliance demanded restriction of the liquor traffic and for (a short time) woman suffrage. Still other issues were a modification of the patent laws (e.g., to prevent the purchase of patents to stifle competition), postal currency exchange, the eight-hour day, inequitable taxation, the single tax on land, trusts, educational qualification for suffrage, direct popular election of federal judges, of senators, and of the president, special-interest lobbying.[6]
In 1889-1890, with the rapid growth in membership, the political (non-partisan) movement developed astonishing strength; it captured the Republican stronghold of Kansas, brought the Democratic Party to vassalage in South Carolina, revolutionized legislatures even in conservative states like Massachusetts, and seemed likely completely to dominate the South and West. All its work in the South was accomplished within the old-party organizations, but, in 1890, the demand became strong for an independent third party, for which various consolidations since 1887 had prepared the way. By 1892, a large part of the strength of the farmers organizations, with that of various industrial and radical orders, was united in the People's Party (perhaps more generally known as the Populist Party), which had its beginnings in Kansas in 1890, and received national organization in 1892.[6]
The People's Party emphasized free silver, the income tax, eight-hour day, reclamation of land grants, government ownership of railways, telephones and telegraphs, popular election of federal senators, and the initiative and referendum. In the presidential election of 1892, it cast 1,041,021 votes (in a total of 12,036,089), and elected 22 presidential electors, the first chosen by any third party since 1856. In 1896, the People's Party fused with the Democratic Party in the presidential campaign, and again in 1900. During this period, the greatest part of the People's Party was reabsorbed into the two great parties from which its membership had originally been drawn; in some northern states apparently largely into the Republican ranks, but mainly into the Democratic Party, to which it gave a powerful radical impulse.[6]
Influence
The Farmers' movement was much misunderstood, abused and ridiculed by the societal forces it challenged. However, it accomplished a vast amount of good. The movement—and especially the Grange, for on most important points the latter movements only followed where it had led—contributed the initial impulse and prepared the way for the establishment of traveling and local rural libraries, reading courses, lyceums, farmers institutes (a steadily increasing influence) and rural free mail delivery (inaugurated experimentally in 1896 and adopted as part of the permanent postal system of the country in 1902); for agricultural exhibits and an improved agricultural press; for encouragement to and increased profit from the work of agricultural colleges, the establishment (1885) and great services of the United States Department of Agriculture, -- in short, for an extraordinary lessening of rural isolation and the betterment of the farmers opportunities; for the irrigation of the semi-arid West, adopted as a national policy in 1902, the pure-food laws of 1906, the interstate-commerce law of 1887, the railway-rate laws of 1903 and 1906, even the great Bureau of Commerce-and-Labor law of 1903, and the Anti-trust laws of 1903 and later. The Alliance and Populist movements were bottomed on the idea of "ethical gains through legislation."[6]
In its local manifestations the whole movement was often marked by eccentric ideas, narrow prejudices and weaknesses in economic reasoning. It is not to be forgotten that owing to the movement of the frontier the United States has always been "at once a developed country and a primitive one. The same political questions have been put to a society advanced in some regions and undeveloped in others. ... On specific political questions each economic area has reflected its peculiar interests" (Prof. F.J. Turner). That this idea must not, however, be over-emphasized, is admirably enforced by observing the great mass of farmer radicalism that has, since about 1896, become an accepted Democratic and Republican principle over the whole country. The Farmers movement was the beginning of widespread, effective protest against "the menace of privilege" in the United States.[6]
Agrarianism is a social and political philosophy that has promoted subsistence agriculture, family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Adherents of agrarianism tend to value traditional bonds of local community over urban modernity. Agrarian political parties sometimes aim to support the rights and sustainability of small farmers and poor peasants against the wealthy in society.
The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party or simply the Populists, was a left-wing agrarian populist political party in the United States in the late 19th century. The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but collapsed after it nominated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 United States presidential election. A rump faction of the party continued to operate into the first decade of the 20th century, but never matched the popularity of the party in the early 1890s.
The Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party (FL) was a left-wing American political party in Minnesota between 1918 and 1944. Largely dominating Minnesota politics during the Great Depression, it was one of the most successful statewide third party movements in United States history and the longest-lasting affiliate of the national Farmer–Labor movement. At its height in the 1920s and 1930s, party members included three Minnesota governors, four United States senators, eight United States representatives and a majority in the Minnesota legislature.
The history of the United States from 1865 until 1917 covers the Reconstruction era, the Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era, and includes the rise of industrialization and the resulting surge of immigration in the United States. This article focuses on political, economic, and diplomatic history.
The Greenback Party was an American political party with an anti-monopoly ideology which was active between 1874 and 1889. The party ran candidates in three presidential elections, in 1876, 1880 and 1884, before it faded away.
The Agricultural Wheel was a cooperative alliance of farmers in the United States. It was established in 1882 in Arkansas. A major founding organizers of the Agricultural Wheel was W. W. Tedford, an Arkansas farmer and school teacher. Like similar farmer organizations such as the Southern Farmers' Alliance, the Louisiana Farmers' Union. and the Brothers of Freedom, the Agricultural Wheel had been formed to expose and correct the injustices and oppressions done to the small farmers by merchants, grain elevators and the railroads. The Wheel promoted a radical agenda including currency expansion through free silver; closing all national banks; regulation or nationalization of the railroads, the telephones and the telegraph; allow only Americans to purchase public lands; impose an income tax on high incomes; and elect senators by popular election instead of by state legislatures. The Wheel encouraged farmers to join local cooperatives, avoid the debt cycle, and avoid one crop overemphasis on cotton.
The Grange, officially named The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, is a social organization in the United States that encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture. The Grange, founded after the Civil War in 1867, is the oldest American agricultural advocacy group with a national scope. The Grange actively lobbied state legislatures and Congress for political goals, such as the Granger Laws to lower rates charged by railroads, and rural free mail delivery by the Post Office.
Oliver Hudson Kelley was one of the key founders of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, a fraternal organization in the United States.
Marion Butler was an American politician, farmer, and lawyer. He represented North Carolina in the United States Senate for one term, serving between 1895 and 1901. At the time, he was a leader of the North Carolina Populist Party, and also affiliated with the Democratic Party and the Republican Party at different points in his career. He was the older brother of George Edwin Butler.
The Farmers' Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement among American farmers that developed and flourished ca. 1875. The movement included several parallel but independent political organizations — the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union among the white farmers of the South, the National Farmers' Alliance among the white and black farmers of the Midwest and High Plains, where the Granger movement had been strong, and the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, consisting of the African American farmers of the South.
The history of agriculture in the United States covers the period from the first English settlers to the present day. In Colonial America, agriculture was the primary livelihood for 90% of the population, and most towns were shipping points for the export of agricultural products. Most farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use. The rapid growth of population and the expansion of the frontier opened up large numbers of new farms, and clearing the land was a major preoccupation of farmers. After 1800, cotton became the chief crop in southern plantations, and the chief American export. After 1840, industrialization and urbanization opened up lucrative domestic markets. The number of farms grew from 1.4 million in 1850, to 4.0 million in 1880, and 6.4 million in 1910; then started to fall, dropping to 5.6 million in 1950 and 2.2 million in 2008.
Leonidas Lafayette Polk, or L.L. Polk, was an American farmer, journalist and political figure. He was a leader of the Farmers' Alliance and helped found the Populist Party.
The Ocala Demands was a platform for economic and political reform that was later adopted by the People's Party. In December, 1890, the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, more commonly known as the Southern Farmers' Alliance, its affiliate the Colored Farmers' Alliance, and the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association met jointly in the Marion Opera House in Ocala, Florida, where they adopted the Ocala Demands.
Charles William Macune was the head of the Southern Farmers' Alliance from 1886 to December 1889 and editor of its official organ, the National Economist, until 1892. He is remembered as the father of a failed cooperative enterprise by the Farmers' Alliance in Dallas, Texas, and as the creator of the Sub-Treasury Plan, an effort to provide low-cost credit to farmers through a network of government-owned commodity warehouses.
The Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union was formed in 1886 in Texas. Despite the fact that both black and white farmers faced great difficulties due to the rising price of farming and the decreasing profits which were coming from farming, the protective organization known as the Southern Farmers' Alliance did not allow black farmers to join. A group of black farmers decided to organize their own alliance, to fill their needs. The organization rapidly spread across the Southern United States, peaking with a membership of 1.2 million in 1891.
A peasant movement is a social movement involved with the agricultural policy, which claims peasants rights.
Crescent Grange Hall #512 is a former meeting hall of the Grange agricultural society in Linwood Township, Minnesota, United States. It was built from 1881 to 1882 by a chapter of the State Grange of Minnesota, the first state-level subdivision of the National Grange. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 for its local significance in the themes of agriculture and social history. It was nominated for being a well preserved example of an early meeting hall built by a subordinate Grange.
The latter part of the 19th century was a period of agrarian unrest in the Midwestern United States. From 1865 to 1896, farmer protests led to the formation of organized movements including the Grange, the Populist Party, the Greenbacks, and other alliances. Farmers cited the reasons for their unhappiness as declining prices, decreasing purchasing power, and monopolistic practices of: 1) moneylenders, 2) railroad corporations, and 3) other middlemen. Recent research has led scholars to question the validity of these explanations. Currently there is no scholarly consensus on the causes of agrarian discontent.
Agrarian socialism is a political ideology that promotes social ownership of agrarian and agricultural production as opposed to private ownership. Agrarian socialism involves equally distributing agricultural land among collectivized peasant villages. Many agrarian socialist movements have tended to be rural, locally focused, and traditional. Governments and political parties seeking agrarian socialist policies have existed throughout the world, in regions including Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Africa.
Populism in the United States reaches back to the Presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and to the People's Party in the 1890s. It has made a resurgence in modern-day politics in not only the United States but also democracies around the world. Populism is an approach to politics which views "the people" as being opposed to "the elite" and is often used as a synonym of anti-establishment; as an ideology, it transcends the typical divisions of left and right and has become more prevalent in the US with the rise of disenfranchisement and apathy toward the establishment. The definition of populism is a complex one as due to its mercurial nature; it has been defined by many different scholars with different focuses, including political, economic, social, and discursive features. Populism is often split into two variants in the US, one with a focus on culture and the other that focuses on economics.
Buck, Solon Justus. The Granger Movement: A Study of Agricultural Organization and Its Political, Economic and Social Manifestations, 1870-1880 (Harvard U Press, 1913) online.
Carstensen, Vernon (1974). Farmer Discontent 1865–1900. John Wiley & Sons.
Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. (Oxford University Press, 1978). ISBN0-19-502417-6.
Hahn, Steven. A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003).
Hicks, John D. The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party (University of Minnesota Press, 1931) online.
Jeffrey, Julie Roy. "Women in the Southern Farmers' Alliance: A Reconsideration of the Role and Status of Women in the Late Nineteenth-Century South." Feminist Studies 3.1/2 (1975): 72-91. online
Lester, Connie L. Up from the mudsills of hell: the Farmers' Alliance, populism, and progressive agriculture in Tennessee, 1870-1915 (U of Georgia Press, 2006) online.
Mayhew, Anne. "A reappraisal of the causes of farm protest in the United States, 1870–1900." Journal of Economic History 32.2 (1972): 464-475. online
Rothstein, Morton. "Farmer movements and organizations: Numbers, gains, losses." Agricultural history 62.3 (1988): 161-181. online
Saloutos, Theodore. Farmer movements in the South, 1865-1933 (1960).
Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of reform: farmers, workers, and the American state, 1877-1917 (U of Chicago Press, 1999) online.
Shannon, Fred A. The Farmer's Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897 (1945) online, a standard scholarly history
Shannon, Fred A. American farmers' movements (1957) a brief survey with primary documents online
Tontz, Robert L. "Memberships of general farmers' organizations, United States, 1874-1960." Agricultural History 38.3 (1964): 143-156. online
Woods, Thomas A. Knights of the Plow: Oliver H. Kelley and the Origins of the Grange in Republican Ideology (Iowa State University Press, 1991).
Primary and historic sources
Shannon, Fred A. American farmers' movements (1957) a brief survey with primary documents online
Chisholm 1911, p.182 states that: American periodicals, especially in 1890-1892, are particularly informing on the growth of the movement:
C. S. Walker and F. J. Foster in Annals of American Academy (1894); iv. p.790
Senator W. A. Peffer in Cosmopolitan (1890), x. p.694
Political Science Quarterly, iv. (1889), p.433, by W. F. Mappin; v. (1890), p.65, by J. P. Dunn; xi. (1896), pp.433, 601, xii. (1897), p.93, and xiv. (1899), p.444, by C. F. Emerick
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