The Grain Growers' Guide

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The Grain Growers' Guide
Grain Growers' Guide Cover 7 February 1912.png
Cover of the 7 February 1912 issue of The Grain Growers' Guide
Publisher Grain Growers' Grain Company,
United Grain Growers
Founded1908
Ceased publication1936
ISSN 0383-7157

The Grain Growers' Guide (later called the Country Guide) was a newspaper published by the Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC) in Western Canada for grain farmers between 1908 and 1936. It reflected the views of the grain growers' associations. In its day it had the highest circulation of any farm paper in the region.

Grain Growers Grain Company

The Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC) was a farmers' cooperative founded in the prairie provinces of western Canada in 1906. The GGGC met strong resistance from existing grain dealers. It was forced off the Winnipeg Grain Exchange and almost failed. With help from the Manitoba government it regained its seat on the exchange, and soon had a profitable grain trading business. The company founded the Grain Growers' Guide, which became the most popular farmer's newspaper in the region. In 1912 the GGGC began operating inland and terminal grain elevators, and in 1913 moved into the farm supply business. The GGGC was financially secure and owned or operated almost 200 elevators as well as 122 coals sheds and 145 warehouses by the time it merged with the Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company to form the United Grain Growers in 1917.

Contents

Foundation

The agrarian activist Edward Alexander Partridge felt that the press had given unfair treatment of the struggle in 1906–07 to get the Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC) off the ground, and helped organize a farmers' publication. [1] The first issue of The Grain Growers' Guide appeared in June 1908, as the official organ of the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association (MGGA). [2] It was edited by Partridge. [3] It was published by the Grain Growers' Grain Company through its subsidiary, Public Press Limited. [4]

Edward Alexander Partridge Canadian teacher, farmer, agrarian radical, businessman and author

Edward Alexander Partridge was a Canadian teacher, farmer, agrarian radical, businessman and author. He was born in Ontario but moved to Saskatchewan where he taught and then became a farmer. He was active in the Territorial Grain Growers' Association (TGGA), founded in 1902, which addressed various problems with the Western Canada grain market. He founded the cooperative Grain Growers' Grain Company, the predecessor of the United Grain Growers, and the Grain Growers' Guide, a widely distributed weekly paper. His "Partridge Plan" was a broad and visionary proposal for addressing a wide range of farmers' issues, eliminating many abuses caused by the near-monopoly of grain elevator companies, and resulted in important reforms by the provincial governments. Patridge was named a National Historic Person in 2018.

The Manitoba Grain Growers' Association (MGGA) was a farmer's association that was active in Manitoba, Canada in the first two decades of the 20th century. It provided a voice for farmers in their struggle with grain dealers and the railways, and was influential in obtaining favorable legislation. The MGGA supported the Grain Growers' Grain Company, a cooperative of prairie farmers, and its organ the Grain Growers' Guide. At first it remained neutral politically, but in 1920 it restructured as the United Farmers of Manitoba in preparation for becoming a political party.

History

George Fisher Chipman (1882-1935), editor for most of the guide's history George Fisher Chipman (1882-1935).jpg
George Fisher Chipman (1882–1935), editor for most of the guide's history

Partridge thought the guide should be a militant paper, but did not have support for this view from the co-founders. He resigned after the first issue. [5] Roderick McKenzie was editor until 1911. [6] In 1909 the guide was made a weekly, and George Fisher Chipman was appointed associate editor. [5] Chipman edited the guide from 1911 until 1928, and its successor The Country Guide until 1935. [6]

George Fisher Chipman Canadian journalist

George Fisher Chipman was a Canadian journalist who edited the Grain Growers' Guide for many years. The paper was the official organ of the provincial grain growers' associations in the Canadian prairies, and became the mostly widely circulated farmers' paper in the region.

Partridge and Thomas Crerar of Manitoba attended the January 1909 convention where the Alberta Farmers' Association merged with the Canadian Society of Equity to form the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA). Before the merger the AFA's official organ was the Homestead, and the CSE published The Great West. At the urging of Partridge and Crerar these papers were absorbed by The Grain Growers' Guide. [7] By 1909 the guide was the official organ of the (MGGA) and its sister associations, the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association (SGGA) and the UFA. [2]

Thomas Crerar Western Canadian politician

Thomas Alexander Crerar, was a western Canadian politician and a leader of the short-lived Progressive Party of Canada. He was born in Molesworth, Ontario, and moved to Manitoba at a young age.

The Alberta Farmers' Association (AFA) was a farmer's association that was active in Alberta, Canada from 1905 to 1909. It was formed from the Alberta branch of the Territorial Grain Growers' Association (TGGA) when Alberta became a province in 1905. It provided a voice for farmers in their struggle with grain dealers and the railways. In January 1909 it merged with the Canadian Society of Equity to form the United Farmers of Alberta.

United Farmers of Alberta association of Alberta farmers

The United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) is an association of Alberta farmers that has served different roles in its 100-year history – as a lobby group, a successful political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. As a political party, it formed the government of Alberta from 1921 to 1935.

In 1917 the GGGC merged with the Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company, founded in 1913, to form the United Grain Growers (UGG), which provided grain marketing, handling and supply until 2001. [8] By 1918 the guide was the largest farm publication on the prairies by circulation. [4] The guide was issued as the Country Guide from volume 21, number 7 (2 April 1928) to volume 29, number 5 (May 1936). In 1936 the paper was merged with The Nor'west farmer to form The country guide and Nor-west farmer. [9]

Alberta Farmers Co-operative Elevator Company

The Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company (AFCEC) was a farmer-owned enterprise that provided grain storage and handling services to farmers in Alberta, Canada between 1913 and 1917, when it was merged with the Manitoba-based Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC) to form the United Grain Growers (UGG).

United Grain Growers

The United Grain Growers, or UGG, was a Canadian grain farmers' cooperative for grain storage and distribution that operated between 1917 and 2001.

Contents

The guide was tightly controlled by the parent company and the associations of grain growers, who ensured that it was independent of political parties. [4] The guide covered topics of interest to western Canada prairie farmers including politics, cooperative associations, animal husbandry and new agricultural techniques. [2] The paper became an essential source of information about the outside world to prairie farmers. Readers were encouraged to give their views, and the letters page became an important part of the paper. [6] The guide advocated reform of rural education and supported the temperance movement, the cooperative movement and the Social Gospel. It became a supporter of the Progressive Party. As the Progressive movement waned in the 1920s the guide devoted less space to reform topics and focused on practical issues of rural life and entertainment for rural families. [10]

The Social Gospel was a movement in Protestantism that applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labour, inadequate labour unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. It was most prominent in the early-20th-century United States and Canada. Theologically, the Social Gospellers sought to put into practice the Lord's Prayer : "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". They typically were postmillennialist; that is, they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort. The Social Gospel was more popular among clergy than laity. Its leaders were predominantly associated with the liberal wing of the progressive movement, and most were theologically liberal, although a few were also conservative when it came to their views on social issues. Important leaders included Richard T. Ely, Josiah Strong, Washington Gladden, and Walter Rauschenbusch.

The Progressive Party of Canada was a federal-level political party in Canada in the 1920s until 1930. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces, and it spawned the Progressive Party of Saskatchewan, and the Progressive Party of Manitoba, which formed the government of that province. The Progressive Party was part of the farmers' political movement that included federal and provincial Progressive and United Farmers' parties.

The founders and editors were in favour of women's suffrage, but accepted the traditional view of separate men's and women's spheres of activity. [6] The guide included a woman's page from its first year, which discussed suffrage, equal rights, dower law and homesteading. The woman's page later included a readers' forum, advice on managing a household, and opinions on marriage, motherhood, women's work and finances. Separately the paper covered activities in the women's departments of the Grain Growers' Associations. Later the guide started to publish a "household number" that was mainly devoted to domestic topics, but the parent newspaper continued to publish its woman's page. [2]

The women's page editors from 1908 to 1928 were Isobel Graham, Mary Ford, Francis Marion Beynon, Mary P. McCallum, and Amy J. Roe. Other well-known women wrote letters or gave commentaries, including Ella Cora Hind, Nellie McClung, and Irene Parlby. [11] All the editors were social feminists who believed that women had accepted responsibility for caring for the home and children, but that they should be educated, have property rights and have a voice in political debates. [12]

Related Research Articles

Grain elevator grain storage building

A grain elevator is an agrarian facility complex designed to stockpile or store grain. In grain trade, the term grain elevator also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposits it in a silo or other storage facility.

Canadian Prairies geographical region of Canada

The Canadian Prairies is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie Provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provinces are partially covered by grasslands, plains, and lowlands, mostly in the southern regions. The northernmost reaches of the Canadian Prairies are less well known. They are marked by forests and more variable topology. If the region is defined to include areas only covered by prairie land, the corresponding region is known as the Interior Plains. Geographically, the Canadian prairies extend to northeastern British Columbia, but this province is not included in a political manner.

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool

The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool was a grain handling, agri-food processing and marketing company based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Pool created a network of marketing alliances in North America and internationally which made it the largest agricultural grain handling operation in the province of Saskatchewan. Before becoming Viterra, SWP had operated 276 retail outlets and more than 100 grain handling and marketing centres. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool operated under the name of AgPro in the prairie provinces of Manitoba and Alberta. Begun as a co-operative in the 1920s, the company became a publicly traded corporation in the 1990s. After the 2007 takeover of its competitor, Winnipeg-based Agricore United, the Pool name was retired. The merged company operated under the name Viterra until 2013, when it was acquired by Glencore International.

The United Farmers of Canada was a radical farmers organization. It was established in 1926 as the United Farmers of Canada as a merger of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association. The name United Farmers came from the movements that had been established and run for election, in some cases taking power, in several provinces such as the United Farmers of Ontario, the United Farmers of Alberta and federally as the Progressive Party of Canada.

Wheat pools in Canada

A wheat pool is a co-operative that markets grain on behalf of its farmer-members.

The Warner elevator row is a group of four historic wood-cribbed grain elevators standing in a row from south to north alongside the Canadian Pacific Railway line from Great Falls, Montana to Lethbridge, Alberta at the east entrance of the village of Warner, Alberta, Canada. At one time, the row had at least seven elevators.

Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association organization

The Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association (SGGA) was a farmer's association that was active in Saskatchewan, Canada in the early 20th century. It was a successor to the Territorial Grain Growers' Association, and was formed in 1906 after Saskatchewan became a province. It provided a voice for farmers in their struggle with grain dealers and the railways, and was influential in obtaining favorable legislation. The association initially resisted calls to create a farmer-owned marketing company. Later it did support formation of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company. The SGGA helped the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, a cooperative marketing organization, to become established in 1924. In 1926 the SGGA merged with the more radical Farmers' Union of Canada, which had earlier split from the SGGA, to create the United Farmers of Canada,

The Territorial Grain Growers' Association (TGGA) was a farmer's association that was active in Western Canada at the start of the 20th century, in what was then the Northwest Territories and later became Saskatchewan and Alberta. It provided a voice for farmers in their struggle with grain dealers and the railways, and was influential in obtaining favorable legislation. After Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces the TGGA was succeeded by the Alberta Farmers' Association and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association.

James William Scallion

James William Scallion was an Irish-born Canadian teacher, farmer and agrarian activist. He was the founder of the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association.

Manitoba Grain Act

The Manitoba Grain Act was an act passed by the Federal government of Canada in 1900 to protect the interests of grain farmers against abuses by the grain storage and trading companies and the railways. Although well-intentioned the act was flawed, and a series of amendments were required before the more effective Canada Grain Act of 1912 was passed.

Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company

The Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company (SCEC) was a farmer-owned enterprise that provided grain storage and handling services to farmers in Saskatchewan, Canada between 1911 and 1926, when its assets were purchased by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.

Francis Marion Beynon

Francis Marion Beynon was a Canadian journalist, feminist and pacifist. She is known for her semi-autobiographical novel Aleta Day (1919).

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

  • Dale-Burnett, Lisa Lynne (2006). Saskatchewan Agriculture: Lives Past and Present. University of Regina Press. ISBN   978-0-88977-169-7 . Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  • Fairbairn, Brett (2014). "UNITED GRAIN GROWERS (AGRICORE UNITED)". Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan=. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  • Freeman, Barbara M. (14 December 2011). Beyond Bylines: Media Workers and Women’s Rights in Canada. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. ISBN   978-1-55458-313-3 . Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  • Goldsborough, Gordon (8 August 2013). "United Farmers of Manitoba [Manitoba Grain Growers Association]". Manitoba Historical Society. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
  • Kelcey, Barbara E.; Davis, Angela E. (1997). A Great Movement Underway: Women and The Grain Growers' Guide (1908-1928) (PDF). Winnipeg: Manitoba Record Society. ISBN   9780969210153 . Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  • Knuttila, Kenneth Murray (1994). That Man Partridge: E.A. Partidge, His Thoughts and Times. University of Regina Press. ISBN   978-0-88977-079-9 . Retrieved 13 September 2014.
  • MacPherson, Ian (3 December 2012). "Grain Growers' Guide". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Toronto: Historica Canada. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  • Thamer, J.H. (20 January 1909). "The Farmers of Alberta United" (PDF). The Great West. II (19). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 September 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
  • "The Grain Growers' Guide". Peel's Prairie Provinces. University of Alberta. Retrieved 15 September 2014.

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