The Grangers

The first farm organization of importance was the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry. Formally organized in 1867, the order grew rapidly. By 1874, it had 20,000 local branches and a membership of about 1.5 million. After seven years of ascendancy, a decline set in, and by 1880, membership had largely disappeared except in a few strongholds such as the upper Mississippi valley and the Northeast.

Although the organization’s bylaws strictly forbade formal political action by the Grangers, members held informal political meetings and worked with reform parties to secure passage of regulatory legislation. In several western states, the Grangers were successful in obtaining laws that set an upper limit on the charges of railroads and of warehouse and elevator companies and in establishing regulation of such companies by commission, a new concept in American politics. The Supreme Court, in Munn v. Illinois (1877), held that such regulation was constitutional if the business was “clothed with the public interest.” However, in 1886, the Court held that states could not regulate interstate commerce, so reformers had to turn to the federal government to regulate the railroads. The Interstate Commerce Commission (which will be discussed in chapter 16), established in 1887, was the result.

The Grangers developed still another weapon for fighting unfair business practices. If businesses charged prices that were too high, then farmers, it was argued, sensibly enough, ought to go into business themselves. The most successful type of business established by the Grangers was the cooperative, formed for the sale of general merchandise and farm implements to Grange member owners. Cooperatives (and conventional companies that

In Granger Movement meetings like this one in Scott County, Illinois, members focused their discontentment on big-city ways, monopoly, the tariff, and low prices for agricultural products. From such roots grew pressures to organize support for agriculture.

Sold stock) were established to process farm products, and the first large mail-order house, Montgomery Ward and Company, was established to sell to the Grangers.