December 4, 1867 - Oliver Kelley Founded the Grange

Oliver Kelley founded the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry in 1867. The organization, better known as the Grange, formed as a secret society meant to educate farmers. Periods of drought and excessive rain, high shipping costs due to railroad monopolies, and poor farming practices frustrated farmers’ ambitions. Many farmers, particularly in the Midwest, functioned at a substance level. Kelley had grown up in Boston, but at the age of 21 moved to Minnesota to begin a career in farming. He had no experience, but he educated himself and became an advocate of new scientific farming techniques. He published many articles in national newspapers and kept meticulous records. Kelly’s work led to a clerk position in the US Department of Agriculture in 1864. He kept his farm active and spent his winters in Washington, DC.(1)

The Department of Agriculture sent Kelly to the postwar South in order to assess the state of the

region’s agriculture. As a northerner in the South he expected poor treatment and resistance. Fortunately his membership in the Free Masons transcended regional differences and impressed upon Kelley the value of secret societies. The Grange was a natural extension of his belief in the importance of education and community. By April 1868 Kelley had begun to organize Granges outside of Washington, DC, beginning in New York and spreading to other states. At first membership was quite low but once Kelley returned to Minnesota he became more confident in his pitch.

Women were involved in the Grange as equals from the beginning. This egalitarian characteristic is

usually attributed to Caroline Hall, Kelley’s niece. She wrote him a letter stating, “Your organization will never be permanent if you leave the women out.” The founders thought women should be “helpmeets” to their husbands by becoming the primary educators and moral stewardess of the     family.(2)

Although it was founded as an educational society the Grange became a powerful political tool for farmers during the Panic of 1873. The Granger Laws, early regulations on banks and railroads, were their greatest success. The laws limited the cost of transporting and storing grain.(3)

In 1885, the national session of the Grange formally supported women’s suffrage noting, “We are

therefore prepared to hail with delight any advancement of the legal status of women, which may give to her the full right of the ballot box, and an equal condition of citizenship.”(4)

- Valarie S. and David P.

1. Dorothy W. Hartman "Conner Prairie Interactive History Park." GrangeMovement.

http://www.connerprairie.org/LearnAndDo/IndianaHistory/America18601900/GrangeMovement.aspx (accessed December 1, 2013)

2. Dorothy W. Hartman

3. Jennifer D. Keene and Saul Cornell. Visions of America: a history of the United States. 1. ed.

Boston u.a: Prentice Hall, 2009.

4 Hartman