Oliver Kelley Grange

Economic growth was the foremost force driving the rigorous transformation of the West following 1865. One major industry reconstructed the West, farming. While the tendency of the period was expansion and gain, the actuality for many farmers was conflict, defeat, and failure. Farmers faced irregular weather tendencies, which brought high levels of rainfall and drought causing hardships. In addition to the irregular weather, "swarms of insects such as grasshoppers attacked their crops" (Keene, 452). Another struggle that farmers encountered was the variation of the prices of their crops. For example, "in the 1880s, wheat farmers on the Plains saw a price fall due to competition with less expensive wheat grown in Russia, South America, Canada, and Australia" (Keene, 452).

To improve this lonesomeness, Oliver H. Kelley developed the Grange, a social and educational society dedicated to relieving the problems faced by farmers. It encouraged education, fellowship, and shared ideas about farming. Local chapters of the Grange were created across the nation, and by the early 1870s, the organization had several hundred thousand members. Eventually, it was converted into a dominant political movement, as a result of economic depression triggered by the Panic of 1873. The Granger parties won control of the legislatures of four states, and they set in place the Granger Laws. "These measures set maximum rates for transporting or storing grain and banned abusive practices such as offering preferred customers special rates" (Keene, 453). The Granger movement eventually diminished with the depression, however not before reconstructing the economic and farming habits of the