A national movement of
farmers started by
Department of Agriculture employee Oliver Hudson Kelley in 1867, when he toured
the South and discovered
shocking instances of agricultural
mismanagement.
Kelley addressed this problem by inventing fraternal groups of farmers that he called 'Granges'. Granges would manage community banks, pool equipment and storage facilities, and lobby for agricultural legislation in their own state.
In the late 1870s, the movement started to lose membership as Granges tried and failed to create cooperative factories for making farming equipment. It lives on today as The National Grange, a lobbying group for farmers.