Excerpt from The Granger Movement in Illinois Of all the organizations that have ourished among farmers since the middle of the last century, none, from a social and economic standpoint, has equaled in importance the Patrons of Husbandry, more commonly known as the Grange. Although its immediate organization displays some peculiarities, it was the outgrowth of natural conditions, and its promoters had a mine of experience on which to draw in order to establish it on a solid basis. For even the farming class, though poorly situ ated for organization, had societies more than one hundred years old. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

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In In Essentials, Unity, Jenny Bourne presents a lively picture of a fraternal organization--the Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange--devoted to improving the lot of small farmers but whose legacies extend far beyond agriculture, shaping the very notion of collective action and how it is deployed even today.