The Gift of the Grange

Originally a secret society, the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry today is an important health and education resource in rural communities.

by Katrina Gulliver via JSTOR Daily on September 13, 2024

...country. Helen T. Finneran, archivist, details the original organization of the group. Not surprisingly, she writes, the structure drew on that of the Freemasons, and “[t]he plan included a Masonic ritual, with provision for a series of degrees and admission to membership of both men and women.”

The organization, though centralized with a national office, would draw its strength from “subordinate” granges, which corresponded to townships and offered members four “degrees” of membership; full membership came with the fourth degree. If fifteen subordinate granges were founded within a state,

they might organize a State grange, which could confer the fifth degree. The National Grange, to consist of masters and past masters of State granges, was authorized to confer the sixth degree. Members of the sixth degree were to constitute the National Grange, and after serving one year they might take the seventh degree and become members of the senate, which had control of the esoteric work of the Order.

This level of arcane ritual seems odd today, but it was in keeping with the character of Freemasonry and other fraternal organizations of the period, with which potential Grange members would have been familiar. To men of the nineteenth century, this was an understood model of social and mutual-support organizations. According to Finneran, “[t]he membership grew to 868,050 in 1875, with its greatest strength in Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Iowa.”

The Grange’s mission soon expanded to improving all areas of agricultural life, Finneran writes. The order

encouraged farmers’ institutes, advocated the teaching of agriculture in the public schools, and helped to obtain the establishment of State agricultural experiment stations and of rural mail delivery and the parcel post system. The organization was opposed to fraud and adulteration in food processing, called for forest conservation, fostered crop reporting, and advocated ballot reform. The social activity fostered by the Grange was very real contribution to the quality of living of rural areas.

In southern states, it emphasized the importance of education. According to James S. Ferguson, who in 1942 analyzed the role of the Grange in Mississippi, one challenge for the Grange was not just that farmers had limited agricultural knowledge, but many were illiterate. Grange efforts saw a brief burst of engagement, but success was limited. Arriving in Mississippi in 1871, the Grange was no longer active in the state by 1898.