6. Descriptions of the Collections


an idea in the fertile mind of a failed farmer from Itasca, Minnesota, to a vigorous agrarian movement
with 538 local units, thousands of members in Minnesota, and thousands more around the nation.

The Grange had four features that made it especially appealing--secrecy, an elaborate ritual,
exclusiveness, and full participation by women. The Grange was intended to benefit the farmer through
education, brightening of social life, and protection of members against discrimination by the big
corporations. The Minnesota Grangers took up the plea of farmers for reasonable railroad rates and
fought for regulation through state laws. Their interest resulted in the the establishment of .the office of
state railroad commissioner in 1871--a first step toward the regulation of public utilities.

The second major force behind cooperatives in Minnesota was the Farmers' Alliance, launched in
Chicago in 1880. The Alliance was much more successful in recruiting immigrant farmers than the
Grange and Minnesota's eighty Alliance locals in 1881 grew to almost 1,000 by 1890. The Farmers'
Alliance was initially apolitical but moved into indirect political action by the mid-1890s and allied with
the Knights of Labor.

Late 19th century Minnesota witnessed the development of a "culture of cooperation" in which earlier
successes, such as the township fire insurance mutual, encouraged and facilitated later attempts such as
cooperative creameries and cooperative stores and rural telephone associations. Through organizations
that grew out of a desire to improve their lives, farmers learned the lesson of cooperation and gained
experience in public life. This tradition of citizen involvement, originating in the early farming
communities and documented in the literature of agriculture and rural life, is manifested today in the
many neighborhood and community organizations in the state, the active and progressive political
environment, and the large number of Minnesotans of national political prominence.

A wealth of published resources document the history of agriculture and rural life in Minnesota.
University Regents' documents from 1868 first mention a University Library in 1868 and an agricultural
library in 1872. The growing agricultural collection was moved to the College of Agriculture on the St.
Paul "farm campus" in 1895. The St. Paul Campus Libraries now house over 628,000 volumes. While a
major portion of agricultural literature is located at the University of Minnesota, other important
collections are found at the Minnesota Historical Society and other Minnesota universities and colleges.
The University of Minnesota has been acquiring agricultural monographs and serials since the 1870s and
has been a regional depository for federal publications, and repository of state publications.

Over the course of the project, the University of Minnesota Libraries, in cooperation with other libraries
in the state, will develop a comprehensive bibliography of published materials important to the study of
agriculture and rural life in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. The project will employ a three-person
scholarly review panel to rank titles according to their priority as research resources for humanities
studies, and target the most important 25% of a universe of approximately 12,000 volumes to be
preserved in a subsequent project. Details of the Libraries' project staffing and costs are found in Section
5.7 of the proposal's Plan of Work.


6.8 MONTANA


From its beginnings as a territory, residents of the state of Montana have depended on its abundant
natural resources for survival. The American Indians were the first hunters and gatherers followed by the
fur traders and missionaries in the decades between 1820 and 1850. The fur trade increased as American
Indians traded pelts at British and French posts and trappers from the eastern states arrived to take
advantage of the plentiful supply of fur-bearing animals. A decline in the fur trade grew from conflicts

between trappers and American Indians, a shrinking market in the eastern states and Europe and the