today conrad talked about the farming problems in the 1870/1880s. early 1880s, farmers were getting into bad financial situations. good farming land was being taken quickly so many farmers had to break in new ground. breaking in new ground was difficult because of the lack of rich silt in the soil and the toughness of the sod. banks were foreclosing on the lands. to add to their problems the prices of crops were dropping so they needed more to make the same amount of money as before. railroads were charging very high prices to hold and ship grain. many farmers lost their farms everyday. civil wars greenbacks were bing removed from the circulation, this cause the value of money to go up and the prices to go down. this mean that they were paying more to grow their crops than they were selling them for. farmers and others tried to get the government to put more money into circulation. bland allison act required the government to coin 2 to 4 million every year. farmers could not take any more abuse so they began to organize, oliver hudson kelly founded the patrons of husbandry, which was ultimately known as the grange. originally educated isolated farmers, soon nearly all effort was spent fighting railroad companies. set up by farmers and people who sympathized with them, speakers went from town to town to educate about finances and how farmers got into trouble, and thigs like governmental control of. soon over 4 million members, there was also a colored farmers alliance with over 250,000 members, they had to operate secretly so they werent stopped by racial haters.
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