Oliver Kelley was born and raised in Boston. As he grew older he was interested in farming, he learned about agriculture from reading many books. In his early twenties he decided he wanted to become a farmer. In 1849 he took a boat and went to St. Paul Minnesota, he believed in the future of region lay. He was well known for experimenting with new crops, installing an elaborate irrigation system, and buying one of the first mechanical reapers in the state. He also attempted scientific farming and writing for national newspapers. In 1864, he won a clerking position under the federal commissioner of agriculture in Washington, DC. Him and many other man were also the founders of the Grange. In 1864, Kelley became a clerk for the US Bureau of Agriculture. For two years, he spent his time in Minnesota and Washington DC. In 1867, on a bureau trip to the South he came up with the idea national farmers' organization. "Encourage them to read and think; to plant fruits and flowers,—beautify their homes; elevate them; make them progressive," that was his main focus of this idea. On December 4, 1867, Oliver Kelley and six other members of the US Bureau of Agriculture founded …show more content…
The Grange was founded to advance methods of agriculture, as well as to promote the social and economic needs of farmers in the United States. Farmers took out loans from the banks so they could produce more product but, over production became an issue. Farmers ended up owing money to store the crops and paying the money back to the banks, but they couldn’t because they did not have the money. Then farmers were angry at banks for the loan system and railroads overcharging them because they could not afford the transportation. One thing they fought for was to lower the rate of railroads and that's what they did. The Hepburn Act was passed in