Research Catalog

Title

Cooperative commonwealth : co-ops in rural Minnesota, 1859-1939 / Steven J. Keillor.

Author

Keillor, Steven J. (Steven James)

Publication

St. Paul : Minnesota Historical Society Press, c2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xiii, 457 p. : ill., maps; 24 cm.

Summary

By 1940, Minnesota was known as one the most cooperative-minded states in the Union. More than 600 cooperative creameries, 150 township mutual fire insurance companies, hundreds of rural telephone associations, and 270 farmers' elevators were proof of the power of economic cooperation, and they made Minnesota into a "cooperative commonwealth."

Subject

• Agriculture, Cooperative > Minnesota > History
• Cooperation > Minnesota > History
• Cooperative societies > Minnesota > History

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 431-441) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Cooperative Stores, 1859-72 "Why have they not moved to the Swedish settlement to enjoy the advantages of the Union Store?" -- Grangers as Consumers "No bonds of union except that of buying cheap" -- Grangers as Producers "Success, say we, to the Grange warehouse" -- Fire Insurance "There is no fathoming the possibilities of novices in the insurance business" -- Cooperative Creameries I "Men and boys flock to the Clarks Grove creamery to see how the business is managed" -- Cooperative Creameries II "People would rush around among their neighbors and want a creamery at every cross road" -- Farmers' Alliance "We ask merchants to submit to this Alliance a schedule of discounts" -- Cooperative Stores, 1890-1905 "Working for a Farmers' Store in connection with the creamery" -- Farmers' Elevators "Not a great many left of the old pioneer farmers' elevators, and they did not die of old age, either" -- Problems of Success "The officers have made an exceptional record for themselves" -- Telephone Companies "Merchants and farmers can hello back and forth at much as they wish to" -- County Agents as Cooperators "The farmer now pays a handsome salary to this army of undesired instructors" -- Republican Cooperation "Farmers by the tens of thousands were ballyhooed into the ranks of 'cooperative marketing associations'" -- Farmer-Labor Cooperation "The cooperative commonwealth is Minnesota's American solution to a predatory, ruthless capitalism".

ISBN

0873513770 (hc.)

LCCN

^^^99040583^

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library