In Essentials, Unity by Jenny Bourne

Author:Jenny Bourne [Bourne, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Modern, 19th Century, Business & Finance, Economics, Economic History, Americas, United States
ISBN: 9780821445815
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2017-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

Figure 4.3. Lumberjack Night, 1948. Source: Minnesota Historical Society

Specialized deals worked well for the Minnehaha. In 1949, it rented a television and charged viewers to watch Minnesota and Wisconsin football games. Via an arrangement with the telephone company in 1958, it installed a phone booth in front of the hall and obtained commissions when the booth made more than $10 a month. The minutes report that this was quite a successful enterprise for a time.

Renting out the Grange hall was also a lucrative business. The Minnehaha Centennial History (1973) states that the Grangers rented the hall from the very beginning, with renters including officials from the village of Edina. Members paid $10 for private parties in 1951, but outsiders paid more. The Grangers dithered about renting a room to an art instructor in 1959 and finally said yes. Despite its nonreligious nature, the Grange rented the hall to the Edina Methodist Church on 6 February 1960.

The minutes of the Minnehaha frequently mention rummage sales and paper drives.7 In a reminder of the penny-pinching times of World War II, the Grange on 7 November 1942 proposed postponing a rummage sale “because of the gas and tire situation” but decided on 21 November to go ahead because gas rationing did not begin until 1 December. The minutes from 6 December 1942—the eve of the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor—celebrate a profit of $79.02. After a newspaper salvage sale brought in only $24.73 on 5 April 1952, however, the Minnehaha decided to abandon this less-than-effective means of raising money.

From the late 1930s to the late 1950s, the Minnehaha also sold metal sponges and plants, cookbooks, hand lotion, vanilla, advertising napkins, scrap iron and glass, ashtrays to fund preservation of the Kelley farm, and fertilizer.8 A harbinger of the Minnehaha’s financial woes in the early 1960s was its abortive attempt to sell lightbulbs. The idea was proposed on 21 January 1961, but increasingly desperate entries in the minutes suggest failure. An entry from 29 October says the sale was not going well. On 7 April 1962 the Grange decided to sell the bulbs at a reduced rate, and by 17 November 1962 members were urged to sell bulbs for anything above $1.

The All-Important Role of Education

The Minnehaha Grange, like subordinates throughout the country, devoted substantial portions of their meeting time to education. Sometimes the topic related closely to agricultural pursuits, but the Grangers also talked about school funding and curriculum, safety tips and fire prevention, other countries and cultures, and health. Minnehaha Patrons took seriously their duty to inform public officials about farm concerns as well as to state positions on such topics as whether all immigrants should read and write English, parents should pay for damages caused by minor children, Mainland China should be admitted to the United Nations, and restaurants should have to serve two different-sized portions.9 (Incidentally, the answer to each was yes.)

Agricultural Education

Agricultural topics predominated in the first several decades for the Minnehaha Grange. Members listened to informational lectures on

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