Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

by Caroline Fraser

Charles Ingalls never seemed to realize that his ambition for a profitable farm was irreconcilable with a love of untrammeled and unpopulated wilderness.

Grange Halls, modeled after the fraternal organization of the Freemasons, sprang up in town after town. In the 1870s, the Grangers won a series of anti-corporate Supreme Court cases that classified railroads as companies operating in the public interest and subject to regulatory control.

Socialism also helped: many century farms improved their chances through cooperative ventures—creameries, grain elevators, and warehouses—in open acknowledgment of the fact that farmers simply could not go it alone.