The Farmers’ Alliance history and agricultural digest. Written by a board of editors. . . .

Washington, D.C.: The Alliance Publishing Co., 1891. Tall thick 8vo. viii, [2], 742 pp. Frontisp., numerous plates. Publisher’s half-calf over plum-coloured cloth, gilt lozenge illustration on front cover, gilt lettering front cover & spine, marbled endpapers, marbled fore-edges (some chipping head & foot of spine, minor wear to corners, light uniform interior toning as usual), still G copy. First edition of this rare history tracing the Farmers Alliance which was a organized agrarian reform movement among American Farmers, including the National Farmers Alliance and Industrial Union among the white farmers of the South, the National Farmers’ Alliance among the white and black farmers of the Midwest and Plains with a heavy Grange (Patrons of Husbandry) influence, and the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union, consisting of the African-American farmers in the South. Formed largely to combat the share-cropping system which basically reduced tenant farmers to virtual slaves, enmeshed in the usury of the merchants and landowners providing supplies and credit which destroyed generations of farmers, and consigned them to virtual servitude. The Northern Farmers’ Alliance battled the monopolistic practices of the railroad transportation companies, and pushed for the legalization of Grange-sponsored insurance companies. Of particular interest are the sections on The Colored Alliance which was dedicated to forming African-American cooperative stores, education, and mutual aid societies intended to combat the ferocious rise of racism and extreme poverty of the former slaves, and their descendants. Eventually the group would organize the People’s Party (Populists) in conjunction with the Knights of Labor.