Merle Hansen: 20th Century Farmer Activism in the Midwest

Amy

May 29

I recently had an opportunity to give a presentation highlighting collections that document the 1980s Farm Crisis, and today I'm sharing a shortened version of that presentation.

The strength of the 1980s Farm Crisis Collections at ISU lies in our organizational records, which come from a range of groups working to combat the Farm Crisis from different angles, including changing high-level agricultural policy, public awareness campaigns, supporting farmers and their families, and activism organized by farmers on their own behalf.

Farmer activism has been a significant part of our agricultural collecting, including activism around land use, laws and policies, and economic parity.

Black and white photograph of a man next to the words Merle Hansen for Board of Regents

From the Merle Hansen papers, MS-0595

The Merle Hansen papers is a good collection to show the throughline of farmer activism across the 20th century. Merle Hansen was the grandson of a Norwegian immigrant and was born on his family's farmstead just north of Newman Grove, Nebraska, on November 11, 1919. In 1932, at the age of 13, he had a front row seat to the actions of the Farmer's Holiday Association. Newman Grove was the center of action for an independent arm of this movement, and his family was active in it. This early exposure to farm activism surely had an influence on his later activism in multiple farm organizations.

After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Hansen began his own career of agricultural organizing and activism. He worked as a field organizer for the National Farmers Union in South Dakota and Iowa in the late 1940s. After marrying in 1950 and returning to the family farm to raise children and engage in various farming activities and businesses, he joined the Nebraska Farmer's Union and actively recruited new members. In the 1950s and 60s, he was a strong supported of the National Farmer's Organization (NFO), which engaged in highly visible campaigns holding actions to achieve parity pricing from food processors, including milk dumping and hog shoots.

Black and white photograph of four boys in winter coats dumping metal milk cans onto a field from a truck bed

NFO milk holding action, from the Charles Walters papers, MS-0588

In the mid-1970s, Hansen became a state leader in the American Agriculture Movement (AAM). AAM was formed in response to years of Farm Bills in Congress that set farm prices below the cost of production, favoring the export of grain to international markets. Low prices and inflated land values meant that farmers couldn't keep up with the debts they had taken on to invest in land during earlier more favorable economic periods. As a result, many farmers lost their homes and land through foreclosures of Farmers Home Administration loans. In response, AAM organized tractorcades, in which farmers from across the country drove their tractors to Washington DC to close down roadways and bring attention to the plight of farmers. These events were a lead-in to the Farm Crisis of the following decade.

Text document showing the schedule of events for an American Agriculture Movement tractorcade on July 17-24, 1978

Tractorcade schedule from Merle Hansen papers, MS-0595, box 9 folder 25.

In 1982, Hansen was elected Vice President of the US Farmers Association (USFA). In 1983, he and other USFA members met and organized the North American Farm Alliance (NAFA), for which he served as its first chairman. NAFA was a coalition of more than 50 pro-farm, labor, and community organizations. The group's goals were to gain parity prices for farm products, achieve fair trade and full employment for farmers, investigate the farm credit system, and end farm foreclosures.

Hansen helped organized the National Crisis Action Rally held in Ames, Iowa, on February 27, 1985. It was sponsored by ten farm organizations, and Hansen was active in several of them. Newspaper images of the event show crowds of people in line to enter Hilton Colliseum. 15,000 people took part in the event.

Shows a black and white photograph of Hilton Coliseum on Iowa State University Campus, with a huge crowd of people making its way inside the building

From the National Crisis Action Rally records, MS-0436. Box 1, folder 3. This is a clipping from the Ames Tribune from February 17, 1985

The Farm Crisis continued on through the 1980s and even 1990s, though news coverage no longer kept it in the public eye. But its affects can be seen in the landscape of the Midwest today.

Click here to see a list of other 1980s Farm Crisis-related collections we hold in Special Collections and University Archives.