Farmers Independent (Bagley, Clearwater County, Minn.) 1918-Current
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
992 issues from 1921 to 1940, published in Bagley, Minnesota, digitised for Chronicling America.
Established in 1918, Farmers Independent has a long history, serving the people of Bagley, Minnesota and broader Clearwater County for over a century. Located in north central Minnesota, Bagley began as a small logging camp, and it was incorporated as a town in 1898, with a population of 212. A center of activity for Clearwater County, Bagley became county seat in 1902.
Farmers Independent was a product of the changing politics of the era, with the rise of the Nonpartisan League, Farmer-Labor Party, and farmer cooperatives. In 1918, a group of 236 shareholders, mostly farmers, banded together to establish the Farmers Publishing Company. This company then purchased Bagley’s longest running publication, the Bagley Independent and Peoples Defender, in October of 1918, and it became Farmers Independent. The paper’s tagline succinctly sums up the outlook of the editorial staff: “A newspaper of the Farmer, by the Farmer, for the Farmer.” With the publication of its first issue on November 28, 1918, the paper sought to provide a voice to farmers and to advocate for the new Farmer-Labor Party and Nonpartisan League.
Through the first few years of publication, Farmers Independent was known for its sometimes heated and pointed editorials, which culminated with the arrest of its president and treasurer in 1921 in a case brought by the editor of Bagley’s other newspaper, the Bagley Herald. Though the charges of selling company stock without a license were dismissed, the accusation…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Bagley, Minnesota, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress