What is a Grange Song?

Subject: What is a Grange Song?
From: Wotcha
Date: 08 May 99 - 09:27 PM

I heard "Let Union Be In All Our Hearts" at a recent sing. The DT notes mention that it was a grange song. I have this image of farmers -- The Archers? -- getting in the barn and chugging cider from the manor and warbling together. Anyone like to enlighten me? By the way, this is a great way to follow up a temperance song ... Cheers, Brian

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Margo
Date: 08 May 99 - 09:35 PM

A grange is an association of farmers. In America, I believe the grange was founded in the 1860's. A Grange can also be one of the branch lodges of the association. We have lots of granges up and down Oregon and Washington. Margarita

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Tucker
Date: 08 May 99 - 09:41 PM

Yeah, you're right Margarita, basically a group of farmers. Banding together to help one another and share ideas and such. I had a grange cookbook that had some of the most delicious receipes I have ever tasted in it. I accidently burned it up while cooking (in my younger days, My mom wanted to kill me, it was an heirloom). On the music sense I think the little shaker ditty would come under this eh Joe?

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: JB3
Date: 09 May 99 - 12:20 AM

Here's the "Grange Hymn" I learned from Tony Barrand. It's sung to the tune of "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean" but pre-dates it, I believe.

The farmer is chief of the nation
The oldest of nobles is he
How blessed beyond others, his station
From want and from worry, how free
His patent was granted at Eden
Long ages and ages ago
O the farmer, the farmer forever
Three cheers for the plow, spade and hoe

In April, when nature is waking
And bluebirds are first on the wing
His plow now the furrows are breaking
Whence the bountiful harvest shall spring
And abroad along the brown furrow
He hastens the good seed to sow
O the farmer, the farmer forever
Three cheers for the plow, spade and hoe

And in the clear Autumn weather
When he reaps the rewards of his care
How pleasant and joyful together
What Monarch with him can compare?
His barns overflowing with plenty
His trees with their fruit bending low
O the farmer...>BR>
So sing me the life of the farmer
With beauty and health in its train
And heed not the voice of the charmer
Who whispers of speedier gain
When with all the rich treasures 'tis teeming
That heaven on earth can bestow
O the farmer...

It's a great rousing song!

Cheers,
June

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: faswilli2
Date: 09 May 99 - 01:18 AM

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: uncle bill
Date: 09 May 99 - 01:26 AM

THINK OF THE GRANGE "THE" GRANGE AS A CO- OP. THE 4H CLUBS OF TODAY ARE A DIRECT RESULT OF THE GRANGE, KIND OF A YOUTH FELLOWSHIP. I DIDNT KNOW THAT THE GRANGE STILL EXISTED TODAY GLAD TO HEAR ITS STILL ALIVE IN SOME PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. IT WAS INDEED THE FARMER'S UNION. THOUGH NOT THOUGHT OF IN THAT SENSE TODAY. SPEAKING AS AN OLD FARM BOY FROM MISSOURI.

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Banjer
Date: 09 May 99 - 05:35 AM

Never heard of:

Home, Home on the Grange,
Where the deer and the antelope roam...?

(just couldn't resist!)

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 May 99 - 09:53 AM

Columbia the Gem of the Ocean predates the Grange movement by about 50 years.

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Wotcha
Date: 09 May 99 - 11:46 AM

But maybe all that farmer's fiber/roughage finally encouraged a movement ... but the same is said of Bertha's Mussels.

Cheers, Brian

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Margo
Date: 09 May 99 - 11:49 AM

Dick, any history on Columbia Gem of the Ocean? It's not in the DT.

Margarita

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 May 99 - 09:19 PM

Hi- Gem, as I dimly recall, was written during the War of 1812. I'll try and dig out an early version and include it in a future edition.

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Susan A-R
Date: 09 May 99 - 09:34 PM

Here I sit looking at a very decrepit song book entitled Grange Melodies, National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry, Granges of the United States. The granges are still quite alive and well here in Vermont. The Eastern Star does a lot of fund raising for causes, some of which have been disability-related, so I've come to know them that way. The song book has titles such as: Beautiful Grange, Because he joined the Grange, Tis Better to Stay on the Farm, and more. The copyright is 1891 The song you mentioned is not in it, alass, but the Grange Hymn is.

Susan

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 09 May 99 - 09:38 PM

Hi there. I'm new to this forum -- actually, the first time I've checked out ANY online forum. But I posted something earlier about going to Scotland and then saw the Grange question. This is a part of American history that has interested me in the past, and I can't resist a good research project, so I dug this up, in case anyone's interested. Hope it's not data overload, but the Grange Movement was a really important part of the settlement of the American West and Midwest, and it's a pretty cool history.

The Grange Movement (from infoplease.com) American agrarian movement taking its name from the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, an organization founded in 1867 by Oliver H. Kelley and six associates. Its local units were called granges and its members grangers. The movement grew slowly until after the Panic of 1873, when it expanded rapidly, reaching its membership peak in 1875. Although established originally for social and educational purposes, the local granges became political forums and increased in number as channels of farmer protest against economic abuses of the day. The granges sought to correct these abuses through cooperative enterprise. They were in part successful with the establishment of stores, grain elevators, and mills, but they met disaster in their attempt to manufacture farm machinery.

Through political activity the grangers captured several state legislatures in the Middle West and secured the passage in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa of the so-called Granger laws, setting or authorizing maximum railroad rates and establishing state railroad commissions for administering the new legislation. There was also legislation covering warehouses and elevators. Railroads and other interested parties challenged the constitutionality of these laws in the Granger Cases. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in Munn v. Illinois (1876), established as constitutional the principle of public regulation of private utilities devoted to public use. The Granger movement thus revealed the farmer as a political power and forced the older parties to give more attention to his demands. Inadequacy of state regulation, plus the weakening of the Munn v. Illinois ruling by the Wabash Case (1886), led to demands for national legislation. After 1876 the Greenback party, the Farmers' Alliance, and, finally, the Populist party expressed much of the agrarian protest, and the granges reverted to their original role, as purely social organizations. They continued to exist in the East, especially in New England, where they had been least active politically.

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: rich r
Date: 09 May 99 - 11:11 PM

"Columbia The Gem of The Ocean" was initially published in 1843 under the title "Columbia The Land Of The Brave". It got its lasting title when it was republished in 1844. The song was also known as "Red White And Blue". Credit for the song is somewhat confused. The original publication credited a singer-actor, David T Shaw. Later the arranger, Thomas A Beckett of Philadelphia claimed he was the real composer. In the same decade it was also claimed in England as a British composition with words by Stephen Meany, and Irishman, and music by Thomas Williams, and Englishman. However, the earliest publications of the song in England in the late 1840's and early 1850's did not mention either Meany or Williamson. The British versions were titled variously, "Britannia The Gem Of The Ocean", "Britannia The Pride of The Ocean", "The Pride of the Ocean" and "The Red, White And Blue". I don'tthink it has been established which of these accounts, and hence composers is the real one.

rich r

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 10 May 99 - 01:10 AM

Kudos to both KC and Rich R! Good stuff you've given us. I think it's in the book to which KC refers that one can find "Stay of the Farm," a song my wife, Caroline, likes to sing. It has the great line:

You may talk of the mines of Australia,
They're loaded with gold, beyond doubt,
But remember there's gold on the farm, boys,
If only you'll shovel it out!

We oughta teach this one to Willie Nelson, eh?

Sandy

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 10 May 99 - 01:18 AM

I'm hearing that to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean..." Love it.

kc

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Ewan McVicar
Date: 10 May 99 - 03:40 AM

I have an inessential but unresistable urge to lower the tone of this very interesting discussion, to point out that The Little House on the Prairie is the Gnome Home on the Range. I can however resist referring to the Lone Granger.

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Alice
Date: 10 May 99 - 09:09 AM

Welcome to the Mudcat, KC.

alice

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Lucius
Date: 10 May 99 - 09:46 AM

Howdy KC,

It's about time that someone had something nice to say about the Grangers--they were indeed political. Here in New England there are still a few active Granges, most notably, the "Guiding Star" grange in Greenfield, MA. It is the site of numerous events and contra dances, and home to the "Guiding Star Clog Morris" team.

Did your research mention their support of the "greenback dollar" platform shared by Bryant? or am I confusing them with someone else?

Peace & Love Lucius

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 10 May 99 - 10:25 AM

Didn't see anything on that, Lucius. And thanks for the welcome, Alison. I live in the wilds o'Wyoming and have lived in the West and Southwest all my life. The Grange has been a fact of life, sort of subcutaneously because none of my folks were farmers. In Oklahoma, land of my upbringing, the farmers formed a powerful union that actually helped create the state constitution -- although they resisted like crazy the legislation that would put kids in school and not allow them to work 12 hour days! I mean, progressivism has its limits, fer gawdsakes.

I've always wished I had a time machine so I could go back and listen to the songs they were sining at their organizational meetings...

kc

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 10 May 99 - 10:26 AM

I mean "singing." I suppose some songs seemed like "sining," but ...

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 10 May 99 - 10:36 AM

Banjer, you know what they say: "Give me a home where the buffaloes roam and I'll show you one in need of an undustrial strength carpet cleaner" !

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 May 99 - 10:38 AM

Great insight for this city boy. Thanks all.

Art

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Susan A-R
Date: 11 May 99 - 10:56 PM

Come to think of it, all of the contradances here happen at Montpelier's very own Capital City Grange. Sandy, I'll have to look that one up. I know it's in there somewhere. . .Nuthin' about buffalo carpet cleaner though. I bet some of those daughters of the Eastern Star could give me some hints.

Susan

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Philippa
Date: 12 May 99 - 02:15 PM

Oh this is so funny. I thought the question read "What is an Orange song?" and when I saw the answers I thought it was like the Black Country thread (Lancaster vs US). There were some Orange (Ulster Loyalist) songs in adjacent postings. But I'd better wear reading glasses when I read the web!

Subject: RE: What is a Grange Song?
From: Tucker
Date: 12 May 99 - 08:51 PM

Over in Lawrence county, on county road 441, at Deerling, stands a small grange building. I have never been in it, but I have been by it. Have you ever felt an Aura? Ok, I know that sounds silly, but even the building emits "spirit", and I guess they still meet there so I know it's not ghost. Grange lives, at least here in southern Ohio.