Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1987
Abstract
The Nonpartisan League was a post-Populist movement of farmers that arose in North Dakota in 1915 and rapidly spread throughout the Upper Midwest. Within a few years the League won primary elections against candidates of the established parties and gained control of the North Dakota government. Massive numbers of North Dakota farmers voted to bring in the League and its radical platform. The goal of the League was to alleviate the economic suffering of North Dakota farmers caused by outside forces over which they had no control, and to that end it sponsored a program of progressive legislation that included the establishment of state-owned industries-the most successful of which were a state mill and elevator and a state bank that are still in existence. Although the League lasted only seven years in its original incarnation, its political legacy in North Dakota and neighboring states exists to this day.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 7:1 (Winter 1987). Copyright © 1987 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.