Agricultural Wheel

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The Agricultural Wheel was a cooperative alliance of farmers in the United States that existed from 1882 until 1888 when it merged with the National Farmers' Alliance. It was initially started by W. W. Tedford, farmer and school teacher, to improve farming conditions.

On February 15, 1882, during a period of depressed farm prices and drought, a group of nine Arkansas farmers led by W.W. Tetford, W. A. Suit and W. Taylor McBee met at the McBee Schoolhouse eight miles south of Des Arc, Prairie County, Arkansas and formed the Wattensas Farmers' Club. The club's stated goals were to improve the lives of farmers, improve their education and knowledge, and improve communications between them. Many Arkansas farmers were suffering under what they viewed as oppressive mortgages (known as anaconda mortgages) and were heavily in debt.

Within a short time it was suggested that the organization change its name. The choices were between "The Poor Man's Friend" and "The Agricultural Wheel" which was the name finally selected.

The situation did not improve in Arkansas that year and farmers were in such desperate straits that they called upon Governor Churchill to ask the legislature to postpone the collection of taxes.

By 1883 the organization consisted of over 500 members in Arkansas. At the organization's meeting in the spring a state Wheel was established and deputies were appointed to spread the word to neighboring states and seek to establish local wheels in those states.

In 1885 the Wheel absorbed the Brothers of Freedom, another Arkansas farm organization.

In 1886 delegates from Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee gathered at the town of Litchfield, Arkansas and established the National Agricultural Wheel and to establish an official newspaper for the organization.

By the time of the 1887 meeting the membership of the national organization was over 500,000 farmers from Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Indian Territory, and Wisconsin.

The growing political clout of the organization led it to establish a political platform consisting of the following demands:

Paying off the national debt
Repeal of laws that favored capital over labor
Preventing aliens from owning land
Abolishing national banks
Government operations on a cash basis
Ending of agricultural futures trading
Establishing a graduated income tax
Prohibiting importation of foreign labor
National ownership of transportation and communication
Direct election of national politicians
Free trade and removal of all import duties
Establishment of a luxury tax
Free public education
No renewal of patents

In 1888 at the national meeting in Meridian, Mississippi a merger between the Wheel and the Farmers' Alliance was proposed. The two organizations met jointly in 1889 in Birmingham, Alabama and merged that same year.

Among farmers' organizations of the period the Wheel was remarkable for refusal to hold segregated meetings, a policy it held until merger with the Farmers' Alliance.