The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party was a political party in the United States state of Minnesota, the most successful and longest-lasting of the constituent elements of the national Farmer-Labor Party movement, which had a presence in other states. The Minnesota FLP was founded in 1918, with roots in the Non-Partisan League and the Duluth Union Labor Party^[1]; and eventually merged with the Minnesota Democratic Party in 1944.^[2]

The party had a good deal of success in Minnesota as a statewide third party, with three governors, four U.S. senators and eight Representatives serving during the 1920s and 1930s. The party platform called for protection for farmers and labor union members, government ownership of some industries, and social security laws. There were attempts to combine the party with other similar movements into a national Farmer-Labor Party from 1920 well into the early 1920s.

The Minnesota Democratic Party, led by Hubert Humphrey, was able to merge the Farmer-Labor party with the Minnesota Democratic Party on April 15, 1944. Since 1944, the two parties together make up the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

• Governors of Minnesota who were Farmer-Labor
  • Floyd B. Olson (1931–1936)
  • Hjalmar Petersen (1936–1937)
  • Elmer Austin Benson (1937–1939)

• United States Senators from Minnesota who were Farmer-Labor
  • Henrik Shipstead (1923–1941); later became a Republican
  • Magnus Johnson (1923–1925)
  • Elmer Austin Benson (1935–1937)
  • Ernest Lundeen (1937–1940)

• United States Representatives from Minnesota who were Farmer-Labor
  • William Leighton Carss (1919–1921, 1925–1929)
  • Ole J. Kvale (1923–1929)
  • Knud Wefald (1923–1927)
  • Paul John Kvale (1929–1939)
  • Henry M. Arens (1933–1935)
  • Magnus Johnson (1933–1935)
  • Ernest Lundeen (1933–1937); had previously served as a Republican Representative (1915–1917), also served in the Senate
  • Francis Shoemaker (1933–1935)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Article on the Minnesota Farmer-Labor party from The Progressive Populist
• Minnesota Farmer-Labor
• Farmer-Labor information page
• The Farmer Labor Party 1918 – 1924 Organizational history of attempts to form a national Farmer-Labor Party. Marxist Internet Archive. Retrieved May 26, 2006.
• TOWARD THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH: AN INTRODUCTORY HISTORY OF THE FARMER-LABOR MOVEMENT IN MINNESOTA (1917-1948). 232 page online copy of Thomas Gerald O'Connell's 1979 Phd thesis from The Union Institute.

[edit] Further reading

• American Communism and Anticommunism: A Historian’s Bibliography and Guide to the Literature