Merle Hansen - Background

Background

Merle Elwin Hansen was born on his family’s farmstead north of Newman Grove, Nebraska. After graduating from Newman Grove High School in 1938, Merle attended a business college in Chillicothe, MO.

Hansen viewed farm policy as an issue of social justice and often urged farmers to align themselves with minorities, environmentalists, the urban poor, labor unions, and other constituencies often regarded as marginalized in American culture. During the Great Depression, Hansen's father was active in the Farmer's Holiday Association, a farm protest organization that advocated the withholding of farm commodities from markets as a means of raising farm prices, and the use of penny auctions as a means of stopping farm foreclosures. The Holiday's plan for increasing prices never proved feasible, but the "penny auctions" were occasionally successful in preventing banks from foreclosing on individual farmers.

In many well-publicized cases, Association members would attend a farm sale regarded by Association members as morally or legally questionable. After bidding no more than a few pennies on each item put up by the auctioneer, they would return everything to the original owners immediately following the auction. Local law enforcement officials often discovered they were powerless to stop these tactics, and individuals at the auction who made earnest bids on the items in the sale were often intimidated into silence by Association members.

Hansen's town of Newman Grove was home to one of the movement's most successful locals. Often meeting in an auto-repair garage owned by Hansen's family, the "Madison County" chapter of the Association gained national attention for several successful actions, including the orchestration of a "penny auction" in Elgin, NE and the reacquisition of farmer-owned property that had been seized by banks. Deeply affected by these early experiences of direct action and radical populism, Hansen referenced the Association throughout his career.