Gates, Warren J. | Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Library

Gates, Warren J.

The Great Grangers’ Picnic Exhibition, Williams Grove, 1873-1916

Agricultural fairs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries contributed significantly to the dynamics of American rural life. Of such fairs the one held at Williams Grove annually from 1873 through 1916 was among the most important not only regionally but nationally as well.

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Women's Voices at the Picnic: Programs at Williams Grove in the 1890s

On August 21, 1897, The Farmers' Friend and Grange Advocate, a Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, newspaper, carried an advance notice about events at the Interstate Picnic and Exhibition that had been held annually for more than twenty years at Williams Grove on the eastern border of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. On "Suffrage Day" that year, the announcement read:

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