Calgary & Southern Alberta

Henry Wise Wood
Courtesy of Glenbow Collection

Henry Wise Wood, an American immigrant who farmed at Carstairs, dominated the farm movement in Alberta. Born in 1860, Wood belonged to the Disciples of Christ, a religious denomination that believed that economic affairs should be run from Christian principles. In 1915, Wood became vice-president of the United Farmers of Alberta and the next year he became its president. Preferring to act as a pressure group rather than a political party, Wood came to be challenged by the Non-Partisan League which had entered Alberta from the United States in 1916. The main spokesman for the League, William Irvine, a Unitarian minister and journalist from Calgary, added a more radical element to the farmer’s movement. Contesting the 1917 election, the League’s platform promised to demand regulation of wheat prices, to end land speculation, to encourage control of public utilities, and to end tariffs and prohibition. When economic recession followed the end of World War I, however, the United Farmers of Alberta decided to directly enter politics. In order to reach a compromise between Wood and Irvine’s differing philosophies, the UFA absorbed the Non-Partisan League, and Wood’s ideas of government by economic coalition groups took precedent over Irvine’s broader reform ideals.