His socially critical novels and stories, written in the tradition of Jeremias Gotthelf, centered largely around village life, with strong tendencies towards literary and poetic realism.

Felder achieved fame and recognition when the publishing house Hirzel in Leipzig brought out his novels "Sonderlinge" and "Reich und Arm".

The farmers and peasants, on the other hand, continued to live in poverty, often deeply in debt to the Cheese Barons and dependent on their whims for a meagre livelihood.

Himself a farmer and social activist, Franz Michael Felder became an untiring opponent of these Käsegrafen, hoping to break their monopoly on the dairy products trade in the Bregenzerwald.

His private home housed a newspaper reading room, a small public library, and it also became a meeting place for discussing church policies.

Together with his brother-in-law Kaspar Moosbrugger (1830–1917), Felder founded the "Vorarlberg'sche Partei der Gleichberechtigung" (Vorarlberg Party for Equality) in 1866.