The Butter Battle

On January 20th, 1930, the front page of the Shakopee Argus Tribune ran the headline: “Butterfat Prices Lowest in Years: Cause Is Too Much Oleo Say Men Who Have Studied the Question”. The article goes on to state that butter was selling for nearly ten cents per pound less than it had a year earlier, and that over 30,000,000 pounds of unsold butter currently sat in storage.  

This was of particular concern to Minnesota’s Farmers. At the time, Minnesota produced 276,000,000 pounds of butter annually.

Pride of Jordan Sweet Cream Butter Carton, Jordan Cooperative Creamery, 1957

To the modern reader, the date of this headline might ring a bell. Just a few months before, on October 29th 1929, the stock market had crashed. The decade that followed would come to be known as the Great Depression.  

But in January of 1930, the crash seemed more like an isolated incident. It was covered in Scott County newspapers. Concern was expressed for honest bankers who had lost their fortunes, but the November 7th, 1929 article in the Argus covering the Great Crash chastised “very little sympathy is had for the person who goes upon the stock exchange. It is a gamble pure and simple, and a precarious game”  

At the time, the butter surplus and falling dairy prices were not connected to the stock market crash. They were attributed to a new interloper on the market: Oleo, shorthand for Oleomargarine.  

Oleo was invented and patented in 1869 by a French Chemist, Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, as a direct result of a challenge by Emperor Napoleon III of France who offered a prize to anyone who could produce a cheap butter alternative for use by the armed forces and lower classes. 

Originally oleo was made primarily of beef fat, but in the early 1870s, Henry W Bradley of New York received a patent for creating a margarine that replaced the beef fat with vegetable or coconut oil. Shortages of dairy during WW1 pushed the product into prominence and soon it was being sold nationwide as a cheaper alternative to butter.  

This was not met with cheers by the dairy industry. Increasingly, Oleo was blamed for falling dairy prices. Unfortunately, as money got tight, the very farmers that were suffering a shortfall began purchasing inexpensive oleo to make ends meet. The Shakopee Argus noted in their January 20th, 1929 article “I said once that any farmer who would cash a cream or milk check and purchase oleo with the money should be ashamed to look a cow in the face. If a dairy farmer won’t eat his own product and help his own business then he should and will be eventually driven out of business and a coconut cow from the tropical countries will be his ruination”. 

After the stock market crashed, economic instability increased in the United States, and butter prices continued to fall. Ten years previously, farmers had pushed themselves to meet the production demands of World War I. This rapid production increase had left many farmers with debts that they struggled to pay off. To offset debts, farmers continued to stretch the output of their farms to capacity, hoping to sell more and more for a profit. Unfortunately, this led to a surplus of goods on the market. Alongiside the mass layoffs and financial turmoil of the great depression, the cycle of surplus and debt was catastrophic.  

Headline from the Shakopee Argus Tribune, February 6th, 1930

The Shakopee Argus Tribune addressed farming concerns in a Feb 6th, 1930 article: “The trouble with the butter price situation is not so much overproduction as it is underconsumption. Too much butter substitute, or oleo, is being used”.  On February 13th the editor of the Argus told the story of Welcome, Minnesota where merchants had agreed to refuse to stock oleo. He wrote “This is a good move and would, without question, bring definite results if it would become widespread. Oleo is simply a substitute for butter, the same as peanut butter or another spread, and does not provide the essential healthful qualities of butter”  

On February 20th, the Argus Tribune offered some advice to farmers wishing to combat the Oleo problem. “Advertising – advertise the use of butter and other dairy products” In fact, they confided, “there is no better medium in the world to advertise them then your local weekly newspaper, which in this case is the Shakpoee Argus- Tribune.”  

Headline from the Shakopee Argus Tribune, February 20th, 1930

In March, Oleo was still enemy number one. On March 20th, the production of Oleo was broken down. It was noted that 1000 lbs of Oleo was comprised of coconut oil ($40.00), soy bean oil ($15.00), skimmed milk ($1.50), and salt (1.00). The author also lamented “Including labor and other overhead, this means a cost of only eight cents per pound of oleo. Where is there a dairyman in Scott County who can compete with it?”. It was instead put on local merchants to make the “right” choice and agree to “advertise butter only”.  

By March 27th, local dairy farmers had gotten their wish. According to the Argus Tribune “Shakopee merchants last week entered into an agreement with each other not to sell or handle any more oleo…that the dairy farmers will appreciate this voluntary action of our merchants goes without saying”.  

Dairy farmers had a hard road ahead. Scott County was not the only area where farmers were suffering during the Great Depression. The butter battle was national. Farmers pushed back through legislation, and bills were passed demanding that word “butter” not be used in any oleo advertising. It was also illegal to dye oleo a pale yellow to match butter. Instead, oleo was packaged with a small baggie of dye, allowing housewives to change the color of their spread at home. The last of these dye laws was on the books until 1976.  In Wisconsin the battle against oleo became violent. In 1933 the state was home to series of dairy strikes where farmers refused to sell their butterfat for less than $1.50 per 100 lbs. Eventually the state brought in armed guards and used tear gas to martial dairy trucks through the farmers’ blockade to market.  

Unfortunately, margarine was on the market to stay. By the 1950s, Americans became concerned about fat. Margarine, which had been lambasted for its “dangerous chemical properties” began to be marked as a healthful alternative to butter. By the mid 1960s, Margarine was outselling Butter. The reign of Oleo did not last though- today, amid concerns about trans fats, butter is on the rise. For the first time in 50 years the dairy farmers are getting their wish and butter once again outselling Margarine.  

Scott County Memories: How My Mother Made Soap Many Years Ago

These recollections were dictated by Anna Laabs of Belle Plaine in 1980 and originally shared in the collection “As I Remember Scott County”

First the wood ashes in wintertime were saved from the heating stove and kitchen range. When spring came, a waterproof barrel was put up behind the smoke house on a stand, with a big piece of tin put on the barrel so the lye water could run in the big black kettle which was hanging on a log held up by two charlie horses. The black pot was about a foot off the ground.

Ana Lebra with Chickens, around 1910. Photo from the SCHS collections.

I was a little girl, eleven years old, so Mother said “now get your pail, go in the house, and pump your pail full of cistern water and pour it over the ashes until there are quite a few pails full”. Pretty soon a little stream of water was slowly going down the tin into the black kettle. It was the color of molasses and took quite some time to fill the black pot as the stream was very slow.

When the kettle filled up to a foot from the top, Mother took a raw chicken egg and put int in the kettle with the lye water. The egg did not sink to the bottom, so she new it was right for her to start soap cooking. I made a fire under the kettle. It took time before it was hot enough to put her clean lard and skins in. She had a long-handled wooden spoon to stir with. She always had a pail of cold water handy so when it boiled too fat she could pour could water in and it would settle. Some folks had trouble with it boiling over- what a mess!

When the cooking was done, I would scrape the fire from the pot and she would put a cover on it with a blg rock on top and some old coats. The next morning she and I would go out and she would cut a piece. It was ever so nice and clean and white.

Mother never had moldy lard, we took peach and pear boxes with clean cloth on the bottom of them and set the soap in there and put the boxes in the upstairs of the house to dry until ready to use.

The Baking Powder Wars

 It’s 7:30pm on a Thursday night, and your daughter just informed you that she needs 37 cupcakes for tomorrow’s class party. No problem! Just pull out a box of cake mix, add some oil and eggs, and voila! Some passable cupcakes.  

The ingredient that makes this kitchen magic possible is baking powder. In 1850, the relatively light and fluffy cake that we pour out of a box today would have been a laborious ordeal. Flour might have to be dried, grated or sifted depending on the season. Sugar needed to be ground, and even with these tasks you might still have a dense, flat desert.  

Advertisement for Royal baking powder warning about the dangerous use of alum by competitors. Published in the Scott County Argus, February 7th, 1908

During this time the main leavening agent was yeast. Getting a proper rise out of those finicky little fungi could often be a multi-day process. Yeast “breathe” in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Over time, and with constant heat, tiny yeast-breath bubbles of carbon dioxide build up in dough, causing it to “rise”. In order to have some fluff, the cake-baking process had to be scheduled with 12 to 24 hours of rising time.  

Even acquiring yeast could be difficult. The 1891 household guide “Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping” listed eight different recipes for making your own yeast. Unfortunately, all but one of these listed “Good Yeast” saved from your last batch of starter as one of the necessary ingredients. There was only one set of instructions for “Yeast without yeast”, and the process was lengthy. First, “On Monday morning” you were instructed to boil hops into water and drain the liquid into a ceramic crock. Once it has cooled to lukewarm, add “The best brown sugar” and flour to the mix. Two days later, add boiled and mashed potatoes and mix thoroughly. The next day, strain out the mix into stoneware jugs and set loosely with corks. Two days later the corks could be tightened. Then for the next two weeks, the mixture should be set near a stove (keeping it warm, but not too warm), and it needed to be stirred frequently. At the end of this process you would finally have yeast.  

It is very possible that the process of making yeast would have been relatively new to early European—American Scott County cooks. Until the 1860s, many housewives simply took leftover yeast from breweries. With its high German population, leftover brewers yeast might have been the norm for many Scott County residents. Unfortunately, in the late 1800s, most brewers switched from using primarily top-fermenting yeast to bottom-fermenting yeast. This new “lager” yeast ferments more slowly and at cooler temperatures, making it fairly useless in a home kitchen. Around this time, you also see a proliferation of cookbooks and household guides published explaining to frustrated housewives the process of creating yeast. Given the relative difficulty of obtaining good yeast, it is no surprise that people began looking for a substitute.  

The story goes that in the 1840s, an English chemist had a wife who was allergic to yeast and asked him to invent a substitute. He combined a few household items and presto! Baking powder. In reality, the mission to find an alternative leavening agent had been going on for centuries. In the late 1700s, early cookbooks mentioned using pearlash, or potash to create a rise. Made from lye, wood ashes, or baker's ammonia, pearlash consisted mainly of potassium carbonate. This produces carbon dioxide quickly and reliably, but was difficult to make, caustic, and often smelly, making it a less than ideal ingredient. By the early 1800s, cooks were using cream of tarter and baking soda, but tarter (a byproduct of winemaking) was too expensive for the average American household.  

In 1856 a chemist named Eben Norton Horsford officially patented the first baking powder. Rather then using ash, lye, or cream of tarter, Horsford’s invention was made from boiled down animal bones. This process extracted monocalcium phosphate, creating an acid that would react with baking soda to create CO2. He mixed the two in a container with a little cornstarch and baking powder was born. He started selling his product under the name “Rumford Baking Powder”.  

Baking powder soon became a pantry staple, and the competitors began to pop up. Royal Baking Powder used the classic cream of tartar in their powder, touting it as a higher quality, though slightly more expensive, product. Calmut and Clabber Girl used alum in place of monocalcium phosphate, making their powder slightly cheaper. This competition soon heated. The baking powder wars had begun.  

Advertisement for Royal baking powder warning about the dangerous use of alum by competitors. Published in the Scott County Argus, February 7th, 1908

What makes the struggle between these companies so unique is the context in which their battle played out. The United States was changing rapidly at the turn of the century. The era of the “Wild West” was ending, and the nation was becoming urban. With this came changes in how people ate. More and more Americans were turning to pre-prepared foods, and increasingly, consumers did not know where the ingredients for their meals were sourced. Food safety laws had not caught up to these changes, and adulterated, spoiled, and downright poisonous ingredients became a real fear.  

Baking powder was one of the first popular “chemical” foods. There wasn’t a baking powder grain that it was ground from, or a baking powder plant. Instead, this ingredient was produced in a lab.  During an era of food uncertainty, this new chemical product became instantly suspect.  

You can see this play out on the pages of Scott County newspapers. During the first 10 years of 1900, competing baking powder advertisements grace almost every issue. Royal and Rumford baking powders pointed to the health concerns of the alum in cheaper brands. Calmut and Clabber insisted that their products were just as healthful, and cheaper than the competition. For such a low-profile food, baking powder dominated the advertising market.  

Eventually, cost won out. Royal and Rumford were acquired by Clabber Girl, leaving it and Calumet as the reigning American companies on the market. You don't have to look far to see baking powder's continued hegemony today: cooks around the world use it in everything from cupcakes to crepes, muffins to madeleines, danishes to doughnuts. The sheer lack of baking powder ads gracing our screens speaks to its ubiquitous nature- nobody has to be convinced to buy baking powder. 

Scott County Memories: Change of Times in the Farming Line

These recollections were dictated by Henry L Latzke of Belle Plaine in 1980 and originally shared in the collection “As I Remember Scott County”

Boys with horse. Photo taken around 1910. From the SCHS Collections.

I was born and grew up on the farm Dad owned, a 200 acre farm. At the age of six, Dad had me do all of the hoeing and at seven years of age I did the plowing with a bulky plow outfit that was drawn by three horses. The seeding was done with a seeder that spread the seed on top of the ground and it had eight shovels to cultivate the soil. Then it was harrowed twice, one crosswise and then across the corner to work the seed in. Corn was planted by a hand planter. The field was marked with a homemade marker made of wood, marked two ways, and the corn was planted in the mark so it could be cultivated lengthwise and crosswise.

In 1905, Dad and my uncle bought a fourteen she drill for seeding the small grain, and the next spring, Dad bought a 16 disk drill as it got seed in the ground better. In 1907, Dad bought a cornplanter, and the field was marked crosswise and planted the long way. the planter required two men and was drawn by two horses. One man drove the team, and the two men sat in front and dropped the corn on the cross mark. A lever had to be pulled to drop the seed corn.

The next year the same company that made the planter came out with a wire attachment that saved the time of marking the field.

I farmed on my own in the year of 1924; I bought a John Deere two-row grain drill. I used this until 1938, then I bought a 20 disk drill and used it until 1944. Then bought a 22 disk Moline tractor power lift. The corn was still being planted with horses, and I had four good work horses. The corn on the farm was planted with a two row horse planter, and the biggest part of the hay mowing and raking was also done with horses.

The chick corn with tractor planters did not work out as well as it should have. In 1954, my son bought a tow row mounted to help out. The grain was cut with a six foot Deering binder. There were only three binders at that time: Deering, McMorick and Plano. They shucked as a rule, nine or eleven bundles in a round shuck with some bundles broken and capped to get barley. Eleven bundles as a rule; it required two bundles for the cap. The cap bundle was to keep the wheat from blackening after 7-12 days of being dry. It was stacked with four stacks for a setting. The average stack was six to ten loads. I remember in the beginning of 1900, the separator was run by horse power called a sweep threshing.

Threshing crew near Shakopee, around 1910. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

Wood sawing and grinding were all horse powered and the separator had no blower to remover the straw as it was passed from man to man onto the stack. Bundles were cut and fed by man. The first steamer that threshed for us was moved from farm to farm by horses. Haas and Winterfeldt had the first completed steam power thresher in our neighborhood and they threshed our grain for quite a number of years. We were last at the very end of the run. John Haas was our neighbor, and our rig was shedded there. His first three boys and himself were with the outfit as the years went on. One year as we threshed, we had close to a foot of snow Dad raked it off the stacks to keep them from freezing.

In 1915 or 1916, Fred Blume ought a gas tractor. He owned a steamer also. In the winter or spring he sawed lumber. In 1917 he sawed lumber after Thanksgiving day for a barn on the farm that I farmed until I retired.

Frederick Bohnsack Sitting on a Tractor, 1952. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

I lived on his farm to take care of the livestock and hauled cord wood to Belle Plaine for three years. Before that, we had a family to take care of the stock. The first year we had 76 head of cattle and over a dozen horses. We farmed in partnership, and we farmed three farms in 1920. I married and still farmed. In 1923 I bought a tractor. I used the tractor for power to fill the silo and it was used for belt work and plowing too. I still did some plowing with horses. In 1924, I traded the Fordson in on an 10-20 International as it was ma more powerful tractor, and in 1936 traded int in for an Allis and that was a three plow outfit.

In 1936, when I bought the Allis tractor it was on all steel wheels. In 1938 I assembled it on rubber. Te beginning of 1936 I did custom silo filling and filled in forty silos each fall. For grain threshing we had seven farmers, mostly neighbors, and they all had shares in the threshing machine. I used my tractor for power, and took care of the machine. The elevator, machine, and tractor were shedded on my farm.

In 1948 we went to combining the grain.

Under Construction

The windows and walls at SCHS are currently rattling with the new Scott County building construction going on down the street!

We have quite a few photos in our collections of iconic structures around Scott County as they were being built. Check out these construction images! See if you can guess what is being built before you read the caption!

Shakopee Ferry Crossing, 1879. In the background, you can see the supports for the Lewis Street Swing Bridge under construction. Photo from the SCHS Collections

Addition to Mudbaden Health Spa in Jordan, around 1915. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

Building a barn in St Joe, around 1920. Photo from the SCHS collections.

Construction of the Holmes Street Bridge in Shakopee, 1928. From the SCHS Collections.

New addition to Mudbaden ouside of Jordan, around 1930. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

St Francis Hospital Shakopee, 1952. Photo from the SCHS Collections

First National Bank in Shakopee, 1972. Photo from the SCHS Collections.