by Concordia College students in History 112HU, Fall 2016
The Cream of the Co-op:
America the great, America the independent. From the Declaration of Independence to the mantra of the “American Dream,” the culture of the nation was founded and nurtured upon independence of the individual. Yet, a small building in New York Mills, Minnesota stood in the face of American individualism. Across the nation, agricultural cooperatives proliferated from their introduction to the United States in the early 1800s to their peak in the early decades of the 1900s. An agricultural cooperative is a business which is owned and controlled by the member farmers.[1] Dairy cooperatives epitomized the cooperative movement as out of any commodity farmers they relied most heavily on the cooperative to market their milk.[2] In analyzing the rephotograph of the New York Mills Cooperative Creamery building this paper seeks understanding how dairy cooperatives have impacted rural communities as New York Mills, MN. The dairy cooperative movement in America was not an instant hit, but quickly gained traction in unifying rural dairy farming communities across the nation.
In 1882, the cooperative creamery began proliferating in Denmark. With the movement, economies of scale could be performed. Sharing the costs such as marketing, processing, and technology saved costs for the collective group of farmers. First, marketing expenses included the negotiation of the commodity. The cooperative gained the collective Danish farmers a larger negotiating seat for their commodities compared to their individual ability. Second, processing of the dairy in larger quantities dispersed the fixed costs reducing individual farmer costs. Lastly, the farmers’ cooperative allowed access to the latest technologies. [3]
An important technology giving dairy cooperatives in Denmark a commanding position in the 1880s was the centrifugal cream separator. The separator significantly quickened the process of separating cream from the milk. This saved milk and cream from high spoiling rates. Danish cooperatives utilized the separator quickly making Denmark into a leading exporter of butter in the region.[4] Denmark introduced the world on how to effectively operate a farmers’ cooperative, the United States was to follow.
Not many years passed until cooperatives began spreading in the United States. The South saw the first proliferation of cooperatives in 1886 and 1892. A weak bargaining position was of special concern to Americans as individual farmers banned together under the Farmers’ Alliance to protect their assets from the greed of the higher leveraged banks.[5] Cooperatives became a necessity for dairy farmers and they began to proliferate following the advent of the centrifugal cream separator. From the introduction of the separator in the 1880s to 1900, the cooperative creamery count rose significantly to roughly 2,000 in America.[6] Cooperatives continued to spread until their peak in the United States in 1940s where there were consistently around 2,300 cooperative creameries across the nation.[7] It was the turn of the century where the cooperative creamery movement began to proliferate in rural Minnesota.
In 1911, the Mills Cooperative Creamery incorporated in New York Mills, Minnesota located in Otter Tail County. The region grew as more Finnish people immigrated to the area to begin farming. Eventually, the cooperative had enough members and finances to construct the New York Mills Cooperative Creamery brick building in 1924. The New York Mills Creamery was conveniently located on the rail way on main street. On examination of the historic photograph, the building has to either side overhangs which served as rain guards for the delivery process of the milk. A large steam pipe strutting from the top of the building served as exhaust in the processing of the milk. The Creamery was built with some luxury such as the addition of large pane glass windows along with landscaping and even vining which at the time of the picture had engulfed most of the left half of the building. However, good looks and strong functionality did not leave the New York Mills Creamery exempt from changing times.
The creamery succumbed to changing times in America in the 1970s. The decline of the cooperatives was systemic and caused by improvements in the road system which allowed milk transportation to occur more frequently by truck rather than rail. Milk stations consolidated causing creameries to grow in size but shrink in numbers across the country. Regulations in the 1920s increased the likelihood of this consolidation. The Capper-Volstead Act of 1922 granted cooperatives exemption from antitrust laws.[8] Coupling of the laws and the new infrastructure provided larger cooperatives such as Land O’Lakes Inc. to undercut local creameries.[9] The result becomes apparent when analyzing the contemporary photograph of the New York Mills Creamery with the history of the town.
The building saw many transitions of ownership from being a boat dealership to an auto auction to a café.[10] The creamery has since been donated in 2011 to the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center where it serves as a location for the town’s farmers’ market. An examination of rephotograph reveals vestiges of the past that tell a story. One can note the building now has an addition located on the left. This suggests a business in the building had seen growth. This is explained by the town’s transition to manufacturing with the foundation of Lund boats in 1948. As the renowned boat brand grew so did the town and the Creamery. The city began to see an identity transition, manufacturing of Lund boats quickly became the identity of the town. This was, rather ironically, reflected in the first new ownership of the Creamery being a Crestline boat dealership, Lund’s main competitor. Public land in front of the Creamery dramatically changed during the transition too. As seen in the updated photograph, concrete and asphalt filled the sidewalks and street before it. The transition helped to modernize the city and symbolized its growth. Times were looking up in New York Mills. Growth cannot last forever; the building reflects the loss of invigoration in the city. From the engraving “NEW YORK MILLS CREAMERY” being faded to the absence of vegetation on and around the building, the Creamery has lost its identity just as the town around has lost its identity as a predominantly farming community.
The New York Mills Creamery building is a strong reflection of the city as a whole. From the origins, the building was filled with life. To the transition, the Creamery’s windows replaced by brick reflect a transition of the city from farming careers to manufacturing jobs. To its current state, as a reminder to the city of the town’s origins. The dairy cooperative movement represented a dramatic change for the community. No longer was the town independent. The farmers unified and the community was strengthened. Today, this strong community is still unified as one. This is seen from the bustling town café following Sunday church, to the creamery building serving the towns Cultural Center. The creamery building will continue to be a symbol of a unified city founded by a deep heritage of farming.
Written By:
Michael R. Thompson
December 2, 2016
Footnotes:
[1] National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, “About Co-ops – NCFC,” NCFC, accessed November 27, 2016, http://ncfc.org/about-co-ops/.
[2] Cropp, Bob, and Truman Graf, "The History and Role of Dairy Cooperatives,” University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001): 2, http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/info/dairy/history.pdf.
[3] Eva Fernández, "Selling Agricultural Products: Farmers' Co-operatives in Production and Marketing, 1880–1930," Business History 56, no. 4 (2014): 547, accessed November 10, 2016, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.cordproxy.mnpals.net/ehost/detail/detail?sid=f4198448-3b4a-4795-b8f8-423f897c9801%40sessionmgr4007&vid=0&hid=4101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZ T1zaXRl#AN=95609912&db=keh.
[4] Eva Fernández, "Selling Agricultural Products: Farmers' Co-operatives in Production and Marketing, 1880–1930," Business History 56, no. 4 (2014): 549-550, accessed November 10, 2016, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.cordproxy.mnpals.net/ehost/detail
/detail?sid=f4198448-3b4a-4795-b8f8-423f897c9801%40sessionmgr4007&vid=0&hid=4101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZS ZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=95609912&db=keh.
/detail?sid=f4198448-3b4a-4795-b8f8-423f897c9801%40sessionmgr4007&vid=0&hid=4101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZS ZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=95609912&db=keh.
[5] Andrew C. Baker et al., “Capital and Labor,” Joseph Locke, ed., in The American Yawp, Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, eds., last modified August 1, 2016, accessed November 27, 2016, http://www.AmericanYawp.com.
[6] United States Department of Agriculture, Cooperatives in the Dairy Industry, Cooperative Information Report 1, Section 16 (2005): 4, accessed November 27, 2016, https://www.rd.usda.gov/files/cir116.pdf.
[7] Cropp, Bob, and Truman Graf, "The History and Role of Dairy Cooperatives,” University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001): 2, accessed November 27, 2016, http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/info/dairy/history.pdf.
[8] United States Department of Agriculture, Cooperatives in the Dairy Industry, Cooperative Information Report 1, Section 16 (2005): 5-6, accessed November 27, 2016, https://www.rd.usda.gov/files/cir1-16.pdf.
[9] Cropp, Bob, and Truman Graf, "The History and Role of Dairy Cooperatives,” University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001): 2, accessed November 27, 2016, http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/info/dairy/history.pdf.
[10] “Historic Creamery Donated to New York Mills Regional Cultural Center,” DL News, December 28, 2011, accessed November 27, 2016, http://www.dl-online.com/content/historic-creamery-donated-new-york-mills-regional-cultural-center.
Photo Credits:
Historic Photo: New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, New York Mills Creamery, 1930s, New York Mills, Minnesota, accessed September 20 2016, http://www.kulcher.org/about/the-creamery/.
Historic Photo: New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, New York Mills Creamery, 1930s, New York Mills, Minnesota, accessed September 20 2016, http://www.kulcher.org/about/the-creamery/.