In Union There Is Strength

I've been remiss in not speaking much of the dairy industry. It was part of the livelihood of many families in the Ainsworth area. By 1900, according to the Rev. T.H. Ball, Ainsworth "constituted quite a shipping point for milk." But I don't know much about the topic — either the dairy industry generally in the early 20th century, or its operations in northwest Indiana — and it doesn't help that the newspapers wrote about it for an audience that lived with it daily and thus did not need many things spelled out for them. (It also doesn't help that it's a pretty dry subject, and that's no joke.)

I have found a Gazette article from 1901 that says there were then some 2,800 milk shippers "in this territory." (I'm not sure what "this territory" comprised — northwest Indiana, or Lake County, or the Hobart-Valparaiso area?) "Milk shippers" was the term applied to dairy farmers who shipped milk out for sale. Chicago's burgeoning population was thirsty for milk, and with the numerous railroads across northwest Indiana making it possible to ship this highly perishable product quickly, it's no wonder that many local farmers looked to milk as a cash crop. But they had railroads to deal with, and middlemen in the city who took a fee for finding retailers to buy the product, and of course those retailers also wanted to maximize their own profit, and with all these competing interests, as the Gazette said, "Milk shipping has always been a great problem for the farmers to work out and keep from getting skinned."

In the autumn of 1901, some Chicago milk dealers were working among the area milk shippers to form a union, and by November 1, out of the 2,800 area shippers, 2,000 had signed contracts with them, thus binding themselves to work only with those dealers for the next five years. In return, the shippers were guaranteed a specified price for their milk during that term, the dealers putting up a bond of $25,000 to guarantee payment.

But the Chicago "milk route men" — retailers, I assume — responded by forming their own union and declaring their intention to refuse to buy from the milk dealers involved with the union.

And since the union milk shippers were contractually prohibited to sell to anyone else, they were now in a bind. The Gazette expressed its opinion that in the long run, if they stuck together, they would win out, because the 800 non-union shippers simply could not supply Chicago's demand for milk. For the moment, the local shippers could sell at least some of their product locally. Eventually the Chicago retailers would have to cave. But it would be a nail-biting wait for that to happen.

Silence fell over the subject until the spring of 1902. Then the Gazette reported a "large and enthusiastic meeting" of milk shippers in Hobart, and it appeared that the union had indeed stuck together and was again able to sell milk in Chicago. And unless the terminology had changed, it seems that yet another middleman had inserted itself into the process: the "milk agent," in the form of the Richmond-Smith Co., which addressed the Hobart meeting, offering to deal with the Chicago milk dealers on behalf of the shippers for a fee of one cent per can. The agents would require dealers to post a bond before they could buy any milk, thus virtually guaranteeing the arranged price to the shippers.

The arranged price was determined for the union by a board composed of one representative from each railroad that carried milk. Those representatives were chosen by the union members. The price was set for six months at a time. Thus in April 1902 the Board of Directors of the Milk Shippers Union set the price per 8-gallon can at 75 cents during May and June, 85 cents during July, 90 cents during August, and 95 cents during September and October.

"The milk shippers realize the necessity of a perfect organization," said the Gazette, "and as long as they stick together they can more easily secure their rights, and protect themselves against dishonest milk dealers in the city…. 'In union there is strength.'"


Sources:
♦ Ball, the Rev. Timothy Horton, Northwest Indiana from 1800 to 1900 (1900).
♦ "Milk Shippers Meet." Hobart Gazette 28 Mar. 1902.
♦ "Milk Shippers' Trouble." Hobart Gazette 15 Nov. 1901.
♦ "Price of Milk Fixed." Hobart Gazette 18 Apr. 1902.