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.