Food Co-ops in America

Meis Knupfer Anne

Description

In recent years, American shoppers have become more conscious of their food choices and have increasingly turned to CSAs, farmers' markets, organic foods in supermarkets, and to joining and forming new food co-ops. In fact, food co-ops have been a viable food source, as well as a means of collective and democratic ownership, for nearly 180 years. In Food Co-ops in America, Anne Meis Knupfer examines the economic and democratic ideals of food cooperatives. She shows readers what the histories of food co-ops can tell us about our rights as consumers, how we can practice democracy and community, and how we might do business differently. In the first history of food co-ops in the United States, Knupfer draws on newsletters, correspondence, newspaper coverage, and board meeting minutes, as well as visits to food co-ops around the country, where she listened to managers, board members, workers, and members.What possibilities for change-be they economic, political, environmental or social-might food co-ops offer to their members, communities, and the globalized world? Food co-ops have long advocated for consumer legislation, accurate product labeling, and environmental protection. Food co-ops have many constituents-members, workers, board members, local and even global producers-making the process of collective decision-making complex and often difficult. Even so, food co-ops offer us a viable alternative to corporate capitalism. In recent years, committed co-ops have expanded their social vision to improve access to healthy food for all by helping to establish food co-ops in poorer communities.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• USA
• United States of America
• Consumerism
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801467714
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

FOODCOOPSINAMERICA

FOODCOOPS IN AMERICA

Communities,Consumption, and Economic Democracy

AnneMeisKnupfer

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2013 by Cornell University

Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview,thisbook,orparts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2013 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Knupfer, Anne Meis, 1951– author.  Food coops in America : communities, consumption, and economic democracy / Anne Meis Knupfer.  pages cm  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801451140 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Food cooperatives—United States—History. I. Title.  HD3444.K68 2013  334'.6816640973—dc23 2012044701

CornellUniversityPressstrivestouseenvironmentallyresponsiblesuppliersand materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, to tally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

to Franz Knupfer and Melissa DiRitoandto my sisters, Betsy, Jeanne, and Mary

Contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations

Introduction:ADemocraticImpulse  1 Cooperatives before the Great Depression. Food

Par t I.VISIONS OF THE DEPRESSION COLLECTIVE  2 . Food Cooperatives, 1930s–1950s  3 Consumer Cooperative Society. Ithaca  4 . The Hyde Park Cooperative Society  5 Consumer Cooperative Society. Hanover  6 Food Cooperative and Putney Food Cooperative. Adamant

Par t II. FOOD FOR PEOPLE OR PROFIT?  7 Cooperatives, 1960s–1990s. Food  8 Coast Cooperatives in Arcata, Eureka, and Fortuna. North  9 Pioneer Cooperative Society. New 10 . Cooperatives in the Twin Cities Epilogue:TheAgeofthe“OrganicIndustrialComplex”

Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

ix xi

1 14

31 47 69 89 106

129 141 157 175 190

205 209 257 271

Acknowledgments

ThisprojectoriginatedinpartthroughagrantfromtheLiberalArtsCollegeof Purdue University. With my American Studies colleagues, Whitney Walton and Nadine Dolby, I organized a series of community panels on food politics. We brought in organic farmers, people from food coops, and others who made their living from natural food businesses. I learned a great deal from these conversa tions, as well as those with other local farmers. I give my thanks to Nadine and to historian Rima Lunin Schultz for reading parts of the manuscript and offer ing thoughtful feedback, as well as other colleagues who have encouraged me to write this book. Iamgratefultothemanyarchivistswhoassistedmewithhistoricalcollec tions. They include Daniel Meyer, associate director of the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago. The Center had received the Hyde Park Cooperative Society’s records several years ago and I was fortunate to be the first person to use them. At the State Histori cal Society of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, I was assisted by Mary Bennett, Special Collections coordinator. I must also thank Janet Weaver, assistant curator of the Iowa Women’s Archives of the University of Iowa Libraries, for keeping her own records about the New Pioneer Cooperative Society’s unionization conflict. A special thanks to Dr. Mary White, former librarian at The History Center in Ithaca, New York. Mary had lived in Ithaca for many years and gave me a broader understanding of Ithaca’s progressive politics during the 1960s and 1970s. Li brary specialist/supervisor Janet Ness and archivist Nicole Bouche assisted me in locating historical collections at the Special Collections of the University of Washington in Seattle. I am grateful to the staff at Cornell University Library’s Special Collections; the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul; the Newberry Library in Chicago; the Wisconsin Historical Society at the University of Wis consin in Madison; the Seattle, Washington Public Library; and the Waukegan Historical Society in Waukegan, Illinois. ThereweresomanypeopleIvisitedatfoodcoopsthroughoutthecountry that I cannot name them all. Wherever I traveled, I made it a point to stop and talk to workers, managers, board and coop members, and eat healthy and deli cious food. A very special thanks to Janet McCleod, board president of the Ada mant Food Cooperative in Adamant, Vermont. Not only did she provide me with a place at the coop to examine the records; she also opened her home to