Land of Milk and Money

In Land of Milk and Money, Alan I Marcus examines the establishment of the dairy industry in the United States South during the 1920s. Looking specifically at the internal history of the Borden Company—the world’s largest dairy firm—as well as small-town efforts to lure industry and manufacturing south, Marcus suggests that the rise of the modern dairy business resulted from debates and redefinitions that occurred in both the northern industrial sector and southern towns. Condensed milk production in Starkville, Mississippi, the location of Borden’s and the South’s first condensery, so exceeded expectations that it emerged as a touchstone for success. Starkville’s vigorous self-promotion acted as a public relations campaign that inspired towns in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas to entice northern milk concerns looking to relocate. Local officials throughout the South urged farmers, including Black sharecroppers and tenants, to add dairying to their operations to make their locales more attractive to northern interests. Many did so only after small-town commercial elites convinced them of dairying’s potential profitability.

Land of Milk and Money focuses on small-town businessmen rather than scientists and the federal government, two groups that pushed for agricultural diversification in the South for nearly four decades with little to no success. As many towns in rural America faced extinction due to migration, northern manufacturers’ creation of regional facilities proved a potent means to boost profits and remain relevant during uncertain economic times. While scholars have long emphasized northern efforts to decentralize production during this period, Marcus’s study examines the ramifications of those efforts for the South through the singular success of the southern dairy business. The presence of local dairying operations afforded small towns a measure of independence and stability, allowing them to diversify their economies and better weather the economic turmoil of the Great Depression.