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  • The Impact of Sanitation Reform on the Farm Landscape in U.S. Dairying, 1890–1950
  • Sally McMurry (bio)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, spectacular advances in bacteriology brought profound responses in the United States ranging from the public level down to the personal.1 Among the many American landscapes affected by the germ theory, perhaps none was more thoroughly transformed than the dairy farm. Progressive- and New Deal-era governments imposed milk sanitation regulations that reached far into the hinterland, reshaping the farm—and farm dwellers’ spatial practices—to an unprecedented degree through state control.

The subject is significant partly for its sheer scale and landscape impact; this dairy version of a Great Rebuilding affected thousands of farms across the nation. To comply, dairying families rebuilt their barns, erected milk houses, and rearranged their farmsteads, but before long the role of architecture itself in securing clean and safe milk was called into question. Some scientists contended that other factors contributed far more to reducing bacteria counts: proper milking, handling, and cooling practices; animaldisease eradication campaigns; and above all, pasteurization. Yet architectural requirements persisted—as they do to this day. In the public mind visual cleanliness and modern appearance were still crucial indicators of proper sanitation. Located at the nexus between food production and consumption, the modern milk house and sanitary dairy barn functioned as key elements in a landscape discourse between country and city.2

The story appears through published sources such as dairy bacteriology texts and farm journals; archival materials such as completed dairy score cards and agricultural extension materials; and the landscape itself. Barns and milk houses reveal how milk producers interpreted the mandates and engaged in a dialogue with consumers. The broader landscape context suggests how the new spatial organization subtly reshaped daily experience. The examples discussed are mainly from Pennsylvania, but they well represent the nationwide range of landscape responses to the new imperatives.3

Producing milk for fluid consumption was tied to the rise of cows’ milk as a popular substitute for human breast milk.4 A new infrastructure developed to funnel milk from farm to city, starting when human workers milked from the cow into a pail and then emptied pails into metal cans. These were sent, in turn, by rail into the city. Over time, large corporations organized the milk supply across an ever wider geographic area. They built local plants where their “patrons” delivered milk to be pasteurized, bottled, cooled, and sent to market. Truck transport, via a developing highway system, expanded the “milk shed” (analogous to a watershed) beyond rail routes by the 1930s.5

Fluid milk consumption was growing just at the moment when it became apparent that cows’ milk was an ideal growth medium for bacteria.6 Soon, researchers expanded the list of suspected milk-borne human diseases to include tuberculosis, diphtheria, undulant fever, typhoid, infantile diarrhea, cholera infantum, scarlet fever, septic sore throat, and foot-and-mouth disease.7 As epidemiologists began to piece together the processes by which disease reached humans through [End Page 22] milk, public officials devised multiple strategies to deal with the “Milk Question.” Campaigns to eradicate bovine tuberculosis and other diseases focused on testing, culling, vaccinating, and certifying herds. Urban health departments formulated regulations designed to ensure a cleaner raw-milk supply by requiring producers to follow specific milk-handling practices in a clean environment.8

Dairy regulation typically blended thresholds for bacteria counts with evaluations of a farm’s environment (barns, milk houses, water supply, and waste disposal) and handling practices (milking, straining, keeping cows and humans clean, cooling milk). They tied these standards to milk grades and, increasingly, to prices paid. Regulation developed over a half century and varied geographically; major cities led the way, while many smaller municipalities and rural districts were still not covered until as late as 1950. State and municipal regulations overlapped, and competing companies’ milk-supply lines crisscrossed, leading to inconsistencies in expectations.9 Yet where architecture was concerned, basic requirements varied little.

The laws affected multitudes of producers. A typical dairy herd in the early twentieth century numbered between five and ten generally lowproducing cows, so city milk sheds were typically fed...

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