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Speaker 1: The Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Hello and welcome to this Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that proves there's more than one way to

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Speaker 1: make history. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at

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Speaker 1: the innovation that transformed home milk delivery from a sketchy

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Speaker 1: side hustled into a well oiled machine of modern convenience.

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Speaker 1: The day was January eleven, eighteen seventy eight. The New

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Speaker 1: York Dairy Company delivered milk and glass bottles for what's

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Speaker 1: believed to be the first time. The claim was made

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Speaker 1: by the head of the company, Alexander Campbell, who announced

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Speaker 1: the news before the New York State Senate. Delivering milk

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Speaker 1: and glass bottles may not seem very newsworthy, but it

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Speaker 1: was a major upgrade to what was at the time

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Speaker 1: of vital community service. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, was

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Speaker 1: little need for home milk delivery in the United States.

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Speaker 1: Most families own their own cow or at least a goat,

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Speaker 1: so fresh milk was never more than a few steps away. However,

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Speaker 1: as the country began to urbanize, many people no longer

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Speaker 1: had the space for a family cow. This led to

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Speaker 1: the commercialization of dairy farms, especially in New England, where

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Speaker 1: busy families were able to source fresh milk straight from

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Speaker 1: their local farmer. At first, customers had to visit the

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Speaker 1: farm themselves to get their milk, but in the first

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Speaker 1: home milk delivery service was offered in Vermont. It worked

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Speaker 1: a bit differently before the advent of glass bottles, though

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Speaker 1: In those days, customers in the market for fresh milk

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Speaker 1: had to supply their own containers. A milkman would drive

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Speaker 1: a horse drawn cart door to door and families would

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Speaker 1: bring out buckets, pitchers, jars, or whatever else they had handy.

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Speaker 1: Then the milkman would fill up the containers by pouring

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Speaker 1: or ladling out milk from a big metal barrel. As

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Speaker 1: you might imagine, it wasn't the most sanitary method of

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Speaker 1: delivering milk. Dust, dirt, and other airborne debris routinely fell

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Speaker 1: into the open containers and was then passed along to

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Speaker 1: unsuspecting customers. In fact, doctor Henry Thatcher is said to

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Speaker 1: have patented one of the first designs for glass milk

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Speaker 1: bottles after observing milkmen ladling milk from an open bucket

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Speaker 1: into which a child's rag doll had accidentally fallen. The

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Speaker 1: introduction of glass milk bottles in seventy eight not only

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Speaker 1: streamlined the delivery process, it made it much more hygienic

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Speaker 1: as well. Every bottle was sterilized after each use, and

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Speaker 1: while the earliest bottles were delivered uncovered, companies soon began

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Speaker 1: sealing them with waxed paper disks. The New York Dairy

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Speaker 1: Company is typically credited with having the first factory to

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Speaker 1: mass produce glass bottles for milk distribution. However, some historians

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Speaker 1: point out that those were likely general purpose bottles and

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Speaker 1: weren't specifically designed with milk and mind if you want

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Speaker 1: to split hairs like that, the first purpose made milk bottle,

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Speaker 1: known as the Lester milk jar, was patented that same

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Speaker 1: year in eighteen seventy eight, but wasn't actually used for

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Speaker 1: deliveries until a year later. From that perspective, the New

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Speaker 1: York Dairy Company was the first to deliver bottles of milk,

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Speaker 1: but not milk bottles. In any case, the use of

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Speaker 1: glass bottles gradually became the method of choice for milk delivery.

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Speaker 1: There was some initial concern about the expense of breakage,

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Speaker 1: but it turned out to be a non issue. One

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Speaker 1: study later found that the average milk bottle made twenty

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Speaker 1: two and a half trips in the early nineteen hundreds

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Speaker 1: before it got broken, lost, or stolen. That was long

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Speaker 1: enough to justify the cost of the model in most cases,

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Speaker 1: but even if it was a loss, the ease of

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Speaker 1: delivery afforded by bottles more than made up for it.

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Speaker 1: Botty was also acted as a standard unit for milk delivery,

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Speaker 1: making it easier than ever for dairies to keep track

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Speaker 1: of their sales. Instead of trying to calculate the volume

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Speaker 1: of each customer's container, milkmen just counted the number of

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Speaker 1: bottles they sold. As the system gained acceptance, other dairies

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Speaker 1: began coming up with their own designs for milk bottles

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Speaker 1: and for how to properly seal them. Some bottles were

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Speaker 1: equipped with wooden stoppers attached to wire loops, while others

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Speaker 1: opted for caps that were made from cardboard or metal

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Speaker 1: and stamped with the name of the dairy. The design

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Speaker 1: of milk bottles continued to vary, but the use of

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Speaker 1: them became universal by the early twentieth century. Some American

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Speaker 1: cities even had laws requiring that milk be delivered in

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Speaker 1: glass bottles. That's because homes still didn't have refrigeration at

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Speaker 1: the time, and since milk was perishable, delivering it daily

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Speaker 1: and sealed glass bottles was the best way to ensure

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Speaker 1: it didn't spoil before reaching the customer. Families had to

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Speaker 1: place their orders at least one day in advance, but

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Speaker 1: they no longer had to be home to accept the delivery.

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Speaker 1: Some customers kept an insulated milk box on their front porch,

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Speaker 1: while others had double sided cubbies built directly into the

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Speaker 1: side of their house. In that case, the milkman would

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Speaker 1: open the cubby's exterior door, replace the empty bottles with

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Speaker 1: new ones, collect the payment left for him, and be

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Speaker 1: on his way. The family could then open a second

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Speaker 1: door on the inside of the house and remove the

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Speaker 1: chilled milk at their leisure. In the early nineteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: most milk was still transported on a cart, though how

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Speaker 1: the cart was pulled along varied. Sometimes it was pulled

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Speaker 1: by a horse or even a large dog, and other

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Speaker 1: times it was pulled by the milkman himself. The rise

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Speaker 1: of the automobile put a stop to that, though keeping

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Speaker 1: the milk cold remained a struggle until refrigerated delivery trucks

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Speaker 1: hit the scene in the late nineteen thirties. However, by

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Speaker 1: that point most American homes had refrigerator as well. The

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Speaker 1: appliance severely reduced the need for daily milk delivery, as

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Speaker 1: customers could now keep it cold long term on their

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Speaker 1: own home. Refrigeration marked the beginning of the end for

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Speaker 1: the milkman profession, but the real nail in the coffin

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Speaker 1: was the advent of the supermarket and the steady rise

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Speaker 1: in car ownership that came with it. By the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: convenience had become the ultimate selling point for American consumers.

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Speaker 1: If a family needed milk, why wait around for the

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Speaker 1: milkman when you could just jump in your car and

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Speaker 1: get some from the store right away. In most cases,

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Speaker 1: that was simply the faster and cheaper option. Convenience and

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Speaker 1: cost saving were also the reasons why glass milk bottles

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Speaker 1: eventually gave way to plastic jugs and wax paper cartons.

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Speaker 1: Single use containers were just as easy to keep sterile,

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Speaker 1: but didn't require the extra time and expense of returning

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Speaker 1: them to the bottling plant to be washed and re sterilized.

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Speaker 1: By the early ninth seen sixties, most of the milk

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Speaker 1: in the US was packaged in paper cartons instead of

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Speaker 1: glass bottles, and you had to go to the story

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Speaker 1: yourself to buy it. From that point on, home milk

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Speaker 1: delivery became an increasingly nostalgic concept, a symbol of a

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Speaker 1: quaint and largely imaginary era where squeaky clean milkmen and

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Speaker 1: white caps and black bow ties whistled as they made

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Speaker 1: their rounds. That said, in recent years, some dairies have

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Speaker 1: resumed home milk delivery in rural areas, and they even

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Speaker 1: drop it off in old fashioned glass bottles. That's obviously

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Speaker 1: not an option for everyone, and there's plenty of people

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Speaker 1: who wouldn't want to drink milk in the first place.

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Speaker 1: In that case, having some boat milk delivered through instat

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Speaker 1: cart might be the closest you can get to replicating

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Speaker 1: the milkman experience. It's not quite as whimsical, but in

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Speaker 1: some ways it's a lot less weird. I'm Gay Blusier

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. You can learn even more

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Speaker 1: about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

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Speaker 1: at t d I HC Show and If you have

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Speaker 1: any comments or suggestions, feel free to send them my

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Speaker 1: way at this Day at I heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks

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Speaker 1: to you for listening. I'll see you back here again

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Speaker 1: tomorrow for another day in history class