Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. This is a time
Speaker 1: of year when it's popular for people to argue about food,
Speaker 1: one of my least favorite activities. I'm laughing. I'm laughing
Speaker 1: because it's always time to argue about food, but they're
Speaker 1: specific foods this time of year that are the subject
Speaker 1: of arguments. Yeah, I hate it. We can talk about
Speaker 1: that behind the scenes on Friday, but I sure hate
Speaker 1: the food arguments anyway. A lot of the talk that
Speaker 1: pops up around the holidays is about what kind of
Speaker 1: cranberry sauce people have at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and
Speaker 1: other holiday feasts. If you have them, we'll talk about why.
Speaker 1: I hate that entire argument. But it reminded me that
Speaker 1: I actually put Cranberry's on my list a while back,
Speaker 1: and then I kind of spaced out about them. They
Speaker 1: got on my list because one of my BFFs is
Speaker 1: a cranberry girl. I call her Cranberry Queen. She may
Speaker 1: or may not have cranberry tattoos, and I love her,
Speaker 1: and so I feel like a jerk for sitting on
Speaker 1: this topic for so long after I put it on
Speaker 1: my list. But we're going to talk about cranberries today
Speaker 1: in their history. This is a largely North American episode.
Speaker 1: Heads up, because cranberries are native to North America, the
Speaker 1: cranberries we eat there are other cranberries not as popular
Speaker 1: for eating, So, as Holly just said, the cranberries we
Speaker 1: typically eat today are native to North America grown in
Speaker 1: other places. Today, an estimated ninety eight percent of all
Speaker 1: the cranberries are grown in the US and Canada, with
Speaker 1: the US producing about four hundred thousand tons of the fruit.
Speaker 1: Canada comes in at a little less than half of that.
Speaker 1: Those statistics make this kind of obvious, but there's a
Speaker 1: very clear belt across the northern United States and into
Speaker 1: Canada that has the best conditions for growing cranberry's. Wisconsin
Speaker 1: produces more than half of the cranberry is grown in
Speaker 1: the US, which, as a Massachusetts resident, surprised me a bit.
Speaker 1: Massachusetts actually comes in second. Both of those states claim
Speaker 1: the cranberry as their state fruit or berry. I can
Speaker 1: explain why that happens. Yeah, Massachusetts is a lot smaller.
Speaker 1: I think if you did a density of cranberry production,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts would probably be the number one, And I would
Speaker 1: say that there is a lot of cranberry marketing in
Speaker 1: New England Wisconsin also, Actually I could not say about
Speaker 1: Wisconsin because I've only visited there a couple times that
Speaker 1: it was years ago. Yeah, super popular in both places,
Speaker 1: but I think it really just comes down to the
Speaker 1: fact that Massachusetts is a much smaller state. Cranberries, you
Speaker 1: may or may not know, actually grow on vines. Those
Speaker 1: vines can grow as long as six feet and they
Speaker 1: have kind of these stolens that grow up from the
Speaker 1: vine that carry the flowers and ultimately the berries. So
Speaker 1: the vine crawls along then and then there are these
Speaker 1: kind of pieces that grow up from the ground into
Speaker 1: the air, and that's where all of the action happens.
Speaker 1: These vines are classified as perennial shrubs, and it actually
Speaker 1: takes several years for a vine to mature to the
Speaker 1: point that it bears fruit. If you're used to other
Speaker 1: kinds of vining plants like squashes, this may be surprising
Speaker 1: because they have like one season, But these guys are
Speaker 1: long lived because once a vine does start to bear fruit,
Speaker 1: it will bear fruit for years. Well cared for vines
Speaker 1: last more than one hundred years. There are a number
Speaker 1: of cranberry producers that say that they have vines that
Speaker 1: are one hundred and fifty years old or more. And
Speaker 1: then cranberries, once the fruit is ready in the autumn,
Speaker 1: are harvested in two different ways. They can be picked
Speaker 1: off the vine dry, but the much more common method
Speaker 1: uses bog flooding. This has actually led to some confusion
Speaker 1: as I was doing research. Every time I went to
Speaker 1: like a cranberry producer's website, they were like, no, cranberries
Speaker 1: don't grow underwater. So clearly a lot of people think this.
Speaker 1: Cranberries do not grow in the water. They just do not.
Speaker 1: So if you thought that, it's because you see the
Speaker 1: bogs filled with water. And that's because in bog flooding,
Speaker 1: the night before the harvest, growers pump in big farms
Speaker 1: about a foot and a half of water into their
Speaker 1: bogs and let it set overnight. Smaller producers may put
Speaker 1: less water in, but the air pockets that are inside
Speaker 1: cranberries cause some of the right berries to just pop
Speaker 1: right off the vine and float to the surface on
Speaker 1: their own. But then the next day after they've sat overnight.
Speaker 1: The farmer takes a machine that's called a beater out
Speaker 1: into the bog. It has this cylindrical wheel across the
Speaker 1: front that beats the water and it combs through the
Speaker 1: vines to pull the remaining berries off. Once all of
Speaker 1: the berries have been floated, they are then corralled. They're
Speaker 1: usually like these big straps that go around them to
Speaker 1: keep them all together, and then they are shoveled onto
Speaker 1: belts or lifts that carry them upward and then dump
Speaker 1: them into a truck so that they can be carried
Speaker 1: to a processing plant. There they will be washed and
Speaker 1: prepped for the consumer market or food service supply, or
Speaker 1: they then go to an additional processing center or even
Speaker 1: within that same center to be canned or used for juice.
Speaker 1: The wet method is faster and it costs less. It
Speaker 1: requires about a quarter the number of people, and a
Speaker 1: whole bog can be harvested in less than a day,
Speaker 1: and that's why it's the most popular way to harvest them.
Speaker 1: But because it takes the whole crop of the area
Speaker 1: at once, it's likely that there are different levels of
Speaker 1: ripeness across all those berries. With dry harvesting, it is
Speaker 1: possible to pick individual berries, all of them at their
Speaker 1: peak of ripeness, although that's obviously not especially efficient. Cranberries
Speaker 1: are normally harvested from mid September to mid November, so
Speaker 1: as fresh fruit, they have a small window for consumers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do keep for quite a while, but in in
Speaker 1: terms of like peak of freshness, it's not that long.
Speaker 1: But the actual story of cranberries goes back way beyond
Speaker 1: recorded history. So the movements of glaciers are credited with
Speaker 1: carving out these sort of perfect areas that have a
Speaker 1: mix of sand and clay with peat and additional soil
Speaker 1: and rock debris. And this substrate, along with highly acidic
Speaker 1: soil and a high water table, creates the perfect environment
Speaker 1: for cranberry vines to thrive. Cranberry use goes back thousands
Speaker 1: of years, at least twelve thousand years that we know of.
Speaker 1: The Wampanog people reportedly started picking them that far back,
Speaker 1: both to eat and to treat ailments. And these wild cranberries,
Speaker 1: which the Wampanog called sesamunyish, were ground into a grit
Speaker 1: style food sometimes other times they were combined with dried
Speaker 1: meat and fat to make Pemmican, and that deep red
Speaker 1: color of the berries was also used by these people
Speaker 1: for dying cloth. So the cranberry is, to be clear,
Speaker 1: called other things in other areas by different Native American tribes.
Speaker 1: The Peacock called them a bimi, for example, but they
Speaker 1: were using them in very similar ways to what we
Speaker 1: described the Wampanog doing. There are also some cranberry varieties
Speaker 1: that are native to Europe, especially to around Britain and
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. So when colonists from Europe moved to North America,
Speaker 1: they were already familiar with these fruit, although they had
Speaker 1: not seen them prepared in the same way that the
Speaker 1: indigenous peoples of North America did. The colonists learned these
Speaker 1: other prep methods and also started using cranberries for juice.
Speaker 1: It's often reported that Europeans referred to the berry as
Speaker 1: a crane berry, because the flowers of the plant have
Speaker 1: a similar profile to a sandhill crane. From there, that
Speaker 1: word was eventually shortened to cranberry. Yeah, and I should
Speaker 1: say that is the story that is given for it,
Speaker 1: but maybe we don't have that well documented, and there
Speaker 1: are some arguments that it's a little bit different. In
Speaker 1: the etymology might be slightly different. The North American varieties
Speaker 1: of cranberries were already well known to European colonists and
Speaker 1: visitors to North America by the sixteen seventies. In the
Speaker 1: book New England's Rarities Discovered in Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Serpents
Speaker 1: and Plants of that Country, which was published in sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy two and then republished in the nineteenth century, writer
Speaker 1: John Jocelyn included an entry on cranberry's which read quote
Speaker 1: cranberry or bearberry, because bears use much to feed upon them.
Speaker 1: Is a small trailing plant that grows in the salt
Speaker 1: marshes that are overgrown with moss. The tender branches, which
Speaker 1: are reddish, run out in great length, lying flat on
Speaker 1: the ground, where at distances they take root, overspreading sometimes
Speaker 1: half a score about twenty acres, sometimes in small patches
Speaker 1: of about a rude a root is roughly a quarter
Speaker 1: of an acre or the like. The leaves are like
Speaker 1: box he's referring to uxis, but greener, thick, and glistening.
Speaker 1: The blossoms are very like the flowers of our English
Speaker 1: night shade, after which succeed the berries. Hanging by long
Speaker 1: small footstalks, no bigger than a hair. At first, they
Speaker 1: are of a plain yellow color, afterwards red and as
Speaker 1: big as a cherry. Some are perfectly round, others oval,
Speaker 1: all of them hollow, of a sour astringent taste. They
Speaker 1: are ripe in August and September. And his account also
Speaker 1: mentions that cranberries are good for scurvy and for curing fevers,
Speaker 1: and he mentioned something that sounds a lot like the
Speaker 1: cranberry sauce lots of people make today, noting that the
Speaker 1: indigenous people of the area quote use them much, boiling
Speaker 1: them with sugar for sauce to eat with their meat,
Speaker 1: and it is a delicate sauce, especially for roasted mutton.
Speaker 1: Some make tarts with them, as with gooseberries. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about an English naturalist and his
Speaker 1: experience with cranberries, but first we'll have a sponsor brain. So,
Speaker 1: as we said, this episode is largely about the life
Speaker 1: of the cranberry in the US, but it did also
Speaker 1: have developments in Europe. In seventeen sixty nine, English naturalist
Speaker 1: Sir Joseph Banks made a note in his travel diary,
Speaker 1: which was published posthumously as Journal of the right Honorable
Speaker 1: Sir Joseph Banks Bart KBPRS during Captain Cook's first voyage
Speaker 1: in HMS Endeavor in seventeen sixty eight seventy one to
Speaker 1: Terra del Fuego. That is a misspelling the Odahiti, New Zealand, Australia,
Speaker 1: the Dutch East Indies, et cetera. And he writes of them, quote,
Speaker 1: here are also great plenty of cranberries, both white and
Speaker 1: red arbutus rigida. The specific location that he saw these
Speaker 1: berries is actually a little unclear, because he references in
Speaker 1: this particular piece of writing that they are just outside
Speaker 1: of Cape Saint Vincent, that's in Portugal. But this chapter
Speaker 1: of his diary covers the time that the group was
Speaker 1: traveling from Rio de Genero to Tierra del Fuego. So
Speaker 1: it seems like he gets a little bit loosey goosey
Speaker 1: with the names of other places and bodies of water,
Speaker 1: because there are places in his journal where he qualifies
Speaker 1: things by saying he thinks the name he mentions is
Speaker 1: the correct one. So I believe he saw these cranberries
Speaker 1: in South America, not off the coast of Europe. In
Speaker 1: any case, these berries made an impression because over the
Speaker 1: next couple of decades, Banks actually had some cranberry seeds
Speaker 1: brought to Britain so that he could grow them himself,
Speaker 1: and while these were cultivated there, they were not ever
Speaker 1: intended for sale. This is because he was a botanist
Speaker 1: and naturalist, but it also might have been a little
Speaker 1: bit because while you can grow cranberries from seed, it
Speaker 1: is not the preferred method. It's very difficult to ensure
Speaker 1: their outcome because they have to be pollinated by local
Speaker 1: bees and their pollen is too heavy to be carried
Speaker 1: by the wind. And it is also unrealistic for someone
Speaker 1: to manually pollinate an entire vines worth of berries. So
Speaker 1: because bees are doing the work and it's local bees,
Speaker 1: this means it is very easy for cross pollination to happen,
Speaker 1: and that means it can lead to very different berries
Speaker 1: then the seed plant may have produced. So if you
Speaker 1: have a great cranberry vine and you're like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to take the seeds from this, don't count on having
Speaker 1: the same berries at the end of that process. Propagating
Speaker 1: through cuttings from established vines is usually the preferred method. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are some plants that people manually pollinate today, but
Speaker 1: like not with the number of flowers you would need
Speaker 1: to pollinate as like a not at scale. Right, you
Speaker 1: could do that at your house for fun, but even
Speaker 1: then getting enough that you could make anything worthwhile might
Speaker 1: be some effort. Yeah. Even as Banks was on his
Speaker 1: voyage with cook cranberries were already popular enough in England
Speaker 1: to occasionally appear in cookbooks. In seventeen sixty nine, The
Speaker 1: Experienced English Housekeeper was written by Elizabeth Raffld, and she
Speaker 1: included information about putting up cranberries for later use. Sometimes
Speaker 1: this is described as preserving them, but you'll see there
Speaker 1: wasn't really anything in the way of preserving the berries
Speaker 1: other than just storing them properly. Quote, get your cranberries
Speaker 1: when they are quite dry, put them into dry clear bottles,
Speaker 1: cork them up close, and set them in a cool,
Speaker 1: dry place. These are generally used as a garnish, and
Speaker 1: cranberries are mentioned in other cookbooks of the era, also
Speaker 1: for that purpose. North American cookbooks also included cranberry recipes
Speaker 1: in the late eighteenth century, mostly for cranberry tarts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: their tarts were also being made in England in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Queen Victoria became quite fond of cranberry tarts.
Speaker 1: Apparently about a decade after Sir Joseph Banks was working
Speaker 1: on growing cranberry in the eighteen teens, in the US,
Speaker 1: North America got its first cultivated cranberry bed versus wildly growing.
Speaker 1: This is credited to Captain Henry Hall. Hall had land
Speaker 1: on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the town of Dennis, and
Speaker 1: one day he noticed that he had wild cranberry vines
Speaker 1: growing there. That winter of eighteen twelve, in anticipation of
Speaker 1: particularly brutal low temperatures that had been predicted, Hall cut
Speaker 1: down a lot of trees from his land that had
Speaker 1: been growing in between his natural cranberry bog and the shoreline.
Speaker 1: Without the natural windbreak of those trees. Over the winter,
Speaker 1: sand from the shore got blown all over his cranberry bog,
Speaker 1: and Hall's initial assessment was that this had probably ruined
Speaker 1: his cranberries. But then the vines came back a few
Speaker 1: months later and they were more vigorous than ever, and
Speaker 1: these renewed vines were also naturally more resistant to pests.
Speaker 1: Hall came to the conclusion that the addition of the
Speaker 1: extra sand had actually been good for the plants, and
Speaker 1: ongoing experiments proved that out. He was starting to cultivate
Speaker 1: cranberries with the intent that they could bring in money,
Speaker 1: something that had not really been done before, and soon
Speaker 1: other people in Dennis started doing the same, as cape
Speaker 1: Cod has exceptionally good conditions for the crop. As the
Speaker 1: strongest and most productive plants were selected by Hall and
Speaker 1: others for transplanting to controlled bogs, and they continued to
Speaker 1: be tended and harvested. The prosperous plants started to set
Speaker 1: the standard for North American cranberry vines. The Vaccinium macrocarbon,
Speaker 1: a native North American variety, has become the most common
Speaker 1: and the one that's normally grown as a crop. The
Speaker 1: cranberry industry grew quickly and there was an interesting cycle
Speaker 1: to its cultivation in New England coastal areas. So we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that other people hundreds of years prior to
Speaker 1: this were noting that these were good for scurvy. It
Speaker 1: became common knowledge that cranberry's, which are rich and vitamin C,
Speaker 1: were very good for long voyages because they stored very
Speaker 1: easily and they could prevent scurvy. So as sailors retired
Speaker 1: from their maritime work, some of them went into the
Speaker 1: cranberry business to sell berries to the next generation of sailors,
Speaker 1: and these new commercial bogs were often financed the same
Speaker 1: way ships were, so people could purchase an interest in them,
Speaker 1: so the entrepreneur behind them could pay to get it
Speaker 1: up and running. This was how some ships worked in
Speaker 1: the Golden Age. Another aspect of cranberry industry that's also
Speaker 1: tied to the ocean started during this time shipments of
Speaker 1: cranberries being sent to Europe for sale. As Christmas trees
Speaker 1: became more and more common in the United States and Europe,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that cranberries became part of the decor
Speaker 1: for them. Cranberries could keep for weeks or sometimes even months,
Speaker 1: and they had this shiny red exterior, so that made
Speaker 1: them a natural match for the holiday season. So did
Speaker 1: the timing of the cranberry harvest. Yeah. I read one
Speaker 1: source that stated that this started in the eighteen forties,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't find any definitive information about that. It's
Speaker 1: not the kind of thing that probably got written down
Speaker 1: a lot like today we start using cranberries on our trees.
Speaker 1: I think it just happened, and maybe in somebody's journals
Speaker 1: or letters or something like the children strong cranberries to
Speaker 1: decorate the tree today. Yeah, I think the definitive part
Speaker 1: is them going this is a novel idea which I
Speaker 1: never found. Cranberry scoops, which are box like structures that
Speaker 1: had times on one side so a person could scoop
Speaker 1: through a bunch of cranberry greenery and come up with
Speaker 1: just berries in the box, were invented starting in the
Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century, and around this same time there were
Speaker 1: experiments with water harvesting, but those did not go well,
Speaker 1: and water harvesting was actually abandoned until the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Over the years when dry harvesting was the only method,
Speaker 1: many different types of cranberry scoops were patented, a lot
Speaker 1: of them with various improvements on previous versions, and one
Speaker 1: man who held several patents was William T. Makepiece and
Speaker 1: remember that name because it is going to come up again.
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty nine, a book with a somewhat confusing
Speaker 1: title situation was published about cranberry's by author B. Eastwood.
Speaker 1: The confusion lies in the fact that this book has
Speaker 1: two title pages and they have different titles, so it's
Speaker 1: sometimes cataloged by one name and sometimes by the other.
Speaker 1: The first is the Cranberry and its Culture, and the
Speaker 1: second is complete Manual for the cultivation of the cranberry
Speaker 1: with a description of the best varieties. This book was
Speaker 1: intended to educate interested readers on everything about raising cranberries,
Speaker 1: but it was not intended for the home gardener, although
Speaker 1: a home gardener could certainly benefit from the contents. As
Speaker 1: Eastwood made clear and the introduction, though this book was
Speaker 1: about business. He wrote, quote, everyone connected with agricultural pursuits
Speaker 1: in this country must be aware that there exists at
Speaker 1: present considerable anxiety respecting the best modes of cultivating the cranberry.
Speaker 1: Having been attracted to this subject, that I paid particular
Speaker 1: attention to it, with special reference to raising the berry
Speaker 1: as an article of commerce. The book contains chapters that
Speaker 1: walk the would be cranberry producer through everything from setting
Speaker 1: up a bog, to selecting plants, to troubleshooting issues to harvest,
Speaker 1: and it concludes with an entire chapter about cranberry markets
Speaker 1: in the United States and how to sell at each one.
Speaker 1: He even lays out the overhead costs that are associated
Speaker 1: with cultivation and how to price berries, buy the bushel
Speaker 1: to make a profit. Yeah, I mean like it has
Speaker 1: hard numbers in it of like this is what I
Speaker 1: paid this year to do this, So to me, I
Speaker 1: have to charge this one like it's so completely di
Speaker 1: and thorough. The Colombian Exposition of eighteen ninety three, which
Speaker 1: is something of a recurring character on the podcast at
Speaker 1: this point, featured an impressive exhibit that was mounted by
Speaker 1: the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association. The group's members built
Speaker 1: a miniature cranberry bog there on the expo floor to
Speaker 1: show visitors to the expo how the berries were grown
Speaker 1: and harvested. In eighteen ninety nine, the US adopted a
Speaker 1: standard for cranberry's stating that each barrel was to be
Speaker 1: one hundred pounds. That really didn't change things a whole lot.
Speaker 1: Most growers were already loading barrels at one hundred pound mark,
Speaker 1: but it did codify the practice. All Right, it is
Speaker 1: just about time to talk about canned cranberry sauce. Right
Speaker 1: after this sponsor break, we will hear about the man
Speaker 1: who impacted the cranberry industry probably more than anyone else
Speaker 1: in history, and how he gets credit for canned cranberry sauce.
Speaker 1: If you've ever wondered who gets the credit for canned
Speaker 1: cranberry sauce, that honor, depending on your point of view,
Speaker 1: goes to Marcus L. Uran. We don't know if that's
Speaker 1: the correct pronunciation, but other variations sound unsavory. Uh, So
Speaker 1: we're going with this one in my apologies if that
Speaker 1: is your last name. Uh but I know that in
Speaker 1: a situation where we're going to say it a lot,
Speaker 1: I don't trust myself for sure to not accidentally say
Speaker 1: it the wrong way. Uh Uran was born in Sullivan, Maine,
Speaker 1: on October second, eighteen seventy three, and after his early
Speaker 1: education in the public schools of Sullivan, he attended the
Speaker 1: University of Maine to get his bachelor's degree and then
Speaker 1: went on to Boston University Law School. Uran passed the
Speaker 1: bar and started his law career. But then in nineteen
Speaker 1: oh six, on what almost seems like a whim, he
Speaker 1: decided to ditch his law practice and buy a cranberry bog.
Speaker 1: That's kind of funny to me, honestly. This was the
Speaker 1: start of a lifelong dedication to the growing of cranberries
Speaker 1: and the stewardship of all cranberry production. In the United States.
Speaker 1: In terms of modern influence, Uron probably has had more
Speaker 1: impact than anyone on the US cranberry industry, and part
Speaker 1: of that was because he was very good at organizing
Speaker 1: and working with other growers. Uron went on to organize
Speaker 1: the American Cranberry Exchange to market fresh cranberries, the first
Speaker 1: of many organizations he founded for the crop. But though
Speaker 1: he got into the cranberry business to sell them as
Speaker 1: fresh produce, Uran also, as we mentioned, is credited with
Speaker 1: inventing canned cranberry sauce. Before any listeners turn him into
Speaker 1: the villain of the piece, please know that that original
Speaker 1: canned sauce was a lot more like the homemade sauces
Speaker 1: of today. The story goes that when fresh cranberries are
Speaker 1: packaged in barrels, the ones on the bottom always sustained
Speaker 1: some damage from the weight of the berries that are
Speaker 1: piled on top of them. They end up crushed and
Speaker 1: unsuitable for sale on the produce aisle. Throwing out those
Speaker 1: crushed berries bothered Uron. It felt wasteful and like he
Speaker 1: was losing out on some of the potential sales after
Speaker 1: all of the effort that growing the cranberries required. Then
Speaker 1: he had a brainstorm, what if he cooked those berries
Speaker 1: down and made a sauce that could be canned. So
Speaker 1: that is what he did. That is the way the
Speaker 1: story is often relayed. It comes up in his obituaries,
Speaker 1: and crushed berries might have been part of the inspiration
Speaker 1: for canned cranberry sauce. But the other thing to consider
Speaker 1: was the short cranberry season. As we've mentioned, cranberries are
Speaker 1: usually harvested mid September to mid November, so as a
Speaker 1: fresh fruit, the window is kind of small for consumers.
Speaker 1: But Yuran knew that if he could find a way
Speaker 1: to can them, he could make them a year round business.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty, he founded the National Cranberry Association, which
Speaker 1: was a co op of growers. The NCAA eventually reorganized
Speaker 1: as Cranberry Canners. Twenty seven years later, it would change
Speaker 1: to a different familiar name, Ocean Spray. Uron teamed up
Speaker 1: with two partners in this move, John C. Makepiece and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Lee. To be clear, Uron was not the first
Speaker 1: person to organize a cranberry co op. The year he
Speaker 1: bought his first bog nineteen oh six, the Wisconsin Cranberry
Speaker 1: Sales Company was formed. It also operated as a co op.
Speaker 1: The Makepiece family was the largest cranberry producer in the
Speaker 1: country at the time. Remember those patents for scoops, Those
Speaker 1: were issued to another Makepiece from Barnstable, Massachusetts, where John C.
Speaker 1: Makepiece was from. So presumably they were related, although Holly
Speaker 1: struggled to find information that would really pinpoint exactly how
Speaker 1: they were related. Yeah. I combed through some rabbit hole
Speaker 1: genealogy situations and I was finally like, okay, but what
Speaker 1: are the odds that two make Pieces from Barnstable. What
Speaker 1: We're both involved in the cranberry industry at this level
Speaker 1: and entirely unrelated to one another by any means, Right, right,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they are connected. Under Uran's leadership, Ocean
Speaker 1: Spray started testing a variety of different products. Cranberry Juice cocktail,
Speaker 1: which adds sugar and sometimes other juices to cranberry juice,
Speaker 1: was introduced by the company in nineteen thirty three, and it,
Speaker 1: of course continues to be a flagship product today. And
Speaker 1: as the nineteen thirties came to a close, Uran developed
Speaker 1: a cranberry syrup to use in cocktails and sodas, and yes,
Speaker 1: jellied cranberry sauce was introduced by the company. It made
Speaker 1: its debut in nineteen forty one. Uran's partner in the
Speaker 1: co op, Elizabeth Lee, was making cranberry sauce for sale
Speaker 1: well before she teamed up with Uran. In nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: she started selling a homemade sauce called bog Sweet Cranberry Sauce,
Speaker 1: and it was very popular, so when she joined the
Speaker 1: co op, she brought an expertise to the table. She's
Speaker 1: said to have had a significant hand in the development
Speaker 1: of jellied cranberry sauce. Co Ops that essentially controlled the
Speaker 1: market at the level that Urans did would normally run
Speaker 1: up against antitrust laws, but his lawyer was able to
Speaker 1: identify a loophole in that law that was an exemption
Speaker 1: for agricultural cooperatives that had been established in nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: so Uran and his partners, who had been his competitors
Speaker 1: before they all banded together, were protected in this setup.
Speaker 1: Uron felt very strongly about co ops being the best
Speaker 1: way for any agricultural product to thrive. He routinely toured
Speaker 1: and gave talks about it, noting that quote no individual
Speaker 1: can materially improve his own position independent of others. Marcus
Speaker 1: Huron believed in cooperation over competition, and he thought that
Speaker 1: if people could put aside their concerns about trying to
Speaker 1: succeed in a way that hoarded marketshare, almost any industry,
Speaker 1: but as especially agriculture, could really thrive. He proselytized that
Speaker 1: co ops led to greater control for growers, enabling them
Speaker 1: to essentially dictate the market. When he was in his eighties,
Speaker 1: Muran was technically retired, but he was still really busy
Speaker 1: in the cranberry industry as an advisor, a mentor, and
Speaker 1: an organizational leader, and he was asked why he had
Speaker 1: dedicated his life to Cranberry's. He said, quote, I felt
Speaker 1: I could do something for New England. You know, everything
Speaker 1: in life is what you do for others. In addition
Speaker 1: to Cranberry's, Muron also offered the leadership to other enterprises
Speaker 1: that tied back to the Cranberry business. He was the
Speaker 1: director of the Springfield Bank of Cooperatives, offering loans and
Speaker 1: financing to co op members. That bank eventually merged with
Speaker 1: Cobank in the nineteen nineties. He also served as the
Speaker 1: head of the National Canners Association and the Massachusetts Canners Association,
Speaker 1: as well as the Boston Chamber of Commerce also so
Speaker 1: established a scholarship which continues today. The recipient quote must
Speaker 1: be a child of a cranberry bog owner or a
Speaker 1: cranberry bog employee residing in Massachusetts who plans to pursue
Speaker 1: an education beyond the secondary school level. In the late
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, government reports were published just a couple weeks
Speaker 1: before Thanksgiving that deeply hurt the cranberry industry. An investigation
Speaker 1: had found that some of the weed killer that was
Speaker 1: sprayed on cranberry crops was carcinogenic. Marcus Huron gave interviews
Speaker 1: during this scare and noted, quote, the industry won't get
Speaker 1: over this for years. People are timid about these things,
Speaker 1: especially when cancer is mentioned. You can't blame the government
Speaker 1: for being careful. And if there is any danger, we
Speaker 1: certainly want to know about it. We want to do
Speaker 1: what is right. But although Uran seemed very understanding of
Speaker 1: the government's report, he also told reporters that he thought
Speaker 1: the whole thing had been mishandled. He noted that only
Speaker 1: fifty thousand barrels out of one point two million were affected.
Speaker 1: That's still a huge number, but it's only about four
Speaker 1: percent of the total crop. It seems like identifying the
Speaker 1: singular source of contamination would have been a more prudent
Speaker 1: move for the industry in his opinion. And as I said,
Speaker 1: this report came out right before Thanksgiving, which meant that
Speaker 1: a lot of farmers were going to have a catastrophic
Speaker 1: year because the entire industry was going to have to
Speaker 1: dump their supply for the year and start from scratch
Speaker 1: for the next year. One of the ways the government
Speaker 1: tried to mitigate the fallout from the scare was to
Speaker 1: start a labeling program so customers would know if they
Speaker 1: were buying berries that had been inspected and cleared. But
Speaker 1: as Yuran noted, for the nineteen fifty nine crop, it
Speaker 1: was just too late. Later examination of the case did
Speaker 1: back up uron position that while the information was important,
Speaker 1: the way that it had been shared was a little
Speaker 1: too alarmist, which reminds me of so many things that
Speaker 1: still happened today. Yes, the amount of cranberries that a
Speaker 1: person would have to eat to actually experience the negative
Speaker 1: effects that had scared consumers was more than any reasonable
Speaker 1: person could actually consume, Like they would have to eat
Speaker 1: thousands of pounds of cranberries. Listen, I love a cranberry,
Speaker 1: and I can't imagine eating one thousand pounds of it.
Speaker 1: So uh. Perhaps because of that nineteen fifty nine scare,
Speaker 1: US cranberry growers were the first in the agricultural community
Speaker 1: to stop using the insecticide known as DDT as soon
Speaker 1: as reports emerged about its potential toxological effects. This was
Speaker 1: an action that these growers took before any regulation banning
Speaker 1: DDT existed. Today, only about five percent of the US
Speaker 1: cranberry crop is sold as fresh fruit. The rest is juices, preserves,
Speaker 1: and cranberry sauce. By the twenty teens, more than five
Speaker 1: million gallons of jellied cranberry sauce was being consumed in
Speaker 1: the US annually. But there is a push to move
Speaker 1: fresh cranberries into a more prominent position as a food
Speaker 1: that people can just snack on, as well as something
Speaker 1: that can be used in recipes without the need for
Speaker 1: as much sugar. Cranberries are generally pretty tart, so they're
Speaker 1: not the kind of thing that most people want to
Speaker 1: just pop in their mouth and eat raw, but new
Speaker 1: strains are being developed to make milder naturally sweeter berries.
Speaker 1: And this is work that started decades ago, but it
Speaker 1: does take time to shift the flavor profile of a
Speaker 1: fruit that has often grown on the same vines year
Speaker 1: after year for a century or more. One of the
Speaker 1: other things that's impacting cranberry production is climate change. Cranberries
Speaker 1: require a very specific climate in addition to a unique
Speaker 1: substrate mix. The plants need a specific amount of time
Speaker 1: in cold weather to be dormant in order to flourish
Speaker 1: again when the weather warms up. And as the globe
Speaker 1: experience is extremes in weather, the consistency this crop craves
Speaker 1: and needs is dissipating. Something that's concerning cranberry growers around
Speaker 1: the world. It's not a secret that the climate in Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: for example, is warmer than it used to be. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's cranberry's We love them. I will talk about
Speaker 1: the milana behind the scenes. I have a very special
Speaker 1: listener mail. It's from our listener, Holly Fry. Really, it's
Speaker 1: from other has come up in some other emails, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure people knew it relates back
Speaker 1: to our episode on patterns. Sewing patterns. Uh huh, because
Speaker 1: at the end of that we didn't know what was
Speaker 1: happening with the future of commercial sewing patterns, right, and
Speaker 1: then there was an event and I meant to talk
Speaker 1: about it sooner, but here we are. I'm a couple
Speaker 1: months late. So where we left off in that episode,
Speaker 1: Simplicity Patterns, which at that point had taken ownership over
Speaker 1: Vogue Patterns, McCalls, and Butterick. The Big four is what
Speaker 1: they're called in sewing Circles, had been sold to a
Speaker 1: company that was essentially going to liquidate them. However, there
Speaker 1: was a very cool development late in the game, which
Speaker 1: is that in very late October, it was announced that
Speaker 1: it was going to relaunch as an independent employee led
Speaker 1: brand Abby Small. This is just in case anybody didn't
Speaker 1: know Abby Small working with a company called Ruberlman Capital
Speaker 1: took control of the company. She had been with the
Speaker 1: company for a very long time, so she knows the
Speaker 1: industry very very well, and this way they were going
Speaker 1: to be able to launch. They had this period where
Speaker 1: they were putting out messaging that was like, hey, please
Speaker 1: hang tight, we're trying to basically start a small business
Speaker 1: out of a business that's been around for a long time.
Speaker 1: Like they had to get everything under their feet, but
Speaker 1: they did relaunch, so just FYI, they have relaunched in
Speaker 1: time for holiday season if you want to buy some
Speaker 1: of the pattern. But I wanted to mention this because
Speaker 1: for the stitchers in our listening audience, I know there
Speaker 1: was some consternation. I mentioned that independent brands are great,
Speaker 1: but I also know that for some people, these are
Speaker 1: the patterns they have grown up with and they like
Speaker 1: to work with, and they were going to miss them.
Speaker 1: So they are back around and they are launched now.
Speaker 1: So I would say if you want to make sure
Speaker 1: they stay around, now is a great time to buy
Speaker 1: a pattern, just to make sure they have that initial
Speaker 1: surge and that they have support from their community that
Speaker 1: wants them. Theoretically, I'm super excited actually for it, because
Speaker 1: I think making this a company that's run by people
Speaker 1: who know this business and they've worked in it for
Speaker 1: literal decades. Yeah, is probably the best thing that could
Speaker 1: have happened. Yeah. That's kind of really my PSA and
Speaker 1: not a listener mail today, but especially because I don't
Speaker 1: know about anybody else, but my high productivity sewing time
Speaker 1: is the holidays because it's a little quieter home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: work hours or tend to be a little shorter because
Speaker 1: you have days off and depending on where things land,
Speaker 1: they're like sometimes extra days in the calendar where you're
Speaker 1: not working. And what a great time to support the
Speaker 1: brands that have been around for hundreds of years and
Speaker 1: are now you know, the flags being carried by people
Speaker 1: who love those brands, so I want them to succeed.
Speaker 1: It's very selfish on my part because I want them
Speaker 1: to stick around. It's my update. I promise we'll do
Speaker 1: a regular listener mail next time. If you want to
Speaker 1: write to us to talk about sewing, I'll always talk
Speaker 1: about sewing. I have. One of my favorite things is
Speaker 1: that my friends will occasionally text me and be like,
Speaker 1: can I bug you with a sewing question? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: why do you think this would bug me? This is
Speaker 1: a delight for me. Let's talk about sewing. If you
Speaker 1: want to email us about sewing, about cranberries, listen. I
Speaker 1: know people have strong feelings. Listen to Friday I have
Speaker 1: Thoughts or anything else. You can do so at History
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to
Speaker 1: the show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
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