DID YOU STILL HAVE A MILKMAN growing up? (Do you look suspiciously like him? tee hee.) Historic New England has a really wonderful virtual-online exhibit about the history of milk home delivery from 1860-1960. The exhibit also helps explain some of the history of modern kitchens. Alas, we Retro Renovators know how the story ends. –>
I am the oldest child, born in ’59 (same year as Barbie) and I think that we actually still had a milkman delivering milk to our first little house on Buena Place in Carlsbad. The one with the countertop I once featured and mom said it was in that house! But I can’t find the post now, drats. Mom, can you verify we had a milkman?
Here in the Berkshires we still have a functional dairy, and they still do home delivery, hitting each town in the county one day per week. High Lawn Farm, a really wonderful place, it’s like a fairy tale, more than 100 years old. The milk is wonderful, but it costs more, of course. It comes from Jersey cows, and I think they say it has more protein and calcium and of course, none of those artificial hormones. On Saturdays in the summer I drive down (it’s just 2 or 3 miles away) and buy a half gallon of heavy cream. I then make the most delicious delectable ice cream in the world with a vintage electric (yes, I know…) ice cream churner that I got at a garage sale for five bucks.
The dairy! The milkman! The chocolate cows that make chocolate milk! All this is leading up to: Historic New England’s absolutely delightful virtual exhibit – From Dairy to Doorstep. Very interesting. For example, do you know the #1 factor that killed the milkman? I tested my history-teaching husband, and he guessed ‘industrial dairy farming.’ Hah! Gotcha! The answer: Refrigerators. These little details about how and why life changed – became “modern” – fascinate me. In fact, I think the reason I like the postwar era so much, rather than say, the Victorian era, is that in many ways we are still playing out the changes launched after WWII. Most all the elements important to life today gelled then.
The exhibit reports:
After World War II, change came to the milkman. The milkman was a familiar character in the neighborhoods of small towns and cities alike, and dairy products now held an unquestioned place in the American diet. Yet, refrigerators, supermarkets, suburban sprawl, and automobiles threatened home delivery. Consumers chose to live in different places and get milk in different ways. In fact, by the end of the 1950s, home delivery fell into a decline and never recovered. By the early 1950s, reliable power refrigeration replaced ice boxes and revised the homemaker’s job of buying and cooking for the household. Perishable foods like milk could now be bought in greater quantity and kept longer without spoiling, more meals could be made from leftovers, and frozen foods could replace fresh. The milkman did not have to arrive every day in order for the family to have unsoured milk.
Tour the wonderful Historic New England virtual exhibit here.
maddy says
We still have milk delivery in our area. It comes in glass bottles (returnable), and you leave a cooler out on dairy delivery day for the milk, with the empty bottles in it for collection. They deliver late at night. We don’t do the delivery anymore because it is pricey and the delivery truck wakes me up. But I liked the convenience. Besides the milk, you can buy lots of other things like sour cream, cheese, and ice cream.
I think I have seen those milk doors on a few houses. I have wondered what they were.
Barbara Martin says
Growing up in the 70s in Des Moines, IA we would get milk and cream and cottage cheese delivered by the Anderson Erickson Dairy every week. I still remember the milkbox that sat on our front stoop.
I live in the Seattle area now and, as mentioned above, Smith Bros. Dairy still delivers.
DazzLynn says
I was born in 75 in so cal, and i’m pretty sure i recall a milk man for at least a short while. i don’t remember ever having glass bottles, however.
I am now the proud owner of a 1930’s home in northern ca and one of the best feature of the house is the little milk delivery door with the coolest ordering system. similar to this one (not my photo)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cabel/3427181448/sizes/m/
I think i bought the house just for this!
pam kueber says
Cool, DazzLynn… Atomic Bombshell & others: I looked at the photo and also saw there seems to be a group for Milk Doors on flickr – 38 photos in all. http://www.flickr.com/groups/794983@N20/
Atomic Bombshell says
I was born in Pasadena, California in 1973 and although we didn’t have a milk man making deliveries at that time, our old family home had a special milk delivery door built in that was an endless source of fascination to us as children. I’m sure there are many homes still out there today with this neat retro feature, and I’d love to see some pictures of them.
scurl says
here in washington state, smith bros. dairy delivers to a HUGE area, including king, kitsap, snohomish, pierce, and thurston counties.
they don’t use glass bottles though. i assume it’s related to the reason they don’t use plastic containers unless you request them.
here’s what one of their milkmen says about the clear plastic containers :
“Q. Is it true, milk in clear plastic containers is not as nutritional as milk in a paper carton?
A. Yes, scientific studies have shown that milk exposed to light in clear plastic containers can destroy most of the milk’s vitamin C and half of the riboflavin. The clear plastic containers also tend to give the milk a flat oxidized flavor. Paper cartons block out 96% of the light with no flavor change. That is why Smith Brothers packages it’s milk and dairy products in paper cartons. This will ensure that no nutritional value will be lost from the light and the flavor of the milk is not affected.
(Study by Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.)”
anyways, it warms my heart every time i see a milk delivery truck go by. we don’t get it delivered right now, it’s too pricy. but some day. plus, i’d like to have an excuse to put a porch box in the front of our house, it’s kinda bare out there right now.
Maureen says
I was born in the late 1960s and my mother had milk delivered once or twice a week because we consumed so much milk (as I had 3 siblings). She’d leave a sign in the window indicating whether to deliver milk and there was a milk chute near the back door so the milk/cream was protected by the elements. We initially got glass bottles, I think, but most of my memories include the standard carton. I believe my mother’s house still has this chute.
We still have milk delivery available in our area but it is more expensive and my dh insists on purchasing milk in bulk at the store. Our 1949 house has no evidence of a milk chute but it may have been removed and drywalled over years ago.
Juju says
I grew up in the 80s and therefore never got a milkman. But I would sure love one and gladly pay for one now.
Jean says
Thanks for your interest in Dairy to Doorstep! Have you heard about our America’s Kitchens exhibition opening June 11 at the NH Historical Society? Sounds like something you might be interested in, and Historic New England has been celebrating 2009 as the “Year of the Kitchen.” Check it out: AmericasKitchens.org
Retrocat says
I have always lived in Texas, and my mother had our milk delivered up until the late 1970s. She thought it was much fresher off the truck. The milkman even had a key to our house. My mother insisted that he put it directly into our refrigerator, rather than leave at the doorstep. This is Texas and it does get awfully hot here. We had the same milkman for many years. That was quite a luxury, now that I think about it.
pam kueber says
That is a great memory, Retrocat….
Jean says
Hi Pam, nice site! Thanks for your interest in Dairy to Doorstep. Have you heard about the Historic New England “America’s Kitchens” exhibition? It’s opening June 11 at the NH Historical Society in Concord. We’ve been celebrating 2009 as “Year of the Kitchen.” Check it out: http://www.AmericasKitchens.org