— Ann Hoyt, University of Wisconsin
This one was a GOOD one! This topic could be it’s own semester-long college course. But obviously we had to breeze through the material in an hour and a half. I am not a history buff, and i took notes as best i could, so consider this a disclaimer. I’ll share with you what i can, but this topic might warrant some study & engagement time.
Basically, Ann took us on an oral tour of the various kinds of cooperatives that emerged as a result of the hardships of the Great Depression and the Dustbowl era. And some really fascinating stuff it was. Of all the co-ops that we discussed only one is still in existence today. I’ll give a bright shiny penny to whomever can guess the name of that co-op in the comments below. ANyway, here’s what we covered (and what i can remember, it was a very informationally dense presentation):
The social climate during the great depression: Somehow the ideas of cooperation, communism, and labor organizing all got conflated during this period. Co-ops are still dealing with these almost latent psychological associations.
Old wave co-ops: Berkely co-op, Weavers Way in Chicago, and _____________ (you have to guess, remember?)
Toyohiko Kagawa: Wrote “Brotherhood Economics”. Passionate orator who believed in the value of cooperation as an answer to the ills of the time. Sparked movements that would result in many cooperative ventures around the country, especially in the college towns that he would hit on his speaking tours. Hence the popularity of housing co-ops on university campuses. His thinking was also heavily rooted in Christianity. What would Jesus do? He’d cooperate!
Community Hospital – Elk City, OK: 1st co-op hospital, 1st prepaid health care system. Organized farmers.
In August 1931 the Community Hospital opened as one of the first cooperative hospitals in Oklahoma. Before the advent of health insurance, Dr. Michael A. Shadid originated the idea of a cooperative hospital to help local farmers afford medical care. After paying fifty dollars for one share of stock in the hospital, each stockholder paid twenty-five dollars a year for free medical treatment for their immediate family.
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/E/EL007.html
Rural Electric Co-ops: Different from many co-op movements in that, as opposed to being a grassroots movement, the rural electric co-ops were a result of top-down policies created as part of FDR’s New Deal public works programs. Basically, rural America was quite literally “in the dark”. Private utilities thought it not profitable enough to run lines out to every barn and farmhouse in the countryside and so….they didn’t! Opting instead to leave huge numbers of tax-paying American citizens without power or roads. FDR saw this as a threat to national security, and also saw the void left by private industry as an opportunity to create jobs when jobs were scarce. Smart guy.
Consumer Farmer Milk Cooperative - NYC: This was basically a system of direct purchasing, a co-op consisting of rural dairy producers as well as urban dairy consumers. The dairy giant Borden had been keeping prices outside the reach of low-income families. They had also monopolized the dairy market, making it nearly impossible for small farmers to get their product into market. Consumers, in protest of Borden’s pricing organized directly with the equally frustrated dairy farmers. In addition to Borden’s monopolistic practices, the state of the economy during the Great Depression was such that for many farmers, throwing food away was actually cheaper than the cost of bringing their product to market. Until federal price supports were put in place to prevent this heinous waste…..yes, this is the birth of the now onerous farm subsidies in this country that can be blamed for many of our nations nutrition and food supply woes. Of course the intention at the time was only good.
Self-Help Co-ops & the Self-Help Movement: Now this stuff is DANG cool, and i’d like to do some more research on this personally, but basically. The downtrodden and destitute, with no money, jobs, or government support established a barter system amongst themselves that grew to involve over 1.3 million Americans at it’s peak! Basically, during the great depression, while millions of citizens were waiting in bread lines, one fellow volunteered to help a local farmer harvest their crops. He was rewarded with a sack of produce. Turns out he had more produce than his family could eat, and so—in true cooperative spirit—he shared some with his neighbor. The next day they both went back to the field to work for food.
The Self-Help movement became a real viable alternative to the capitalistic notion of working for money, and money for sustenance. They cut out that pesky middle-man: money. Self-help co-ops developed intricate systems of “currency” such as time-banks, and scrip. The BIG missing element here was PROFIT. No wealth to be amassed by greedy outsiders. This model generated not income, but true sustainability!
Ultimately the capitalists saw this as a big enough threat and mobilized their politica ex machina (i made that up) to quickly and efficiently squash the movement, regulating the bartering system and making sure that self-helpers could not exchange their services for cash. When the New Deal kicked in and jobs were beginning to be available again the movement ultimately fizzled. Even though these people had inadvertently, and through pure necessity, created one of the only true models for livable sustainability that this country has ever seen.
Gary Consumers Trading Company: A buying club consisting of 20 families in Gary, IN. They started with an initial total capital investment of $24. O yeah, and they were all African-American. Supported by the National Negro Cooperative League, whose purpose was to escape white economic oppression, the GCTC saw huge growth and prosperity.
“In addition to the grocery store, a branch store, a filling station and a credit union, the cooperative supported a young people’s branch that operated its own ice cream parlor and candy store (Reddix, 1974). Jacob Reddix is quoted as saying that the “most important single factor” in the cooperative’s progress “has been our education program” (Hope, 1940, p. 40). They held weekly educational meetings for 18 months before opening any of the businesses.”
From Black Education By Joyce Elaine King, American Educational Research Association. Commission on Research in Black Education
The GCTC was spearheaded by Jacob Reddix, a reformer heavily influenced by the activist and outspoken co-op proponent, Marcus Garvey.
Re: the Gary, Indiana, buying club:
I believe it was the *Young* Negro Co-operative League, not ‘National’. (‘Young’, in the sense of activist/nonconformist.) Ella Baker, of civil-rights-movement fame, got her start as an organizer, at the YNCL’s central office in NYC. (Her papers, at the Harlem branch of the NY Public Library, include her records of the YNCL.) Their goal was certainly to organize a nation-wide momevent of black co-ops. The founder, George Schuyler, was a journalist who chronicled the Harlem Rennaisanse. He later split with progressive/Afro-centric Blacks, after visiting Africa and exposing African leaders as incompetent, corrupt thugs–and after criticizing the civil-rights-movement’s flirtation with the Communist Party. He become a full-fledged critic on the conservative right–an interesting instance of the Co-op movement transcending its standard association with the Left.