ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION 
The Transformation of the Dairy Industry in the Metropolitan New York 
Milkshed: Sussex County, New Jersey, A Study in Historical Geography 1850-1870 
BY 


BARBARA S. HILDEBRANT 


Dissertation Director: 
Peter 0. Wacker 


This research focused on the change in farm commodities from the on-farm production of cheese and butter to the sale of fluid milk. The purpose of the study was to capture the complexity of the economic restmcturing of the dairy industry in the New York metropolitan milkshed in the mid-nineteenth century. 

In 1850 the fluid milk zone extended about 25 miles from the city. By 1870, it had expanded to 75 miles, displacing the butter and cheese zones farther into the hinterland in its wake. Farmers in the outermost zone in the milkshed established the factory system for cheese production and shifted cheese making from the home to the factory. Farmers in the nearest ring to the city moved from making butter on the farm to shipping fluid milk by railroad to the urban areas. Dairymen and women in the thud ring showed the least change, and continued to produce butter on their farms, resisting the factory system of production until late in the nineteenth century. 

Farm level analysis from Sussex County, New Jersey was used to defme the change in the fluid milk zone. This county was selected for its proximity to New York 

City, varied physical characteristics and long history of agriculture. Patterns of fluid milk production were derived which in 1870, showed that although 1,475 farmers were listed in the census schedule, only 196 marketed fluid milk. A number of variables were examined to explain the uneven development that was revealed from the fine-grain analysis of the data. 

Although the milk producers generally exhibited larger farms, more cows and more butter produced between 1850-1860, the primary factor that discriminated between the two groups was age. Individuals who began farming in 1860 while in their late twenties or early thirties were more likely to make the transition from on-farm butter production to fluid milk sales than were the older longer established farmers.