 The problem of milk in the nineteenth-century Ontario cheese industry: an envirotechnical approach to business historyHayley Goodchild Business History, 2017, vol. 59, issue 7, 1081-1110 Abstract: This article analyses Ontario’s export-oriented cheese industry and its challenges in the second half of the nineteenth century using an ‘envirotechnical’ approach. The reorganisation of cheese production from farms to rural factories in the 1860s increased opportunities for spoilage and adulteration of milk at the same time that it made detecting and managing the same more difficult, which compelled the provincial dairymen’s associations to develop quasi-managerial roles to contend with these unanticipated challenges. The ‘problem of milk’ highlights the extent to which the rural cheese industry was an ecological and envirotechnical process rather than an entity separate from the non-human world. Ultimately this case study offers one model for combining environmental and business histories at a scale beyond the individual firm while also highlighting the relevance of the local in the development of the global food system in the late-nineteenth century. Date: 2017 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:59:y:2017:i:7:p:1081-1110 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2016.1173031 Access Statistics for this article Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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