Food Co-ops in America

Anne Meis Knupfer is Professor of Cultural Foundations at Purdue University. She is the author of three books, including The Chicago Black Renaissance and Women's Activism, and coeditor most recently of The Educational Work of Women's Organizations, 1890–1960. Half of the royalties from Food Co-ops in America are going to Food Co-op Initiative, which assists poorer communities in starting food co-ops. Their website is: http://www.foodcoopinitiative.coop/.

• Introduction: A Democratic Impulse1. Food Cooperatives before the Great DepressionPart I. Collective Visions of the Depression2. Food Cooperatives, 1930s–1950s3. Ithaca Consumer Co-operative Society4. The Hyde Park Co-operative Society5. Hanover Consumer Co-operative Society6. Adamant Food Co-operative and Putney Food Co-operativePart II. Food for People or Profit?7. Food Cooperatives, 1960s–1990s8. North Coast Co-operatives in Arcata, Eureka, and Fortuna9. New Pioneer Co-operative Society10. Cooperatives in the Twin CitiesEpilogue: The Age of the "Organic-Industrial Complex"Appendix: Website Sources about Food CooperativesNotesBibliographyIndex

Anne Meis Knupfer makes a compelling case for creating and sustaining food co-ops where lively political, social, and economic discourse converge on the all-important topic of food. Food Co-ops in America is a great book for anyone interested in the lessons and challenges of alternative economics.- Steve Alves, documentary filmmaker (Food For Change) Anne Meis Knupfer opens her study of food cooperatives in the United States by identifying the growing interest in the politics of eating sparked by best-selling books such as Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Food co-ops—grocery stores collectively owned by members who can participate in management decisions—are largely absent from Pollan's mediation on the 'industrial food system' and the alternatives to it. Knupfer fills the gap, arguing that cooperative grocery retailing constitutes 'a viable latnerative to corporate capitalism.' The strength of the study is the detailed local history of co-ops located in the Northeast, the Midwest, and in northern California. Knupfer has logged many miles visiting these stores and their archives.(Journal of American History) As Anne Meis Knupfer deftly illustrates in Food Co-ops in America, the food cooperative movement worked to define democratic and ethical food buying practices in the United States dating back to the nineteenth century. As such, Knupfer's book is an important contribution to a growing literature that seeks to explore the ways that Americans have wrestled with the implications of food choices throughout the nation's history. Food Co-ops in America illustrates the way that cooperatives have historically either encouraged or stifled democratic participation, and the book's conclusions clearly illustrate the political implications of emphasizing profit over social consciousness.- Adam D. Shprintzen (American Historical Review) In Food Co-ops in America, Anne Meis Knupfer offers a fresh look at a part of the co-op movement that has tended toward the small scale as opposed to many farmer co-operatives, which have often become big businesses.. What remains here of substantial value is the noteworthy fireld research, which will no doubt become the basis of textbooks on food co-ops and other secondary works.- Philip Nelson (The Annals of Iowa) Skillfully crafted, this study positions the history of food cooperatives as an extension of the histories of consumption in the US by authors such as Tracey Deutsch and Lizabeth Cohen.... Knupfer brings to light the significant scale and scope of cooperatives, reminding us in an age of individual responsibility and conscious consumption that collective models succeeded, and continue to succeed today. Her study underscores the importance of local commitments, and the democratic principles and practices that inform cooperatives and the work of building and sustaining community.(Choice) This is a book that will find its way into the hands of several different kinds of readers. Some will welcome it as a useful first effort at chronicling the history of food cooperatives in the United States, while others will read it as an advice manual for today's cooperative movement.... The combination of interviews, personal reflections, and archival research presented here makes for a thought-provoking history.- Dona Brown (Vermont History) "Food Co- ops in America is researched superbly and written with engaging narrative style. Knupfer's special attention to the historical archives of the individual coops is especially impressive, and her bibliography is exhaustive. The work should be appealing to anyone interested in cooperatives, food ethics, community economics, and the history of the contemporary "food scene." But the work also resonates with its insightful analysis of the success, and pitfalls, of community democracy in the modern era." —Eric Mogren,Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society