“But I Don’t Want to Go To Jail!”

Many years ago while growing up in Wisconsin I vividly remember illegal margarine and being very, very, terrified of just seeing that spread on our table! Really? Really!  Wisconsin, being a dairy state had laws pertaining to the protection of butter. Butter had to be used in restaurants, in schools and other institutions. Margarine, technically oleomargarine, thus called oleo, was illegal in the state. People could not buy it from their locals markets. It was not to even exist in the state. Cooks, chefs, homemakers who cooked or baked basically had two choices: lard (rendered animal fat and very unhealthy) or butter. To this very day, yes this is true; Wisconsin has Statute 97.18, which falls under the Oleomargarine Regulations. It restricts the substitution of margarine for butter in a public eating-place. If you are in a restaurant and prefer margarine, you have to ask for it and you may or may not get it. It is a fact if you are a student, inmate, or patient of a public institution you must be served butter unless you have a doctor’s note requiring you to have margarine rather than butter in your diet.

   Michigan, Wisconsin’s neighbor, did not ‘outlaw’ margarine for nearly as long as Wisconsin. Well it just so happened my mother had a friend, Stella, who had family or friends, I don’t remember which, who lived right across the border of Upper Michigan and Wisconsin. She would drive to Menominee and always, always, always come back with margarine. Stella would have cases of the contraband oleo in her trunk. My mother would buy it from her, and then my mother would share it with her friends and neighbors. I have the most vivid memory of our entire family packed into the car and making our own ‘oleo-run’ into Michigan. What were my parents thinking! They were out of their minds! They were playing with our lives! I didn’t want our family in jail! Who would feed my cat? Would we all be kept together or separated? My imagination ran wild. I said my newly memorized Hail Mary as we crossed the bridge back into Wisconsin more times in that short bridge span than I thought possible! It didn’t help that my oldest brother taunted me in the back seat, “Annie’s going to jail” he sang over and over! I believed it!  I never imagined my parents were law-breakers! I was shocked! I just knew at a young age of 4 or 5 the Butter Police would be peeking in our windows when we got home to see what was on our table, and my neighborhood friends and I would all be put in jail. Who knows, maybe this is why I came to love mayonnaise on my toast rather than margarine or butter for years!

   So how did all this margarine madness begin? A French scientist invented oleomargarine in 1869.  Oleomargarine was patented in the United States in 1873 and by 1886 there were over 30 plants manufacturing oleomargarine in the United States. This is about the same time Wisconsin butter making grew from small farm production to large factory production. The reaction from the public in the United States was intense. Farmers saw margarine as alien, as an intruder. It was the ‘demon spread’. Though many preferred the consistent quality of the margarine as opposed to the inconsistent quality of butter until improvements were made in manufacturing butter, citizens too were suspect of the margarine. In 1888 thirty-four millions pounds of margarine were produced in the United States and by 1902 that number grew to 126 million pounds. Margarine was showing up everywhere!

   To help save butter Wisconsin passed a law in 1895 requiring margarine to be a color different from butter.  Margarine sold dyed yellow was taxed an extra tens cents a pound. Pricey in that day! Thus white slabs of margarine were sold and with it often came a little packet of yellow dye you could mix in to make margarine look more like butter,and avoid the hefty tax. Margarine quality began to improve with time and during the Depression Years margarine began appearing on tables it would not have been set at just a few years earlier.  It was loosing its association as a ‘poor man’s choice’. By the time food rationing existed in World War II years, butter required more points to acquire than margarine. This helped boost margarine’s use again.  By the end of World War II margarine had almost completely lost the negative stigma associated with it. Finally in 1948 the federal tax on margarine was repealed, making it even less offensive to many.  The loophole here was states could still impose their own taxes. Wisconsin did just that!

   Other states were modifying and ending their margarine laws. Not Wisconsin. Wisconsin in 1955 continued their margarine tax, now fifteen cents per pound. A fortune when the federal minimum wage at that time was seventy-five cents an hour.  Colored margarine could not be used or sold in the entire state. It was illegal to possess it.  Individuals could apply and complete a complicated process to obtain a consumer’s permit that allowed them to purchase oleo outside the state and bring it into Wisconsin. In this case every pound purchased had to be recorded, and a quarterly report had to sent in to the State Department of Taxation. The permits were unpopular and in 1954 only 120 permits were issued. Many, many, more households used margarine than that!

   As the Wisconsin law stood, individuals caught possessing margarine would have it confiscated. However, if actually caught using the margarine a person could be arrested.  No wonder I was terrified! Faced with the enormous task of inspecting refrigerators and lunchboxes, the Department of Taxation accepted that no court would convict anyone of breaking that law. Smuggling of colored margarine became an accepted part of every day life for many Wisconsin residents. Stores, even gas stations directly across Wisconsin’s borders attracted buyers with their margarine ‘deals’. Margarine across state lines could be purchased for about $6 -$7 for a thirty-pound case.

   Finally in 1967 after Wisconsin realized the loss of revenue for the state by outlawing margarine sales and strong public appeal for legal margarine, the law was revoked.  People could purchase and use margarine at will. Good news for a little girl who didn’t want to go to jail just for enjoying margarine melted on her popcorn. It was good to have margarine on my toast again.