Heifers Grazing,
Theodor Horydczak, photographer,
circa 1920-1950.
Washington as It Was, 1923-1959

By four o'clock in the morning, lights flicker through the windows of the Graham farmhouse. Sarah Graham calls to Dale, "Wake up, son, it's time to begin milking." Young Dale groans and turns over, but less than a half hour later his boots can be heard, tramp, tramp, on the stair. Frances, his slender, bright-haired, younger sister follows with a lighter tread. She has slipped on slacks and sweater, and puts on a fresh, white apron as she goes. Their flashlights illuminate the side grass plot and the red clay of the upward-sloping road. Out of the blackness emerges the stout figure of Ben, the hired helper. Doors and windows of the cattle stalls and of the bottling and refrigerating rooms show bright against the darkness. Cows stir and low sleepily as Ben washes their well-filled bags. There is the swish of milk in pails, the click and gurgle of bottles being filled. Down the hill, smoke rises from the kitchen flue, as the sky gradually brightens. The work of the day has well begun.

"Human Kindness," in American Life Histories, 1936-1940

On August 29, many Americans will enjoy a refreshing ice cream cone with, perhaps, little thought to where the milk for the delicious snack came from. In the 1939 interview "Human Kindness," author Anne Stevens recorded a typical day at the Graham dairy farm in Georgetown, North Carolina. After bottling the milk of their 23 cows, Dale Graham will load his truck and head into town by 7:00 a.m. to deliver fresh milk door-to-door. Meanwhile, his mother and sister will "put the house in order" and Ben will put the cows to pasture and repair fences, paint the barns, or do whatever chores call for attention.

Making Ice Cream,
East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania,
January 9, 1946.
Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America, 1935-1955

Dale will return in time for the 4:30 p.m. milking, sterilization of bottles, bottling, and refrigeration. It's a long day. "Some mornings I oversleep," Mrs. Graham admits. "Why, yesterday I didn't wake up until four-thirty in the morning." She had gone to bed at seven o'clock the evening before.

While cows still demand twice-daily milkings, farmers now use mechanized milking machines which attach to the cows' udders and, through a system of pipes, deposit the milk in an on-site storage vat. Rather than delivering cans or bottles door-to-door by burros or horse-drawn carts, farmers sell their milk to wholesalers who pasteurize and package the milk before selling it to groceries. There are some farmers who milk small herds, but most now milk large herds of more than one hundred cows.

• To find these and other farming images and stories, search the American Memory collections on dairy and other types of agriculture, like tobacco. Your search on dairy will find the 1919 Yiddish playscript "Tevieh the dairyman" by Sholem Aleichem.
• Search across the American Memory Photos and Prints on the term dairy cattle or dairy cow to see a wide variety of images. Among these is Marion Post Wolcott's September 1941 image of Dairy Cattle and Stock Barn on Farm near Lexington, Nebraska, which is one of the black and white photos of the collection FSA/OWI Photographs, 1935-1945.
• Search on the term ice cream in Washington As It Was, 1923-1959 to see a variety of creamy treats from the Colonial Ice Cream Company. See, for example, ice cream forms number XX, and number XXIII.
• Buckaroos in Paradise, 1945-1982 presents documentation of a Nevada cattle-ranching community, with a focus on the family-run Ninety-Six Ranch. Browse a list of the collection's topics which includes such items as branding, calves, and buckaroos.