Delivery of Milk By Wagon In the Late 1800’s
Horse-Drawn Dairy Delivery 1880
Perhaps you’ve found a relic glass milk bottle in an older home or have collected a few from a town where you grew up. Antique milk bottle collecting has always been very popular and is a reminder of the early days when milkmen delivered milk directly to the home.
However, you may not have known that before glass milk bottles, the delivery of milk by wagon with a can and ladle caused severe illness and death for thousands of people, mostly children. Before the 1870’s, most people got their milk directly from their cow to the kitchen table. It was always fresh and a big part of every meal. But as people moved away from farms into cities, milkmen delivered milk by horse-drawn wagon. The dairy wagons were led by horses that trudged up dusty roads straight to people’s doorsteps. The milkman would dip a ladle into a large tin can and pour it openly into their pitcher. On hot days, the horses whipped their tails around creating more dust and dirt.
Dr. Thatcher Invented The Glass Milk Bottle
Dr. Thatcher’s Original Common Sense Milk Bottle
It took a creative doctor and pharmacist to connect the unsanitary conditions and contaminated milk to so many juvenile deaths. For years, Dr. Hervey Thatcher witnessed too many hearses pulling into the same homes as previously traveled by the horse-drawn milk wagons. The contaminated milk had created an epidemic of cholera, an acute intestinal infection. In 1884, Dr. Thatcher was the first to invent the glass milk bottle as a way to keep the delivered milk sanitary. Dr. Thatcher developed the “Common Sense” milk bottles sealed with a waxed paper disk or cap.
Originals of Dr. Thatcher’s milk bottles are very hard to find and considered valuable. These milk bottles were embossed with an image of a farmer milking a cow and stated “Absolutely Pure Bottled Milk”.
Vintage Milk Bottle Collectibles
Pyroglazed and Embossed Milk Bottles 1930’s – 1940’s
Delivery transportation for milk bottles progressed from wagons to refrigerated trucks through the 1960’s. The milk bottles were replaced with paper cartons and plastic milk containers that were less expensive to make but preserved the milk’s freshness. However, original glass milk bottles are still heavily sought after today. Some of my favorite collectibles are the relic milk bottles from my hometown of Waterloo, Illinois.
Many collectors are interested in vintage glass milk bottles that have embossments or “pyroglazed” paintings with the names of the dairies on them. The dairies wanted their company names on the bottles so they would get returned and reused. The values of the antique milk bottles depend on the condition, age, dairy, image, message, color and size. If you ever get a chance, take a look at an original glass milk bottle and perhaps you’ll understand how important they were at that time in history!