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Gail Borden as a Businessman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Joe B. Frantz
Joe B. Frantz
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

In the streaked shade of a scrub mesquite a vaquero pours boiling water into a can holding two spoonfuls of concentrated coffee, adds cream from a tin, spoons in sugar to suit, and miles away from the nearest house enjoys a cup of coffee. Chances are good that the coffee came in a jar marked “Borden's” and that the cream, condensed but fresh and pure though hours away from a refrigerator or a cool well, came in a can bearing a similar label; for radiating from its New York hub The Borden Company has pushed into American homes and American life until its products are known wherever food products are bought, sold, and used.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 22 , Issue 4-6 , December 1948 , pp. 123 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1948

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References

1 Considerable mantiscript material on Borden's meat biscuit may be found in the Ashbel Smith Papers, University of Texas archives; Rosenberg Library, Galveston; and the Records of the Quartermaster General, War Records Division, The National Archives, Washington, D. C. A jar of Borden's biscuit handed down from the 1850's is in the possession of Mr. Elliott Bronson, Winchester Center, Connecticut. It appears perfectly preserved and is free from discoloration or odor.

2 Interview with Mr. Albert G. Milbank, New York, August 2, 1946.

3 Borden held stock in each of these two companies. The Maine firm, known as the Rokomeka company, was largely an enterprise of James Bridge, Borden's early partner. The locations of the two firms were obvious—at York for the Baltimore-Washington market, in Maine for the Portland-Boston trade. Philadelphia also belonged to Bridge by prior agreement.

4 The Elgin company was saved by reorganization, Borden and Milbank buying out the Illinois owners and conducting the business themselves thenceforward.

5 In a letter written in 1867 Borden defends his milk contracts, under which he is having to pay for milk not wanted, on the basis that they help keep potential competitors from obtaining milk.

6 The New York Condensed Milk Company underwent an organizational and a name change in 1899, evolving eventually into the present Borden Company.