The Summer 2024 newsletter of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association features an article written by me to launch a new regular feature in the newsletter called “The Maple History Corner.” I hope to contribute regular articles to the newsletter’s “Maple History Corner” and share bits and pieces of Vermont maple history.
Unlike my usual stories and historical vignettes, this particular article is more of a commentary and words of encouragement to Vermont sugarmakers to preserve and document their own personal maple histories.
You can read the article at this link or by clicking on the image to the left.
You can read my latest maple history contribution to the December 2023 edition of the Maple Syrup Digest newsletter at this link or by clicking on the image of the article. The  Maple Syrup Digest, it is the official quarterly publication of the North American Maple Syrup Council.
This article looks at the short ten-year history of a unique laboratory constructed in Burlington, Vermont by the United States Forest Service. Named in honor of Vermont Senator George D. Aiken, the lab was created for the purpose of conducting research and outreach on topics important to the growth and promotion of the maple syrup industry. Staffed with foresters, biologists, and economists, this lab focused its attention on improvements in marketing maple products and developing more efficient technologies and methods for processing sap and syrup.
You can read the article at this link or by clinking on the accompanying image.
Dr. Susan Deborah Wade – Courtesy Susan Deborah Wade.
Dr. Susan Deborah Wade is a historian who recently completed a doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee titled, âOjibwe Women and Maple Sugar Production in Anishinaabewakiing and the Red River Region, 1670-1873â. Maple Syrup History website creator Matthew Thomas (MT) had the recent pleasure of conducting the following email interview with Dr. Wade (SDW) to learn more about her interesting and important work and share it with interested readers.
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MT: Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions and share your research with the readers of my website. It is always a pleasure to discover new and interesting scholarship on topics related to maple history. With my own background in ethnohistory and Indigenous studies, I am especially excited to read and share your work with the maple history community. Can you give us a quick summary of what your dissertation is about and what you have learned?
SDW: My dissertation focuses on Indigenous women and an important food product â maple sugar. This foodstuff was used as medicine, food, trade good, and as a gift. The setting for this work is Anishinaabewakiing, a large region that is eventually divided by an international border by the British and Americans in 1783 (editor’s note: the Red River region encompasses portions of today’s Manitoba, Ontario, North Dakota, and Minnesota). Fur trade companies and settlers on both sides of this border used maple sugar as a provision for workers, and as a sweetener in place of hard to get and expensive cane sugar. Maple sugar was traded by Indigenous women for trade goods and in turn collected and auctioned by fur trade companies to increase their profits. As settlers moved into the Great Lakes region, land use changed. For example, treaties reduced the amount of land the Anishinaabeg had to continue producing maple sugar and lumber companies clear cut forests.
Map showing territory of Anishinaabe peoples in United States and Canada. Source – https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/anishinaabe#
MT: The title of your doctoral dissertation contains many interesting clues to what one can expect to encounter in its reading. Can you tell us more about the choices and importance of the different components in the title of your dissertation? Such as your reason for choosing these particular start and end dates, why the Red River region, or the meaning of the word Anishinaabewakiing?
Map showing range of acer negundo, aka Manitoba Maple or Boxelder. Note overlap of range of acer negundo with earlier map of Anishinaabe territory. Their intersection is an area of focus in Dr. Wade’s research. Source – http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=3
SDW: I expanded on my masterâs thesis which focused on maple sugar production by Indigenous women set in what is now Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. In my dissertation I wanted to expand the time frame and region but also more important to write about an Indigenous perspective, and the land the Anishinaabeg inhabit. The Anishinaabeg are the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. Part of learning about an Anishinaabeg perspective is both learning and using Anishinaabemowin (Anishinaabe language). I set the narrative in Anishinaabewakiing and discuss northern and southern Anishinaabewakiing when the international border is drawn on the map in 1783. The Ojibwe migrate west into the Red River region in the mid 18th century and tapped Manitoba Maple.
MT: In 2011 you completed a masterâs thesis in history at UW Milwaukee focusing on a similar topic of Indigenous Women and Maple Sugaring the Upper Midwest, albeit covering a slightly smaller time span of 1760 to 1848 and a different geographic space of the Upper Midwest. How did you get interested in this topic and how did your masterâs thesis research set the stage for your doctoral research?
SDW: When I began thinking about getting a masterâs degree it was to become a better researcher in my job as an historic cook and collections manager at living history sites where I worked. I grew up in Canada and had a passion for fur trade history and maple syrup. The University of Wisconsin â Milwaukee had a course on food history and a fur trade scholar, Dr. Cary Miller in the History Department. I began working with Dr. Miller on fur trade history and Great Lakes Indigenous history. In one of the courses, I read Susan Sleeper-Smithâs Indian Women and French Men. There was a tantalizing reference to maple sugar being shipped east to Detroit. I wanted to know more about who produced it, who collected it and where else it was shipped. Eventually, with the help of Dr. Miller I shaped a masterâs thesis that was narrow enough in scope for a masterâs theses but with the ability to expand in depth and breadth to a dissertation.
MT: Where would you place your research and interests as far as established schools of research? Do you see your work as ethnohistory, Indigenous studies, gender studies, food history, cultural geography, or a less structured but more inclusive interdisciplinary studies?
SDW: I see it as an interdisciplinary study that includes food history, Indigenous studies, traditional archival analysis, and analysis of language.
MT: Maple sugar in its various roles as a food item, an exchange good, or as a tool of economic power is central to your research. How has your research help us understand the historic role and place of Indigenous peoples in the development and evolution of the modern maple industry?
SDW: Indigenous women in the sugar maple growing region were instrumental in introducing maple sugar to colonists. Maple sugar was also modified in its appearance by Indigenous women to satisfy the need by upper class settlers for white sugar â white cane sugar was an indicator of wealth. Hand in hand with trade was the introduction of alterative equipment like copper kettles for producing maple products, and further changes to production. Great Lakes fur trade companies exported maple sugar east and, in some cases, Indigenous womenâs maple sugar made it to Britainâs shores.
MT: Has developing a deeper understanding of the cultural and economic importance of maple products sparked interest in looking at questions of maple use in other historic contexts?
SDW: It has sparked an interest in the use of other maple products such as vinegar. It has also sparked an interest in the use of the sap of other trees in the Great Lakes region such as birch and the sap of trees on other continents.
MT: Your research topic geographically covers portions of what are today the United States and Canada, and likely your source materials were found in both countries, not to mention probably being written in English and French. What kinds of historical source material were you able to examine for your research and were there challenges to working with source material from two separate countries and languages?
SDW: I did not deal with too many French sources. The companies I concentrated on were British, Scottish, or American run companies. The Hudsonâs Bay Company (HBC) was run out of London, England. I went to the HBC archives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Example of archival materials used in Dr. Wade’s research. Source – Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Archives of Manitoba, Journal of Occurrences at Henly District 1819/20, B.117/a/4.
That is a wonderful archive and the Hudsonâs Bay Company has detailed documentation of its posts. The management in London expected daily accounts of what was happening at the posts as well as detailed records of trade. The North West Company (NWC) was formed by small fur trade companies owned by Scottish merchants living in Montreal. Although they kept the French-Canadian voyageurs on their payroll the men who ran the posts were English speaking. The HBC eventually took over the NWC in 1821 and the men who ran the posts did not keep as detailed records as the HBC. The American Fur Company (AFC), established in 1808 in New York, had ties with some of the merchants in Montreal, but after the War of 1812 had virtual monopoly in the southern Anishinaabewakiing region. For the AFC I primarily used âGrace Lee Nuteâs âCalendar of the American Fur Company Papers.â Some records for a small Montreal company, the XY company, that eventually joined with the NWC can be found in the Collections of the Wisconsin State Historical Society.
MT: Your study covers a time span of over two hundred years, during which a lot of things may have changed within the Fur Trade and Indigenous communities. What changes did you find over this span related to the manufacture, trade, or sale of maple sugar?
SDW: There were changes in all these areas. Changes in production happened as Indigenous people encountered European trade goods. The equipment changed as trade items were introduced and adapted and adopted by Indigenous groups for use. There were also changes to both the appearance and amount of sugar produced. Upper class white settlers and upper-class Hudsonâs Bay company officers wanted maple sugar to look like white cane sugar and Indigenous women shifted the way they processed and purified some of the sugar for this market. In the spring of 1836, the man who oversaw a Hudsonâs Bay Company post in the Lake Superior region sent two men to sugar camps to secure or âreserve the rightâ to trade for that yearâs supply. The HBC did not want to miss out on this valuable commodity by having the rival AFC trade for it first.
MT: Your scholarly interests are not purely in the realm of ethnohistory, gender and Indigenous studies. You recently were part of a team that translated the classic French childrenâs book, âThe Little Princeâ into Anishinaabemowin, the Indigenous language of the Anishinaabe or Ojibwe peoples. How did you get involved in this project and how has working with Anishinaabemowin influenced your historical research?
SDW: My thesis advisor and advisor at the beginning of my dissertation, Cary Miller, stressed the importance of learning Anishinaabemowin in order to understand an Ojibwe worldview and to make connections with community members. I was taught the language by Margaret Noodin. I also worked with Dr Noodin on a grant, Ganawendamaw. As part of this grant, I helped with curriculum development for Anishinaabemowin class. One book used by teachers of many different languages is Le Petit Prince, it is translated in to so many languages. She was interested in completing a translation for use by teachers and families interested in learning Anishinaabemowin. I worked with her, Michael Zimmerman, and Angela Mesic to translate the text. It was during Covid lock down and was a wonderful experience to work with these scholars and create a text that could be used to teach and continue to revitalize the Anishinaabe language.
MT: The reservation era, a period immediately following the period of your study, saw great changes and upheaval for Indigenous communities. It would please me greatly to learn that you have plans for carrying this research further to look at the reservation era when forced relocation to reservations limited the seasonal mobility to places like sugaring camps, fur trade economies were replaced by cash-based settler economies, and substantial changes in gendered divisions of labor?
SDW: My masterâs thesis did not go into this topic, but my dissertation does discuss the effects of settler colonialism on the Ojibwe and maple sugar production. One of the chapters talks about the ways Great Lakes and Red River nations keep a hold of their culture through treaty negotiations. In the nineteenth century in the United States, Ojibwe ogimaag (leaders) negotiated for the rights to gather resources on ceded land also known as usufructuary rights in the United States. In the case of Ojibwe in Canada, the ogimaag negotiated with the Canadian government in what is called the Numbered Treaties. In these regions the First Nations, including Ojibwe, did not cede land but instead negotiated for sharing the land and working with Euro-Canadians in taking care of natural resources. This, however, was not the intention of the Canadian government or her representatives whose aim was a surrender of lands. In the case of maple sugar, it was not just resources that were taken away, but also women-centered places where political activities, ceremonies, and teaching took place. It was a loss of womenâs roles in their environment.
By the late nineteenth century, cane and beet sugar became the dominant form of table and cooking sugar. Maple sugar production waned but maple syrup gained in popularity, as you explain in your dissertation âWhere the Forest Meets the Farm.â In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, in matters of maple syrup manufacturing it was not just the decimation of maple groves and appropriation of land but the attack on gendered food procurement. The Allotment Act (1887) promoted the life of the yeoman farmer whereby a man worked his farmland. Reservation land was divided into single farms given to men of households or single men. Although Indigenous women continued to harvest wild rice, collect berries and other resources, and manufacture maple sugar. It was not until after the Great Depression in the 1930s, that Indigenous men began to take on the production of maple sugar and syrup. Today Anishinaabeg maple production is more multi-gendered.
MT: You defended your dissertation in 2021. What is next? Do you plan to publish the doctoral study as a book length monograph, or will you be focusing on publishing the results in the form of a peer-reviewed article?
SDW: I have been working on a manuscript that combines my masterâs thesis and doctoral dissertation. It has been a challenge learning to rewrite a dissertation into a book. I hope to send it to a publisher by the end of this summer. I am also working with a fellow scholar to create an exhibit on maple trees and the maple sugar bush.
You can read and download a copy of Dr. Wade’s doctoral dissertation at THIS LINK.
MT: We first became acquainted through your search for early recipes for sucre Ă la crĂšme. Can you describe what sucre Ă la crĂšme is and what makes it different from other maple sugar-based confections?
PC: First, thanks for your interest. Iâm thrilled to be discussing this topic with you.
Sucre Ă la crĂšme is a grained confection that was historically made of maple sugar and cream (or possibly other sources of milkfat). In a structural sense, it is akin to fudge, albeit without chocolate.
A tray of pieces of sucre Ă la crĂšme. Courtesy of Duke News.
What differentiates sucre Ă la crĂšme from other maple sugar-based confections is that most contemporary recipes for it use unrefined sugars that are not maple based, such as brown sugar. The connection of the confection with its maple sugar history has therefore been largely severed. Sucre Ă la crĂšme is also special to me because my late great-aunt, who lived upstairs from my parents, used to make me some when I was young.
MT: Your primary areas of academic research and teaching are chemistry. How did you get interested in this topic and doing historical research?
PC: I have used sucre Ă la crĂšme in countless courses and public demonstrations about the science of cooking. Contrasting it with soft caramel illustrates vividly (and tastefully) the importance of sugar microstructure on mouthfeel. In short, the grained confection is crumbly while the caramel is very sticky, even though we make the two from the same ingredients, mixed in the same proportions, and heated to the same temperature.
Making sucre Ă la crĂšme. Courtesy of Keely Glass.
Therefore, when I was asked to contribute a chapter for the Handbook of Molecular Gastronomy, I immediately thought of writing something about sucre Ă la crĂšme. Because the confection is not broadly known outside of the French-speaking northeast of the American continent, I also wanted to provide some cultural and historical context along with the technical presentation. When I started looking for related references, however, I was surprised by how little was known. What little I could find was not particularly convincing either. I therefore decided to plunge into the question myself.
MT: Although your research on the history of sucre Ă la crĂšme is ongoing, what is the aim of your research?Â
PC: As I explained above, this project fell onto my lap by accident. As a result, its goal has long been somewhat undefined. That said, I quickly realized that one of the challenges of making sense of the history of sucre Ă la crĂšme would be to disentangle it from that of related confections. Figuring out the confectionary landscape in which sucre Ă la crĂšme emerged has therefore been my main objective thus far.
MT: Can you then tell us more about what else you are looking at and how that intersects with sucre Ă la crĂšme research?
PC: While the history of fudge has been carefully documented from its emergence in the 1890s onward, that of other related confections have not.
My first article, which should soon appear in CuiZine, considered pralines made from nixtamalized corn coated with maple sugar. These confections were common frontier food in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence regions during the 18th and early 19th centuries, but they disappeared with the emergence of pemmican.
Eighteenth century cane sugar producers from contemporary Mexico also made a sucre Ă la crĂšme-like confection, panochita de leche. The confection later spread to California and then to the rest of the US. It has since largely disappeared from Mexico, especially under that name, which (today) has a pornographic connotation [caution to readers if you google the term panochita you will bring up links to pornographic websites]. A history of this confection should soon appear in Gastronomica.
MT: I have found that most folks interested in maple history in the US do not speak or read French and that likewise, some in Quebec are not fluent in English. But then there are scholars like yourself who are fluent in both French and English. How has a mastery of both languages helped with your sucre Ă la crĂšme research?
PC: Itâs been essential. Honestly, I donât know how one could do without.
MT: Out of curiosity, are there other languages you speak or read, besides French and English?
PC: I have some linguistic skills in Spanish and in Dutch. I learned the former through a couple of high-school and college classes, and the latter while a postdoctoral scholar in Amsterdam. By chance, these two languages have both been helpful in my study of grained confections in the Western world.
That said, I unfortunately do not have any linguistic skills in autochthonous languages. For the praline work, in particular, some notions of Iroquoian would have been handy. Although a linguist helped me out a bit, Iâm not as confident about that aspect of the work as I wish I could be.
MT: As a chemist working in the physical sciences spending most of your time working on questions with relatively straightforward methods and results, do you find it difficult to put on your historianâs hat and navigate the use of more qualitative methods and the oftentimes inconsistent and incomplete historic record?
PC: Yes and no. Having done some family history work in the past, I have some ideas of the types of resources I might unearth. I also truly enjoy the chase. I get completely absorbed by looking for documents and other historical sources, and I enjoy visiting libraries and archives. Nowadays, a remarkable quantity of material can be trackedâand sometimes even foundâonline, which lowers the bar to exploring historical material broadly.
I nevertheless have some serious gaps in knowledge, and I have not been trained to write in that field. Thatâs one of the reasons I have collaborated with other researchers on all my projects thus far. Once my apprenticeship is completed, maybe Iâll risk going alone.
MT: Your research on the details of maple sugar related recipes in early North American cookbooks is fascinating and makes me wonder if you have considered writing a book that examines and documents the place of maple sugar in the foodways of North America from the 16th to the 19th centuries?
PC: The idea has crossed my mind, but I feel the existing scholarship on and around the topic is too thin to consolidate it in book form at this stage. Writing separate articles is also more compatible with my part-time engagement with the field. But maybe Iâll revisit this decision in a few years.
MT: Duke University is a bit outside the traditional range of maple syrup production, how has that affected your research? Do you have a favorite syrup supplier from Quebec or the US where you obtain your syrup?
MT: A fun part of studying historic recipes is attempting to try your hand at recreating and tasting the recipes of the past. Can you tell me more about your experiences working with old recipes? Is it difficult? Are there any successes or failures you can share?
PC: I havenât done many recreations thus far, but my collaborators have. They are fortunately very talented, so they have figured ways out of whatever challenges they have met. For the panochita de leche paper, however, that took a few tries. The details of that struggle have even warranted their own publication, which should appear in that same issue of Gastronomica.
MT: Where can interested readers go to read more of your research on the history of the use of sugars and confections in the North American history?
PC: It should all be published at some point. Iâll make sure that a version of each of these articles is available on Dukeâs institutional repository, which is accessible from my faculty page. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to me by email if you have any questions.
Check the following sites in the near future for links to publication of Dr. Charbonneau’s sucre Ă la crĂšme and other confection history related articles .
Book and dust jacket cover from the first printing by John Day Company in 1950. Collections of the author.
The Maple Sugar Book by Helen and Scott Nearing is arguably THE most read book on the subject of maple sugar and syrup. It has always interested me how, in its over 70 years of being in print, this book has continued to serve as such a significant guide book for entry level and hobbyists syrup makers. Even with a variety of more sophisticated and technical guides and handbooks available from state and federal agencies, often for free, The Maple Sugar Book has been as popular, or even a more popular source for how-to information than all the other technical publications.
Helen Nearing running the evaporator. Photo from article in February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.
Tackling the topic of maple sugaring from the perspective of practitioners as opposed to researchers was no easy task and gave the Nearings a certain freedom to share what they had learned and come to believe about maple sugaring. At that time research programs in maple industry research were in their infancy as formal maple research institutions like the Proctor Maple Research Center, Cornell Maple Program, or the USDA maple program, were just getting started. Perhaps, part of the book’s enduring appeal has been the charm of its more romantic and down-home presentation, in contrast to the technical presentation of the government and university publications.
Nearing’s first sugar house at Forest Farms. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).
The Nearings purchased their maple woods near Jamaica, Vermont in 1934, complete with an aging wood framed sugar house, on land adjacent to the farm they bought the year before. Soon after, they added a second new sugarhouse built of concrete with a metal roof. For their first six years, they operated the sugarbush and sugarhouse cooperatively with their neighbors Floyd and Zoe Hurd, dividing the seasonsâ products on shares based on each familyâs relative contribution of land, equipment, and labor that season. As an example of their cooperative model, when the new sugarhouse was put in, the Nearings paid for the construction of the building and their neighbors the Hurds, paid for a new evaporator.
Nearings’ metal pipeline for gathering and moving sap to the sugar house. Photo from article in February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.
The Nearings ascribed to a vegan lifestyle and philosophy that was not supportive of the use of draft horses or oxen, although they did use a horse for the first couple of sugaring seasons., Likewise, they preferred to rely on trucks and tractors as little as possible. However, gathering maple sap completely by hand was heavy, difficult work, so in 1935, wanting to streamline and reduce the labor requirements of gathering and transporting sap, the Nearings began installing a metal pipeline system.
Scott Nearing screwing on a pail for a dump station along the metal sap pipeline. Photo from article in February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.
The Nearingsâ pipeline network was made of interconnected sections of one inch iron pipe that rested on the ground in a dendritic pattern. Running downhill at 100-foot intervals, it featured stand pipes or dump stations made of pails attached to the horizontal pipeline, and functioning like funnels. It would be interesting to know what was the actual cost of installation and maintenance of such a system.
For the usual division of labor within the Nearing sugarbush, Scott was primarily tasked with the woods work, such as tapping and sap gathering, whereas Helen oversaw the work in the sugarhouse such as boiling sap, bottling syrup, and making sugar and candies, as well as packaging orders and handling any marketing and sales during the rest of the year.
Helen Nearing preparing packaging for mail orders of The Maple Sugar Book in their Forest Farms home. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).
Of course they could not do all the work with just the two of them and did make use of the assistance of their neighbors. Their Forest Farms operation gathered sap from as many as 4200 buckets, with 80% of their syrup grading as fancy. Their syrup did well in judging competitions, scoring as high as second in the Vermont state judging in 1950. Most years they made around 1000 gallons of syrup which earned them about $5000, with a good portion made into sugar and candies.
List of maple products available for purchase from Nearings’ Forest Farms. Collections of the author.
Through the 1940s and early 1950s, the Nearings took great advantage of the mail order trade from their Forest Farms, selling a wide variety of maple syrup and what are today called âvalue added products.â Everything from pure maple syrup in quart, half gallon, and gallon cans, as well as âsweet old ladyâ bottes, an early variation of fancy glass. They also made soft maple sugar and granulated sugar in special hand painted wooden boxes, wooden buckets, and miniature birchbark mokuks. They also offered unique maple products like nut pattie cakes, maple pennies, and maple lollipops. In addition to mail order cash sales, where possible they traded maple syrup and sugar for other harder to get goods and products they desired, such as citrus, walnuts, olive oil, or raisins from California.
Helen Nearing checking the progress of the syrup and looking for aproning. Photo from article in February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.
Growing disillusioned with land development in their area and a proposed ski area on nearby Stratton Mountain, in 1952 the Nearings sold their Forest Farms and sugarbush to George and Jackie Breen and moved to Maine, bring an end to their maple sugaring business that was at the heart of their model and successful execution of a sustainable back to the land lifestyle.
From my perspective, the bookâs contribution to documenting and sharing the history of maple syrup and sugar is unmatched and is one of the most important texts to be read for anyone interested in maple history. It still is the best source in a single volume for historical references and accounts of maple sugaring from the 18th and 19th centuries. The book is both a telling of the history of maple sugaring and itself an important piece of maple history for the impact it has made to telling the story of maple and showing people a path to making their own maple syrup. The first three chapters share the Nearingâs extensive historical research, first examining the history of the place of sugar in western culture, then sharing early the accounts of Native American sugaring, followed by tracing the evolution of maple sugar and syrup making among colonists and early settlers.
Helen Nearing reading from The Maple Sugar Book at a presentation to the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association annual dinner in 1950. Source – Burlington Free Press, February 9, 1950.
Thinking about the actual crafting of this book, I have always been impressed with the depth and breadth of the effort the Nearings went to in searching for and finding a wide range of historical accounts of maple sugaring. Although both the Nearings were systematic and scholarly in their approach to writing and even life in general, neither of them were historians in any formal sense. Yet, they wisely had a great concern for getting as close as possible to the primary sources of a particular historic account. With that they were careful to always share a reference and citation to tell the reader exactly what was stated and from where the statement came.
Although both the Nearingâs names were listed as authors, the research and writing were primarily completed by Helen, who did the majority of the writing at their Vermont home in the winter of 1946-47. However, Helen later shared â⊠in the end we didnât know who had written which. Although all the erudite parts were his, and the simplistic parts were mine. But still it was a mixed, it was a mixed book. We wrote it that way together.”
Image of he Nearings’ old and new sugar houses alongside sap collection tanks. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).
With her usual humility and deference to Scott, Helen later said, âwe wrote The Maple Sugar Book to learn, not to show how much we know,â and, â. . . we had three things in mind when we set ourselves to write this book. The first was to describe in detail the process of maple sugaring. The second was to present some interesting aspects of maple history. The third was to relate our experiment in homesteading and making a living from maple to the larger problem faced by so many people nowadays, how should one live?â The couple collected historical material and practical advice for the book over 6 or 7 years and when they began they were surprised to discover that no one had really written such a book before them.
Helen Nearing chatting with guests at the New York City sugar on snow book release party in March 1950. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).
Helen was encouraged by their neighbor, famous author Pearl S. Buck, to use an autobiographical approach and write about the Nearingâs firsthand experiences with maple sugaring. According to Nearing historian Greg Joly, with completion of a draft manuscript in 1947, the Nearingâs literary agent shared the book with a number of notable publishing houses, to no avail. Eventually the manuscript made its way to the hands of an editorial intern at John Day Company who in turn brought it to the attention of Richard J. Walsh, President of John Day Company, who also happened to be the husband of Pearl Buck, where the book finally found a home.
Scott Nearing preparing the maple syrup for the sugar on snow book release party in New York City. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).
The book was initially published by John Day Company of New York in hard cover with a dust jacket and was made available for purchase on March 1, 1950, with 2500 copies printed. Released during the sugaring season, the publisher took advantage of that timing and even had a maple syrup themed book release party in New York City, featuring sugar on snow prepared for the guests by Helen and Scott Nearing, complete with donuts, pickles, and coffee. The publishers said the sugar on snow party was the first of its kind in the city. George Stufflebeam, the President of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makerâs Association at that time described the book as âthe best treatise ever written on the maple industry.â
Helen Nearing fueling the wood fired evaporator at their Forest Farms sugar house. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).
Dutiful to the expectations of their publishers, Helen and Scott made numerous speaking and promotional appearances to help sell the book, but surprisingly, in the initial year, John Day Company was able to sell only 2000 of the 2500 copies. After the initial printing by John Day Company, the rights to the book reverted to the Nearings and they subsequently printed four hard cover runs of the book under their own Social Sciences Institute label in the years 1950, 1958, 1968, 1970. Later, in 1970, the book was picked up and reprinted by Schocken Books in paperback and hardcover. Finally, in 2000 Chelsea Green Publishing of White River Junction, Vermont, in conjunction with the Nearingâs Good Life Center in Harborside, Maine, published a commemorative 50th anniversary edition, complete with a new forward and excellent epilogue by Nearing historian Greg Joly.
Readers of vintage United States Department of Agriculture reports, bulletins, and manuals from the early 1900s to the 1970s, often notice and wonder why the word syrup in maple syrup is spelled as sirup with an I. Where did this version of the spelling come from, how long was it in use and why was it used in the first place? Was it merely a colloquial variation stemming from people writing spoken words down in ways that phonetically made sense?
1958 example of Sirup with an I, cover of Agricultural Handbook No. 134, titled, Maple Sirup Producers Manual.
What about how syrup is spelled in other languages as the source? We know the English language is made up of words from a variety of languages from Europe and borrows and modifies all sorts of âforeignâ words. French is an important language to consider in this regard, especially since there is a great history of maple sugar and syrup making in French speaking Quebec. In French, the spelling is sirop with an O. That certainly is a contender for getting from sirop to sirup to syrup, with only progressive changes to the first vowel. Interestingly, the German spelling for syrup is sirup with an I, also right on the mark. Were immigrants and residents with French or German heritage the source of spelling sirup with an I?
How popular was spelling sirup with an I in early America? A search of newspaper archives shows sporadic use of spelling sirup with an I throughout the first half of the 1800s, increasing in use in the 1850s to the 1890s, although it was still used less often than syrup with a Y and even then, in most cases, sirup with an I was used in relation to sorghum or cane syrup and much less often in referring to maple syrup. So where did this formal use of sirup with an I come from?
Cover of Department of Agriculture Bureau of Chemistry Bulletin No,. 134, titled Maple-Sap Sirup from 1910.
What about the question of how long the United States Department of Agriculture had been using the spelling of sirup with an I? The Department of Agriculture was created in 1862 and in 1863 published its first Report of the Commissioner (the Agriculture Department was led by a Commissioner at that time, not yet a Secretary). That first annual report of the department included a section titled The Manufacture of Maple Sugar authored by C.T. Alvord, of Wilmington, Vermont. Alvord was not an employee of the federal government, but rather a lawyer, progressive farmer, and regular contributor to farming and agricultural journals of the time. In Alvordâs 1862 report one sees no use of syrup with a Y, but instead maple sirup with an I, as well as the term maple molasses. In analyzing federal agricultural census data, Alvord wrote,
âIt will be noticed that the proportional increase in the quantity of maple molasses manufactured in 1860 over that of 1850 is much larger than that of maple sugar. I attribute this to the fact that many farmers are name making âmaple sirupâ instead of maple sugar. At present prices it is thought to be more profitable to make sirup than sugar.”
It is curious that in the first instance where Alvord used the words âmaple sirupâ in the agricultural department report, the term is presented in quotation marks, as if it is a new or unique spelling to be noted, but then then quotation marks are dropped in the rest of the report. Alvordâs use of sirup with an I in the government report is especially interesting, since in other articles he wrote on maple sugaring published in agricultural newspapers from just two years earlier, he always used the spelling of syrup with a Y.
Example of Sirup with an I, cover of the 1976 edition of USDA Agricultural Handbook No. 134, titled Maple Sirup Producers Manual.
Similarly, in 1905 when William F. Fox co-authored the Department of Agriculture Bureau of Forestry Bulletin No. 59 titled, The Maple Sugar Industry, the text of the report exclusively used maple sirup with an I. This is in contrast to Fox spelling syrup with a Y a few years earlier in 1898 in his overview of maple sugaring in the 3rd annual report of the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and Forests of the State of New York.
Who was responsible for the publishing of federal reports and manuals, and might that be the source of sirup with an I? The Government Printing Office (GPO), the agency responsible for the preparation and printing of official publications of the federal government came into being in 1861, one year before the Department of Agriculture. With the monumental task of being the federal governmentâs publishing house, it is safe to presume someone at the GPO was making editorial, style, and printing decisions from that point forward, including deciding to use sirup with an I.
1924 cover of Department of Agriculture Farmer’s Bulletin No. 1366, titled Production of Maple Sirup and Sugar,
According to the GPO, the first official GPO style manual was issued in 1894. In that manual under the heading of orthography, authors are instructed to follow Websterâs International Dictionary, which was an expanded version of the famous Websterâs American Dictionary of the English Language first issued in 1806. With that direction from that era, a look at 1890 and 1900 editions of Websterâs International Dictionary of the English Language show sirup with an I as the preferred spelling, and syrup with a Y as a secondary spelling. In fact in the 1890 and 1900 versions of Websterâs dictionary, syrup with a Y does not even have its own entry or cross reference to sirup with an I. Looking back further to earlier versions of Websterâs dictionaries, as far back as 1828, and we see that sirup with an I was identified as the preferred spelling over syrup with a Y.
Sirup with an I continued to be presented as the preferred spelling in Websterâs Dictionary through the 1950s, but by 1959 with the release of Websterâs Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, the primacy had flipped with syrup with a Y getting the main listing and sirup with an I becoming the secondary spelling and its entry being limited to merely a cross-reference back to syrup with a Y. At one point in the 1920s, the GPO style manual began including a list with the preferred spelling of certain words. As early as 1922 we see sirup with an I included in that list. Sirup with an I continued to appear on that list as late as 1973, despite Websterâs dictionary shifting to syrup with a Y in the late 1950s.
If the GPO did not publish a formal style manual until 1894, what can we assume was the policy or standards they followed for the earlier years between 1861 and 1894? The GPOâs written direction from their 1894 style manual was likely formal codification of standards that had been put in place years before. Moreover, since at the time, Websterâs dictionary was THE go-to and standard reference for American English, it makes sense that from its very beginning of the GPO in 1861, it chose to follow the spelling preferences presented in Websterâs dictionary.
Unlike the federal government, most states never formally adopted the use of sirup with an I, with a couple of exceptions, namely New York and Wisconsin. The New York College of Agriculture at Cornell University used the sirup with an I from around 1910 through the late 1950s or early 1960s. Perhaps Cornell University had adopted similar editorial standards for their publications defaulting to the conventions in Websterâs dictionary. Sirup with an I was also use by the State of Wisconsin Department of Agriculture for a shorter period in the 1950s.
Although syrup with a Y has become the preferred spelling by the GPO and was clearly the English language spelling recognized and used by most in the United States and Canada, until very recently sirup with an I was still on the books in a few formal titles and rules at the Department of Agriculture. However, in 2015, with the USDAâs Agriculture Marketing Serviceâs issuance of new Standards for the Grades of Maple Syrup, the Department of Agriculture formally decided that it had officially discontinued its spelling of maple sirup with and I and announced that their official spelling would now be syrup with a Y.
And that explains the reason behind sirup with an I. From the early 1860s to the late 1950s with a holdover until 2015, it was the official policy of the United States Department of Agriculture and the Government Printing Office to spell sirup with an I, based on the guidance and direction of Websterâs International Dictionary of the English Language. What remains to be explained is how, why, or by whom the decision was made in publishing Websterâs dictionary that sirup with an I should be the preferred spelling over syrup with a Y.
In June 1951, announcements for the contest appeared in various newspapers calling for submissions of the most interesting designs for labels that could be attached to No. 2 and 2 œ size metal food cans. These sized cans were round in shape and generally held about 26 oz. Moreover, the Continental Can Company and the syrup producers cooperative each contributed $50 for the cash for prizes to be awarded to the three winning entrants.[3]
September 1951 article describing the awards event and the names of the winners of the label design contest. Source – L’Action Catholique Quebec, 6 Sept 1951, p2.
First of two photos showing the left side of the case displaying the entries and winners of the label design contest at the Provincial Exposition. Photo by Omer Beaudoin – BANQ – – E6,S7,SSI,P88159Second of two photos showing the right side of the case displaying the entries and winners of the label design contest at the Provincial Exposition. Photo by Omer Beaudoin – BANQ – E6,S7,SSI,P88160
If one zooms in closely, it is possible to see that three of the entries have unique tags attached to each of them, which probably mark the three winning entries. Unfortunately, the photos available online are not clear or close enough read the names on the tags or distinguish the labels.[6]
Syrup producers’ cooperative announcement for new 26 oz. round cans that appeared as early as February 1952. Source – Le Bulletin des Agriculteurs, 1 February 1952, p 80.
Following the results of the label design competition the previous summer, in February 1952 the producersâ cooperative began announcing to maple syrup producers that a new No. 2 sized sanitary can that will hold 26 oz. of syrup was now available for purchase to package and sell their syrup. Each can was produced with a color glossy lithographed label featuring Mrs. Emiliana St-Cyr Brunelle’s winning design. When using the new cans, syrup producers only needed to indicate the grade of the syrup and their name and address, which could be completed with a special stamp and ink the cooperative was happy to provide.[7]
A newspaper article from March 1952 indicated that the new 26 oz. tins were lithographed with three colors, red, white, and green. As it turns out, a number of maple antique collectors have preserved examples of these original 26-ounce yellow, red, and green lithographed cans.[8]
Early image of actual 26 oz, No. 2 size cans in use with a maple leaf motif on the label design. Source – 1952 Ministry of Agriculture Bulletin No. 169. Original photo caption – “Display of maple products along our highways”.
The cooperative had been packaging its syrup for many years under the brands of Citadelle and Camp. Through the 1930s and 1940s, their syrup and maple butter was packaged in both bottles and cans of various shapes and sizes. For the most part, cooperative members delivered the majority of their syrup in bulk barrels to the cooperative to be blended, marketed, and sold under the Camp and Citadelle labels. Advertisements show that by July 1952, grocery stores in Canada began to sell Citadelle brand syrup in 26 oz. tins. According to a history presentation on the cooperative’s website, the producersâ cooperative changed its Citadelle label in 1957 to a distinctive design of a red, white, and blue shield over yellow and white vertical stripes.[10]
However, a film dating to 1955 and produced by the cooperative and available in the BANQ archives clearly shows the yellow and white stripe motif with the red, white, and blue shield in use on rectangular metal cans and more importantly on round 26 ounce cans.
Advertising cover from 1932 booklet published by the producers’ cooperative showing Camp and Citadelle branded maple syrup containers, including tall round cans with a pour spout and the Camp label.
Dominion & Grimm, Inc., advertisement from 1955 announcing the introduction of a new gallon sized lithographed can for packing maple syrup. Source – Le Bulletin des Agriculteurs, 1 December 1955, p58.
Their design features a square red banner with the words âPure Maple Syrupâ above a sugarbush scene with a sugar house painted red. Dominion & Grimm first introduced this four-color lithographed design on tall rectangular -shaped one-gallon tins in 1955, but a few years later were offering the design on rectangular gallon, half-gallon, quart cans, and the infamous 26 oz. round cans. The earliest dated example I have found so far of the D & G round can is from their 1961 catalog. D & G’s beloved design continues to be in use after over sixty years.[16]
UPDATE:Â Since posting the original article further research uncovered additional information about who may be credited with the design of the Dominion & Grimm can. See my post from February 11, 2022 for more details.
I have a new article available on the story of Rex Alwin, an interesting maple syrup maker and early maple researcher in Minnesota. This article appears in the December 2020 edition of Minnesota Maple News, the newsletter for the Minnesota Maple Syrup Producers’ Association.
As a native Minnesotan, I have a particular interest and soft spot for researching and writing about Minnesota maple history and am always happy to share what I can from my home state. You can read a PDF of the newsletter with the article at this link or by clinking on the image of the of the newsletter above.
Email goffnelson@gmail.com to request the Zoom invite.
A sugarbush of 50,000 taps, a network of pipelines to carry sap from the woods to collection points, with sap boiled on colossal evaporators in a series of syrup plants sounds like a description of a modern industrial maple syrup operation. For Abbot Augustus Lowâs Horse Shoe Forestry Company 120 years ago, it was a novel attempt at making maple syrup in the Adirondack wilderness on a scale never before experienced. From 1896 to 1908, A.A. Low and his army of workers carved an industrial landscape out of the forest around Horseshoe Lake, complete with railroads, electrification, mills, dams, a private camp, and the centerpiece maple syrup operation. In time the landscape of A.A. Lowâs private estate changed hands and uses, but as told in Matthew Thomasâ new the book, A Sugarbush Like None Other, the remnants of the story of the Horse Shoe Forestry Company can still be found on the land.
Please join author Matthew Thomas on September 9th at 7 pm for a virtual presentation of his research and field investigations that went into documenting the history and remains of the Horse Shoe Forestry Company.
In January 2020 I had the honor of being invited to the Vermont Maple Conference to make a couple of presentations on historical research I had conducted in the last few years. One presentation was a condensed version of the story of George C. Cary and the Cary Maple Sugar Company, which is the topic of my book Maple King: The Making of a Maple Syrup Empire. The second presentation was on new research I have completed for an article currently in review for publication in the journal Vermont History. This research traces the early origins and development of the use of plastic tubing for gathering maple sap in the maple syrup industry.
University of Vermont Extension Maple Specialist Mark Isselhardt arranged to have the audio from both presentations recorded in association with the presentation slides and posted these on the UVM Extension Maple Website. You can click on the following presentation titles or the title slides here to link to the full audio/slide show for each one. Enjoy!
Unlike my usual stories and historical vignettes, this particular article is more of a commentary and words of encouragement to Vermont sugarmakers to preserve and document their own personal maple histories.
