Cooper Support

                                       

July 17, 1935, Appleton Post-Crescent

Prohibition had been repealed just three years before and now the cooper industry faced a new threat- steel kegs and barrels.  Traditionally, a cooper is a barrel maker or, by definition, any artisan who makes wooden-staved containers.  The Menasha Woodenware, notable for its wooden pails, butter tubs, and yes, barrels and kegs, eventually lost the "war" to this upstart material.  But for now, in 1935, all the taverns and bars in the Fox Valley threw their support behind Coopers Local 22, as portrayed in this full page ad in time for the labor convention.