Milk Churn
by Michelle Meenawong
Title
Milk Churn
Artist
Michelle Meenawong
Medium
Photograph - Metal Print
Description
A milk churn is a tall, conical or cylindrical container for the transportation of milk. It is sometimes referred to as a milk can.
Milk was originally distributed in 'pails', a lidded bucket with a handle. Often two pails would be carried on either end of a wooden carrying yoke. Once the railways started carrying milk, the pail proved less than ideal as it was top-heavy and tended to spill. Dairy farmers used a tall conical wooden container – a butter churn - to 'churn' the milk into butter, and this proved to be preferable for the railways to transport. It held a lot more milk (about seventeen gallons) and its conical shape made it less likely to spill or topple over. These wooden churns were intrinsically heavy, and starting in the 1850s a steel version was introduced and soon became the standard. The usage of the word 'churn' was retained for describing these containers, although they were not themselves used for 'churning' butter.
A very grateful thank you to the following groups for featuring this picture
10 Plus
10/11/2018
Uploaded
August 30th, 2018
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