Cooperatives: Important mainstays for early Italian settlers in the Pacific Northwest
Before trade unions and worker's compensation, produce peddlers pooled their resources and formed farmer-owned cooperatives to market their agricultural commodities
For communities that are often marginalized, as Italian immigrants often were, organizing mutual aid was a way to survive and thrive. Distrustful of banks, they pooled their capital, and the profits they generated were shared among the members. Some mutual aid came in the form of cooperatives governed by member-owners to help farmers sell their fruits and vegetables.
This was certainly true of early Italians in South Portland when Little Italy stretched out along the west side of the river from Mill Street to the Vista Ridge Tunnels. They formed the Italian Gardeners and Ranchers Association around 1915, and initially, sold their produce from their trucks or in a market near the river at Southeast Tenth and Belmont. By 1922, they had built a two-story building that is still standing at SE MLK Blvd. and Main Street. The building is just southwest of the boundary of the East Portland Grand Avenue Historic District.
A fairly famous vegetable seller was one named Joe Desimone. He began his own business in 1899 and quickly grew to own and farm large tracts of land in the Duwamish Valley in Seattle. He was one of the principle investors of Pike Place Market, and later, took control of it, helping many Italian farmers along the way.
Between 1900 and 1920In the Spokane and Priest River valleys, in Washington state’s northeastern and Idaho’s northwestern corners, respectively, most Italians labored on the railroads or in lumber mills, but because land was plentiful and fertile, they ventured into farming, too. In 1907, the Spokane Chamber of Commerce went so far as to market Spokane as a “bread basket” because of its rapidly growing agribusiness in wheat and produce. Though they didn’t organize quite as formally as their fellow paesani in Seattle and Portland, a number of Italian fruit and vegetable stands were located in the Washington Market, at Washington and Main, in downtown Spokane.
In the late 1800s, Peter Pieri, a Corsican, brought a sweet onion into the Walla Walla valley, which became much favored by other early Italians, who joined him in farming it. Onion farmers in southeastern Washington, like the Saturno/Breen and Locati families, eventually banded together to become members of the Walla Walla Produce Co., one of the oldest cooperatives in the country. Those same families were also involved in winemaking.
Many of these coops sold their produce to The Pacific Fruit & Produce Company (“Pacific”) of Seattle. A wholesaler, Pacific bought fruits and vegetables from farmers and other suppliers, repackaged them into smaller containers for household use, and then sold them to grocery stores and other businesses. Wholesalers were a boon to Italian farmers and markets, distributing agricultural products grown by Italian American far and wide.
You can find additional information about farmer cooperatives and mutual aid societies in my recently published book, ITALIANS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST (Arcadia Publishing).
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