Gail Borden

Gail Borden

Gail Borden, Jr. (born November 9, 1801 in Norwich , New York , † January 11, 1874 in Borden ) was an American surveyor, newspaper publisher, inventor and entrepreneur.

Today he is best known for being the first to develop an industrial process for the production of condensed milk. The patent for this process was granted on August 19, 1856. In New York at the end of 1856 he founded the New York Condensed Milk Company to market the product. This still exists today as a US company under the name Borden Milk Products LP .

Life

Gail Borden, Jr. was born in Norwich, New York to pioneer landowner Gail Borden and his wife, Philadelphia Wheeler. Details of his childhood are not known, but his family temporarily lived in the US states of Kentucky and Indiana . Borden received his only formal schooling in Indiana when he attended a land surveying school in 1816 and 1817. In the state of Mississippi he then worked as a surveyor and teacher. In 1828 he married Penelope Mercer, with whom he was married for 16 years until her death. The couple had six children together. He then married a widow with several children.

In 1829 Borden moved with his family to Texas and six years later founded a newspaper with one of his brothers, but sold his stake in it in 1837. Borden was also involved in the formulation of the first drafts of the Texas constitution. Under Sam Houston , he worked as a customs inspector for the port of Galveston .

Hard biscuit with meat

As someone who had traveled long distances through undeveloped land, Borden knew the need for food that was easy to transport and that would not spoil. His first attempt aimed at improving the ship's biscuit . The hard biscuit, traditionally made almost exclusively from flour, water and a little fat, is one of the long-life baked goods and is less prone to microbial spoilage due to its very low water content . As an inexpensive pastry that can be easily stored and transported, it was and is used by the armed forces of many countries for field catering . In the 19th century, ship's biscuit was also a typical food item for immigrants who came to North America by ship. However, ship's biscuits were also known to be difficult to eat. Borden's attempts to improve were aimed at making it more edible and giving it more ingredients. By 1851, Borden had developed a ship's biscuit in which three pounds of beef were processed on two pounds of typical hard biscuit dough. At the Great Exhibition , the great London industrial exhibition in 1851, Borden was awarded a prize for this. While still in London, he tried to convince the British explorers Elisha Kent Kane and John Ross of the advantages of his product, which ultimately failed. The British Navy tried to convince Borden to reduce the meat content. Borden resisted this. Although he received a British patent for the production of the hard meat biscuits and Florence Nightingale ordered 600 pounds of these hard biscuits for the British military hospital in Scutari ( Selimiye barracks ), which she ran, the product ultimately failed. His sea biscuits had meanwhile proven that they could be stored and transported under the warm, humid conditions in China, but - as Borden was informed by employees of the US Navy among others - the taste of the sea biscuits was perceived as disgusting.

Condensed milk

1898: Advertisement for Gail Borden's Eagle Brand Condensed Milk in a traveler's guide during the Klondike Gold Rush .

Borden Milk Products condensed milk can with Spanish-language labeling from the second half of the 20th century.

Borden began in 1851 to deal with the preservation of milk parallel to the marketing attempts of his meat hard biscuit. The early, more hagiographic biographies of Bden see the reason for this in a traumatic experience during the crossing between North America and Great Britain. On board the ship with which Borden traveled, cows were kept, whose milk was to be used as food for the small children traveling with them. The cows got sick during the crossing and eventually died, and the toddlers didn't survive the crossing either. In her history of milk consumption, Deborah Valenze points out that at that time a number of people were already grappling with the preservation of dairy products. The French confectioner Nicolas Appert had already successfully preserved meat, vegetables and milk in glass containers for Napoleon's armed forces at the beginning of the 19th century. Iron cans had already been used for this in 1813, but met with little response, as the containers were heavy and - due to the lack of the not yet invented can opener - very difficult to open.

In his own experiments, Borden was inspired, among other things, by the achievements of the shaker , which successfully preserved fruit. They used a cooking device that created a vacuum and preserved fruit that has been cooked for a long time without cooling. Louis Pasteur's work on the importance of microorganisms was still in the future, but even without this basis, Borden could see that boiled and vacuum-packed milk lasted longer and that simple hygiene measures and the addition of sugar contributed to preservation. On August 19, 1856, he applied for his patent for the industrial production of condensed milk. He largely stopped his work on the marketing of his hard biscuit with meat.

He built the first facility with which Borden produced condensed milk on an industrial scale in Connecticut. The product, which was marketed under the patriotic name Eagle Brand Milk , initially found few buyers. During the financial crisis of 1857 Borden was on the verge of bankruptcy, but then found an investor in the railroad magnate Jeremiah Milbank . The breakthrough for the company came in 1861 when the United States Army first ordered 500 pounds of condensed milk during the Civil War, and more orders soon followed. The demand increased so strongly that several new production plants had to be built as a result. The success was due to the high coffee consumption of American soldiers. They traditionally drank their coffee with milk and sugar, but fresh milk was seldom available in the areas marked by the devastation of the civil war.

Borden's condensed milk cans soon reached private households from the front. Deborah Valenze reports that during the war, soldiers sent parcels to their families at home that contained these cans of condensed milk, among other things. At the latest with the end of the civil war and the return of the soldiers, condensed milk was also used in private households and very quickly accepted as a product. The supply of fresh milk was difficult, especially in urban regions. There were regular scandals about spoiled and blended milk - condensed milk seemed to be an alternative to fresh milk supply. Because of this need, a condensed milk industry quickly emerged in other countries as well.

Other products

Borden continued his experiments in preserving meat, tea, coffee and cocoa even during the period when his company was expanding rapidly. In 1862 he opened a production facility in Amenia in the US state of New York for the preservation of fruit juices such as apple and grape juice. He received the patent for it in the same year. The product range of his company expanded accordingly. The most important product of the New York Condensed Milk Company, however, remained condensed milk.

death

Borden died in Borden , a town in Colorado County, Texas, in 1874 . His body was transferred to New York City and buried in Woodlawn Cemetery .

Aftermath

• Borden County , Texas, is named after Gail Borden, although Borden had never visited the region. The administrative headquarters of the district has been named after his first name Gail .
• The New York Condensed Milk Company called itself Borden Company from 1899 to honor its founder. In 1940 the company employed 28,000 people. The product range extends from fresh and condensed milk, animal feed, medicines and vitamins to various products based on soybeans.
• The public library in Elgin , Illinois is named after Gail Borden. It goes back to a foundation made by two step-sons.

literature

• Andrea Kökény: The Construction of Anglo-American Identity in the Republic of Texas, as reflected in the "Telegraph and Texas Register". Journal of the Southwest, Volume 46, Summer 2005, pp. 283-308.
• Deborah Valenze: Milk: A Local and Global History . Yale University Press, New Haven 2011, ISBN 978-0-300-11724-0 .

Web links

• Gail Borden in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Single receipts

1. ↑ August 19, 1856 - The condensed milk is patented WDR.DE of August 19, 2011, accessed on June 10, 2014
2. ↑ Kökény (2004), p. 284.
3. ↑ Deborah Valenze: Milk: A Local and Global History . P. 180
4. ↑ Gottfried Spicher: Packaging and storage. In: Wilfried Seibel (Ed.): Fine baked goods. 2nd Edition. Behr, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-86022-852-8 , p. 190.
5. ↑ Deborah Valenze: Milk: A Local and Global History . P. 181.
6. ↑ Deborah Valenze: Milk: A Local and Global History . P. 182.
7. ↑ Deborah Valenze: Milk: A Local and Global History . P. 182.
8. ↑ Deborah Valenze: Milk: A Local and Global History . P. 183.
9. ↑ Deborah Valenze: Milk: A Local and Global History . P. 184.
10. ↑ Deborah Valenze: Milk: A Local and Global History . P. 186.
11. ↑ United States. Patent Office: Commissioner of Patents Annual Report . United States. Patent Office, 1864, p. 466.