University of Nevada, Reno a History of Hoptopia: the Local and Global

University of Nevada, Reno A History of Hoptopia: The Local and Global Roots of a Willamette Valley Specialty Crop A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Peter A. Kopp Dr. William D. Rowley/Dissertation Advisor May, 2012 ! "#$!%&'()'"$!*+#,,-! We recommend that the dissertation prepared under our supervision by Peter A. Kopp entitled A History of Hoptopia: The Local and Global Roots of a Willamette Valley Specialty Crop be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY William D. Rowley, Advisor C. Elizabeth Raymond, Committee Member Alicia Barber, Committee Member Scott Slovic, Committee Member Paul F. Starrs, Graduate School Representative Marsha H. Read, Ph. D., Dean, Graduate School May, 2012 ! "! Abstract A History of Hoptopia: The Local and Global Roots of a Willamette Valley Specialty Crop Among the grain fields and orchards of Oregon’s Willamette Valley grows a distinctive plant called hops. The specialty crop is non-native, but local farming communities have welcomed it for nearly 150 years. In this rural agricultural region, the climbing plant stands alone for its vigorous vertical growth on wire-trellis supports and bright green cones that span the length of its vines. Passersby cannot mistake the hop’s unique physical presence. In the past thirty years, hops have also become increasingly visible in surrounding urban centers. Once a topic reserved mostly for brewers, a craft beer revolution and local foods movement have inspired Portlanders and residents of other nearby metropolitan areas to appreciate the plant. Advertisers near and far have also picked up on this intrigue and made the hop evermore visible on beer bottle labels and in television commercials. The widespread interest in hops is not new. It has just changed over time. Unbeknownst to many of the Pacific Northwest’s beer connoisseurs, not to mention the general American public, the Willamette Valley was once at the global center of hop production. In the first half of the twentieth century, Oregon produced forty percent of the American hop crop, contributing millions of hops to the world’s marketplace. Historically, hops have been Oregon’s most important specialty crop and their presence ! ""! has provided environmental and cultural connections between rural farmers and urban centers, and the Willamette Valley and the rest of world. This dissertation addresses a historiographical void on specialty crops in the American West and makes connections to worldwide exchanges of knowledge and commodities. The project builds upon scholarship such as William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis (1991), William G. Robbin’s Landscapes of Promise (1997), David Vaught’s Cultivating California (1999), and Judith A. Carney’s In the Shadow of Slavery (2011) to explain the environmental and cultural reasons why Oregon became a world center of hop production. While plant diseases ultimately limited production by the mid-twentieth century, a well-established crop science program at Oregon State University and a burgeoning local craft beer movement has kept Oregon at the center of the hop world to the present day. The narrative also explains how a diverse multicultural labor force hand- picked crops prior to mechanization of harvests in the 1950s. American Indian, Euroamerican, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, African American, and Latin American peoples found multiple meanings in the yearly harvest. By exploring these histories of agriculture, science, labor, and business, this work argues that despite being non-native, hops evolved with Oregon culture to become a critical part of regional identity. Within that framework, the history of the crop frames a “sense of place,” or “sense of history,” from local Oregon soils to people and materials across the globe. ! """! Acknowledgements Over the three years that this project unfolded, I became increasingly aware that collaboration rests at the heart of historical scholarship. My research and writing developed in tandem with the development of dozens of new personal relationships and fortifying older ones. I am grateful for the opportunities and resources made available to me at the University of Nevada, and the friendships that have resulted from my doctoral work. I have enjoyed the process. First and foremost, I am indebted to my advisor and friend William D. Rowley, Professor and Griffen Chair of Nevada and the West in the Department of History at the University of Nevada, Reno. Bill welcomed me to the program in August of 2006 and offered me opportunities across the academic spectrum and in the community. His experiences and insight fundamentally improved my thinking, writing, and teaching. His generosity and humor also improved life in graduate school. I am also extremely grateful to my dissertation committee that included Elizabeth Raymond, Alicia Barber, Scott Slovic, and Paul Starrs, all who offered excellent ideas and criticism from the beginning. Many of their ideas shaped the chapters ahead and the book manuscript that I hope to create from this dissertation. In the History and English departments at Nevada, Mike Branch, Scott Casper, Linda Curcio-Nagy, and Andrew Nolan also helped shape my historiographical base and approaches to writing history in transnational and interdisciplinary contexts. I am also appreciative of other faculty at UNR for their scholarly and professional insight. Dennis Dworkin, Neal Ferguson, ! "#! Lawrence Hatter, Martha Hildreth, Meredith Oda, Ned Schoolman, Hugh Shapiro, Tom Smith, Barbara Walker, and Erica Westhead were all supportive of this project and my career. So too was Jennifer Baryol, our departmental coordinator. Of course, my graduate student compadres also helped to sharpen my intellect and scholarship while also providing comic relief. I am pleased to have undertaken interdisciplinary work that introduced me to Jim Bishop, Paul Boone, Erin Cummings, Jonathan Cummins, Amy Ghilieri, Travis Lacy, Kyhl Lyndgaard, Andrew McGregor, Nick Plunkey, Ryan Powell, Travis Ross, and Edan Strekal. Librarians and archivists at many institutions were generous with their time and resources. At the University of Nevada, I owe many thanks to Pat Ragains and Mark Lucas. I am also indebted to Geoff Wexler and Shawna Gandy at the Oregon Historical Society, Joy Werlink at the Washington State Historical Society, Larry Landis at the University Archives of Oregon State University, John Henning of the Crop Science Department at Oregon State University, Doug Erickson and Jeremy Skinner of the Watzek Library at Lewis and Clark College, Mary Gallagher at the Benton County Historical Society, Peggy Schorsch at the Independence Heritage Museum, Patrick Harris at the Aurora Colony Museum, and the librarians at Portland State University, Multnomah County Library, Marion County Historical Society, and the Polk County Historical Society. Additionally, through connections with Oregon State University and the Washington State Historical Society, I befriended Alfred Haunold and Dennis Larson, two important individuals who made this project possible through their willingness to share their own research and to look over my chapters. I could not have produced this manuscript without their support. ! #! Much of the fun and insight that resulted from this project occurred from meeting the people who have closely lived the history of Hoptopia and shared their stories with me. I offer many thanks to Michelle Palacios and Nancy Frketich at the Oregon Hop Commission for providing access to institutional records and access to OHC meetings and members. For their roles in brewing, growing hops, and storytelling, I am indebted to John Annen, Maureen Coleman and her family, Christian Ettinger, Gayle Goshcie, Herman Goschie, Vernice Goschie, Al Haunold, Art Larrance, Karl Ockert and all of their family and friends who also spoke with me at various points of this project. I am also grateful to Eliza Canty-Jones, John Foyston, Tim Hill, and Tim and Brian McMenamin for inviting me to talk about the Willamette Valley hop industry at the twenty-five year celebration of Oregon’s microbrew law in the late summer of 2010, a moment that helped me realize that people were not only very interested in this project but embraced the sense of place and “locatedness” that I explore in this dissertation. On a bittersweet note, I gave that talk one week after emceeing the celebration of life ceremony for my father, Jim Kopp, who passed away earlier that August. My dad was not only the source of my interest in history and sense of place, but he was also my sounding board and editing partner for the previous decade and a half. Before he passed on, he read and commented on much of the following manuscript. He also offered me the title “Hoptopia.” I am grateful to be his son and a scholar with similar interests. And it is to him and to my mother Sue, sister Lucy, brother-in-law Ryan, brother Joe, and my wife Sarah Rose that I dedicate this manuscript. I have survived and thrived because of their patience, generosity, and support. ! #"! TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Beervana Beginnings and a Hoptopia Hypothesis 1 CHAPTER ONE “Hop Fever” in the Willamette Valley: Environmental and Agricultural Foundations, 1865 – 1905 17 CHAPTER TWO “Hop Capital of the World”: Business, Politics, and Expansion in the Face of Prohibition and War, 1905 – 1943 63 CHAPTER THREE “Hop Picking Time”: Labor and Culture in the Willamette Valley Hopyards, 1870

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