The records of the White House Milk Company include fragmentary financial records from the company's central office as well as detailed records of the physical plant operation of the ten plant sites. The material has been arranged in four series: Background Material, Central Office Records, Plant Records, and Statistical Studies.
The BACKGROUND MATERIAL consists of a few folders containing short histories of the company, material on the “A” Award received in 1945, and newspaper clippings about the company. There is also a folder of labels from the cans produced by the company.
The CENTRAL OFFICE RECORDS offer limited financial records, which document the general operating expenses of the company, but do not contain detailed financial reports, budgets, or sales information. A general ledger for the years 1928-1947 contains the most sustained body of information in the collection. It details the expenditures of the company for the twenty year period, although the period of the 1930s is the most thoroughly and consistently recorded. Expenditures of all kinds--equipment, maintenance, taxes, insurance, and labor--are documented. Entries are made monthly or quarterly and are not broken down by specific plant origin. Only limited sales figures, accounts receivable, and profit and loss figures are recorded. The files do not contain financial reports from the various plants, or information on the financial relationship to the parent Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. Budget figures are given on a quarterly basis for only 1944, 1945, 1946, and 1948. Detailed milk receiving statements exist only for the fiscal year 1967. Likewise, a union contract containing detailed information on job classification and wage scheduling exists only for the year 1953-1954. Two equipment registers cover the years 1927-1967. They provide detailed information on the cost of equipment, the rate of depreciation and the length of use of dairy industry machinery.
The PLANT RECORDS contain the most detailed records in the collection. They essentially document the physical plant and equipment use of ten plants of the White House Milk Co., including Abbotsford, Eden, Marathon, Marinette, Mayville, Stratford, Vesper, West Bend, and Winneconne, Wisconsin, and Stephenson, Michigan. The records are organized by plant location and further divided into categories of plant operation. They contain contracts for equipment and maintenance work, equipment specifications, use and depreciation information, and some correspondence relating to physical plant. The records offer a good overview of the type of equipment necessary to a dairy processing plant from 1927 to 1967, although the records are most complete for the period 1927 to 1947. For research into the history of technology, these records provide information on equipment use, standards, and specifications in the dairy processing industry. The files also contain papers and correspondence relating to industrial waste, inspection and sanitation issues in the dairy industry, as well as the equipment needed to meet industry standards. There is also a small amount of material relating to War Production Board guidelines, equipment ratings, and preference rating applications that illustrate aspects of a food processing industry during World War II.
The series of STATISTICAL STUDIES is a group of reports undertaken by the company from 1948 to 1951. The studies indicate some of the issues facing their industry such as a plant expansion, advisability of the manufacture of cans within their own plant, and production reports on evaporated milk, butter, and cheese.
