3 20 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



in 1927 and in Illinois in 1928. In 1929 the Farmers' Union Central Ex- 

 change of South St. Paul embarked on its oil program, and in the same 

 year the Consumers' Cooperative Association of North Kansas City, Mis- 

 souri, then known as the Union Oil Company, was organized. Although 

 the chief item in the trade of the latter was petroleum products, it also 

 started to handle other consumer goods. 68 



An unimportant but unique type of rural cooperative venture in the 

 western Middle West was the cooperative burial association. In 1936 there 

 were between forty and fifty such associations in operation in Iowa, 

 Minnesota, and South Dakota. The largest of these was the Minnesota 

 Valley Burial Association, with a membership of about 1,200. In Iowa 

 the State Federation of Burial Societies included ten societies. Experience 

 showed that a local society in order to have a good beginning had to have 

 assets worth about $5,000 and a membership of 500, each paying $10. 

 The manager of the association, generally the undertaker, received a 

 salary. Savings were paid back to the families having funerals during the 

 year in proportion to the prices paid. A lower-priced funeral cost $97 and 

 a more elaborate one $172. In 1936 the Minnesota Valley Burial Associa- 

 tion conducted eighty-six funerals at an average cost of $214. In 1936 the 

 United States Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that forty-two associa- 

 tions, with a membership of 27,000, did an annual business of $i7o,ooo. 87 



66. R. K. Froker and J. G. Knapp, Farmers' Purchasing Associations in Wisconsin, 

 Farm Credit Administration, Cooperative Division, Bulletin 20 (Washington, 1937); 

 H. A. Cowden, "Oil and Gasoline Cooperatives," Annals of the American Academy 

 of Political and Social Science, CXCI (May, 1937), pp. 109-12; Ellis Cowling, 

 Cooperatives in America (New York, 1938), p. 123. 



67. O. E. Burley, The Consumers' Cooperative as a Distributive Agency (New 

 York, 1939), pp. 114-15; James Myers, Jr., Cooperative Funeral Associations, The 

 Cooperative League of the United States (New York and Chicago, 1946) [pam- 

 phlet]; see pages 37-38 for a list of the various cooperative funeral associations in the 

 country. 



