Abstract In the mid-twentieth century, blueberries became one of American agriculture's small-fruit success stories. Some three decades of collaborative experiments involving federal and state governments and entrepreneurial farmers had unlocked the secrets of cultivating a berry that both consumers and farmers liked. Contrary to conventional thought, however, this was not the beginning of the blueberry industry in the United States. It was, rather, its transformation. The widespread harvesting of blueberries for urban markets began with the transportation revolution in the 1840s, but this industry was fundamentally different from the one that replaced it. Not only were these berries called “huckleberries” everywhere but New England, they were also harvested entirely from the de facto commons. This history provides a case study of how a commons resource—considered property of the harvester—became a private one owned by the landowner and of the social, cultural, and economic effects of that transformation.
Luke Manget (Fri,) studied this question.