Community Canneries and Collective Food

Canning has become a cornerstone of the homesteader/prepper community, particularly as a tool of resilience and self-sufficiency. This makes sense, in many ways, as it localizes the production of shelf-stable foods within the home; the only outside requirements are one-time purchases of jars and a rotating collection of lids, which are cheap and produced en masse.

The concept of preserving food through heat, pressure, pH, and fermentation is a long-lived art throughout human history. Canning itself emerged in the early 19th century, driven by the need for reliable preservation, specifically for military provisions.¹ However, it did not become a staple part of ‘homesteading’ as we think of it today until the late 19th century. Canning was driven largely by industry looking to stretch food sales far beyond harvesting season. Many early canning industries developed alongside agricultural lands, capturing excess produce that otherwise went to waste or was sold for little profit due to the glut of harvest season (which drove the development of industries such as blueberries). Interestingly enough, this also led to union organizing overlaps with the agricultural sector in places like California, where large immigrant populations pushed for better wages and conditions on the canning lines.

The first community canning centers were often the result of neighborhood organizing to save money, time, and labor. Others were funded by organizations, from county commissioners to school boards, mill owners, and even the American Red Cross.² These were often a direct response and accelerated due to the widespread decrease in farm incomes through the early 20th century and the increasing affordability of tin cans and glass jars. The biggest challenge was the infrastructure, which was only needed for a short period of time per year. Collectively, however, the canners themselves were affordable, which drove community funding for the equipment. By the late 1880s, there were over 3,800 community canneries in the country, largely to help members of the community preserve surplus produce from their gardens and farms.

These were functionally community centers as well; for example, in 1915, the Texas Agricultural Extension Service (TAEX) introduced community canning centers, which were funded both by public and personal networks. White women organized fundraising and activities, while white men were responsible for constructing, fueling, and operating the centers. These centers allowed small farmers to preserve for themselves and for sale, increasing their income in economically repressed areas while also supporting poor white families that relied on subsistence farming.

In 1915, only one community cannery existed for African Americans. By 1918, that number had increased to 250, as canning was a tool for resiliency through the First World War. For African American families, preserving food was particularly valuable, as most of the farming around them was for cotton, a cash crop, and food prices for African Americans were inflated despite their lower incomes, similar to how food deserts drive up prices today in African American communities. With the development of these community canning centers, “Nearly every African American farm family planted a home garden and preserved the majority of the harvest,” whereas only a few years before, according to county agent Robert Hines, “practically no vegetables were saved and a very little fruit.”

Canning also allowed farmers to choose not to sell produce when a glut had pushed prices down. Crops that would have been a loss were instead made profitable. Farmers, both black and white, were able to take advantage of good markets and timing in ways they’d never been able to before, and consumers had a steadier food supply on their shelves.

Further, the canning centers became important not just as places for education, demonstration, and preservation but also because they forced members to build stronger relationships with people in their community, working as a social center as well as a source of food resilience.³ In Jacksonville, the USDA describes the centers as “really small community centers, where church socials, parties, and community recreational activities are centered. They are equipped to function as emergency feeding centers, and as Red Cross canteen centers.”

As the droughts that would ultimately manifest into the Dust Bowl continued on, state and private partnerships accelerated investments into community canning. The materials put together, such as the bulletins out of TAEX, went beyond canning basics and provided full plans for constructing facilities. These plans were designed to be accessible to semi-literate African Americans while also only requiring materials that would be within reach of poor folks in rural communities. Agents also worked to meet people where they were, for example, doing canning demonstrations on a creek bank “because water was available at the creek but not at the home.”⁴ Plans were designed to discuss drainage, sanitation, and even which native shrubs to use for landscaping, which could also provide useful materials, such as berries. Many residents not only received the benefits of these canning centers but went on to apply the knowledge in other communal spaces, such as churches and schools.

During the Jim Crow era, offering another tool for autonomy was another form of resistance for black Texans. Communities were able to self-govern their centers and fund their own investments, regardless of the white power structure. Families grew their own food, canned their own food, and profited from their community’s own means of production.

Plans from a 1935 Bulletin on canning center construction and organizing.

In 1929, black families canned more than one million jars of food, an average of 115 cans or jars per family, at an estimated value of $371,518.70, or $6.85 million in 2024. Residents paid for access to the cannery with a percentage of their produce, which was sold and paid for the cannery's operating costs. In this way, canneries were self-sustaining after the initial investment and continued to be both a source of individual and community pride. Producing food for oneself was not only self-reliance but also giving back to the community, improving the entire community.