Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.
Author ORCID Identifier
N/A
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
History
Year Degree Awarded
2017
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
David Glassberg
Second Advisor
Emily Redman
Third Advisor
Christopher Clark
Fourth Advisor
Edward Melillo
Subject Categories
Cultural History | Social History | United States History
Abstract
Explores rural history through the experiences of three families that dominated the American peppermint oil business from its beginning in the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. The rural entrepreneurs who became Peppermint Kings acted in ways that challenge traditional historical depictions of rural people. The freethinking Ranney clan built a family business that extended from Massachusetts to western New York and Michigan during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Hotchkiss brothers entered the international market and ventured into finance and banking at a time when the United States government was reducing opportunities for regional bankers. Albert May Todd brought science to peppermint farming and distilling, and advocated progressive and socialist causes as a politician and organizer of the Municipal Ownership League of America. The Peppermint Kings’ stories not only demonstrate the remarkable agency of rural people, but offer insights into how rural Americans responded to broader social changes that have typically been viewed from a predominantly urban perspective.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/10290234.0
Recommended Citation
Allosso, Dan, "Peppermint Kings: A Rural American History" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 1044.
https://doi.org/10.7275/10290234.0
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1044