Leaves falling from trees and the harvesting of gardens signifies a changing of the seasons. It is the time of year when Wisconsinites start getting things prepared around the house before hunkering down for the long, cold, winter months to come. One such task many undertake includes canning of home-grown fruits and vegetables to last throughout the winter.
In the early 1790s, Nicolas Appert, a French chef and the pioneer of canning, began experimenting with food preservation by enclosing food in sealed containers and boiling the container to create an airtight environment.
His experimenting with food preservation was most likely the result of the French government offering a monetary prize to anyone who could come up with a method to preserve food to send with their soldiers while away from home.
Appert’s canning method reached the United States by the 1820s and became popular once John Landis Mason invented his jar in 1858.
Mason, an American tinsmith, invented and patented the mason jar with a zinc screw cap in 1858 (U.S. Patent No. 22,186).
Most people will recognize this glass jar by its aqua-blue color. The mason jar goes by many names, such as Ball jar, canning jar, fruit jar, and lightning jar.
Apart from the lightning jar, a mason jar is a glass jar with a screw-thread opening (mouth) in which a metal ring or a band and separate disk-shaped lid are attached to the jar and is used in home canning and food preservation. The lightning jar had a glass lid with a bail closure (wire clamp) that could easily snap on and off. It was not as common as the screw-thread jars but was popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The invention of the mason jar revolutionized food preservation as we know it. It has also had a positive impact on those who live in areas with shorter growing seasons, such as those of us who live in Wisconsin. There are multiple methods of food preservation including drying, freezing, fermenting, pickling, curing, jam and jelly, and last but not least, canning.
The discovery of canning related artifacts is not uncommon for archaeologists excavating post-contact homesteads and farmsteads across the Fort McCoy landscape. The most common canning artifact recovered are the canning jar glass fragments or shards as pictured on the left and right of the whole canning jar (center).
Archaeologists also unearth other elements related to canning including milk glass lid liners, metal rings or bands, and bail closures for lightning jar lids for example. One post-contact site located on Fort McCoy produced 1,826 artifacts related to canning with a majority of the artifacts identified as milk glass lid liner fragments and mason jar glass fragments.
The popularity of mason jars and food preservation has gone through ebbs and flows. There was a boom of mason jar use and food preservation during World War II due to the U.S. government rationing food and encouraging Americans to grow “victory gardens” and to “Can All You Can.”
There was a decrease in mason jar manufacturing in North America in the 1950s and 1960s because of a sharp decline in popularity of home canning which coincided with the rise of supermarket canned foods.
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, there was once again an uptick in canning because of the back-to-the-land movement.
The 2010s witnessed a revival of the mason jar, but more so as a novelty item and not for its intended purpose of food preservation. The latest resurgence of the mason jar and the practice of canning was a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The pandemic resulted in more gardeners and increased home canning due to the mandatory shutdowns causing extra time to focus on hobbies and at-home activities, such as gardening.
Coincidently, the exponential increase in home canning led to a shortage of canning supplies, especially the metal canning lids because they cannot be reused like glass jars. We witnessed the same phenomenon of shortages with lumber and essential items, amongst other things, during the coronavirus pandemic. The surplus of fresh produce resulted in canning what couldn’t be eaten and allowed individuals to eat fruits and veggies year-round. There is nothing more rewarding than sowing, err canning, the fruits and veggies of your labor to provide for you and your family.
All archaeological work conducted at Fort McCoy was sponsored by the Directorate of Public Works, Environmental Division, Natural Resources Branch. Visitors and employees are reminded they should not collect artifacts on Fort McCoy or other government lands and leave the digging to the professionals.
Any individual who excavates, removes, damages, or otherwise alters or defaces any post-contact or pre-contact site, artifact, or object of antiquity on Fort McCoy is in violation of federal law.
The discovery of any archaeological artifact should be reported to the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.
(Article prepared by the Fort McCoy Archaeology Team that includes the Colorado State University’s Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands and the Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.)
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