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Creating an Agricultural Trust: Law and Cooperation in California, 1898–1922

During the late nineteenth century, as the “trust problem” occupied the attention of politicians and entrepreneurs across the nation, California farmers began an experiment that would irretrievably alter the form and function of agricultural marketing cooperatives. Taking a cue from the robber barons, leaders in the state's promising raisin industry set out to apply the advantages of corporation law—and of the modern trust—to the principles of cooperation. As early as 1899, the raisin industry's merger of corporation and cooperative caught the attention of the San Francisco Chronicle's agricultural editor, Edward F. Adams. “The principle of cooperation in [agriculture] for marketing purposes,” he wrote, “is identical with that of the cooperation of capitalists in what are called ‘Trusts.’”