3/18/2010:
Have you had your coffee this morning?
Probably, if you're like the majority of Americans. In 2000, the National Coffee Association found that 54% of the adult population of the United States drank coffee daily, with an additional 25% of Americans drinking coffee occasionally. That's a lot of coffee, and a lot of coffee drinkers.
So, on this date in 1951, when coffee prices in Fargo-Moorhead restaurants were set to rise, many people had coffee on their minds. The price increase was five cents, bringing the cost for a cup of Joe up to ten cents. For us today, it was a drop in the bucket-but at that time, it was double the original price - that in a year when inflation overall was less than 4%.
Even if you wanted to make your own coffee, you had to purchase dry coffee for 95 cents a pound. Again, a much cheaper price than we see today. Of course, when you consider that a dollar then had the equivalent buying power of a bit over $8.50 today, 95 cents for a pound of coffee would be quite pricy compared to your typical grocery store brand today.
Most of the businesses affiliated with the Fargo-Moorhead restaurant association were ready to go along with the price increase, but not all of the citizens were content, such as one Fargo woman, who wrote this letter to the Fargo paper:
"Why are the voters taking so many things lying down? Such as 95 cents per pound coffee, to mention one of innumerable injustices! And just so the United States can lose 7 percent on their stocked gold because other nations are getting richer. Through taxes taken from us voters for financing luxuriant hotel chains and mink coats for office holding women in Bureaucracy? How many voters will prosper to rabbit coats after paying 95 cents per pound for coffee? Voters, let's manifest our American blood! Let's cut to breakfast coffee only, in a Boston Tea Party commemoration lesson to the Powers that be, and to the coffee manipulators!"
Although she didn't inspire any "coffee parties" to throw high costing coffee into the Red River, she was at least partly in luck; the restaurants decided to postpone their price hike till at least the first of April.
Dakota Datebook written by Sarah Walker
Sources:
"Coffee Consumption Statistics in the United States." http://www.coffeeresearch.org/market/usa.htm
http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm
The Fargo Forum, Monday Evening, March 26, 1951
The Fargo Forum, Mon. Evening, March 19, 1951
The Fargo Forum, Wednesday morning, March 21, 1951