Since its founding in 1859, the Minnesota State Fair had been an essential yearly tradition in the agricultural state. However, after the United States entered World War I in 1917, the fair took on an entirely new significance. Organizers reframed the event as a “Food Training Camp” that showed Minnesotans how to produce and conserve resources vital to the Allied war effort.

During the late 1800s, dairy farmers in Minnesota and other states faced what they considered a serious and immediate threat to their livelihoods: the growing popularity of a butter substitute called oleomargarine. For nearly a century, the dairy industry and its legislative allies waged a series of campaigns to prohibit or limit the manufacture and sale of margarine. No state retained its anti-margarine laws longer than Minnesota.

The University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension Service was the first state agency to respond to the urgent food conservation needs of World War I. Extension director Archie Dell (A. D.) Wilson and other staff worked throughout the war to provide guidance, information, persuasion, and recipes to farmers and homemakers across Minnesota. Their efforts helped preserve the food that would win the “war to end all wars.”