Many more behind-the-scenes steps are involved in getting products to consumers than children may at first imagine. As they consider the distinctions between needs and wants, children will learn more about jobs people do in both goods and service industries.   

What Primary Sources Can Tell Us about Our Needs and Wants

Evidence of the many ways people produce and consume is all around us.

• Written forms – Advertisements for products and services tell us the approaches that marketers feel work best when appealing to consumers.
• Physical artifacts – The products people buy can tell us a lot about their needs and wants, and the factors that go into making purchasing decisions. Bank books, piggy banks, ATM machines, and government bonds are evidence of ways that people increase their savings.
• Images – Photographs and paintings of people working, trading, and making purchases—as well as images of the products that they consume and buy—are also good indicators of peoples’ needs and wants.

 Primary Sources 

Early Milk Advertisements

Early milk advertisement

Milk delivery at the Farm Security Administration camp for defense

Most children today take mail delivery for granted. But many of the children’s grandparents—and even some parents—may still remember when milk was also dropped off on doorsteps each morning. Early milk advertisements show this old way of getting milk to consumers – by milk truck drivers carrying glass returnable bottles. Advertisements like these highlighted the convenience of doorstep delivery.

Milking machines

 

 Background Information 

Milk Distribution and Delivery

Back in the 1800s many dairy farmers started delivering milk as a way to increase profits, rather than waste their milk surplus. Using a milk-wagon, the farmers headed down local roads where women would stand waiting to greet them with pitchers that the farmer would pour the milk into. In 1878 glass milk bottles were first introduced—thirteen years after Louis Pasteur devised milk pasteurization. (By destroying harmful bacteria, this process allowed milk to stay fresh longer.) Then, as this photograph from the Primary Source Handbook (page 26) shows, machines put the milk into bottles. Now farmers could simply drop off the bottles on customers’ doorsteps. A day or two later they could then pick up the empty bottles and replace them with fresh full ones!

At first milk deliveries were made in horse-drawn wagons. But as transportation methods improved, dairy farmers also upgraded. Wagons were replaced by dairy delivery trucks, which later were improved when truck refrigeration was added. With the popularization of automobiles, however, consumers were also traveling more frequently—heading out to supermarkets and convenience stores to do shopping. By the late 1960s, the sight of a local “milk man” was not nearly as common. Yet to this day—even in California—there are still modern-day door-to-door milk deliveries.

 

 Classroom Activity 

Got Milk?—A Look at Some Ways to Get Products to Consumers

1. Review with the children the information on dairy farming in Lesson 4 of Unit 4 of their textbook (pages 256-258.) Then open a discussion with the children about where their family usually gets the milk that they drink. Do they go to a supermarket, a farm, or somewhere else? How many of the children have ever seen a cow milked? When they go home, encourage the children to ask adults they know if they remember having milk delivered to their homes by a “milk man” at one time. Children may be surprised by what they find out!

2. Organize the children into teams of no more than four children each. Invite each group to imagine that they are dairy farmers, and are trying to decide on the best way to get their product to consumers. For example, they can sell their milk directly to a store, invite customers to come buy it at their farm, or get a milk truck and deliver the milk door-to-door themselves. Assign each team of children to one of these methods. (If necessary, have more than one team focus on the same method.) 

3. Now share with the children the early milk advertisement. Other milk ads highlighted milk safety or milk freshness. If possible, you might also add some current milk-related ads from local newspapers or fliers. Discuss the different methods that these ads use to get across their message. Are any more or less appealing to the children than others? If the children have a particularly strong reaction to any of the advertisements, encourage them to articulate why.  

4. After asking themselves how their selected method of milk delivery may benefit them and consumers, have each team put together an “ad campaign” for their milk-selling service. Distribute art supplies (crayons, markers, and light-colored drawing paper) for the children to use. As they work on the project, encourage them to keep these questions in mind:

• Given the way you are setting up your business, who will most of your customers be?
• What kinds of things might you put in an ad that will appeal to these people?
• What information will your potential customers need to know?
• How will you design your ad so that it will best attract your customers’ attention?

5. When the children are ready, invite them to share their ad campaigns with the rest of the class. Discuss with the children the potential positives and negatives of setting up their business in each of the three methods discussed. Then take a vote to see which method—as consumers— the children think is the best. Be sure they can explain why they think that is.