Society Archives
WAUPUN
During the heyday of the industrial hemp industry during World War I and II, Wisconsin was home to over 70 percent of the hemp mills in the U.S.
Quite a feat for an industry that was largely unknown in the Badger State in 1912.
One of the oldest cultivated fiber plants in the world, hemp seed was brought to the U.S. by the pilgrims in 1620. The early settlers used the fiber from the woody stalk to produce twine, thread and rope.
According to state archives, six acres of hemp were grown on the asylum farm at Mendota and three acres as the Wisconsin State Prison farm in 1908, by the Agronomy Department of the Wisconsin Experiment State in cooperation with the Office of Fiber Investigations of the USDA.
The results appeared promising and more experimental crops were planted in fields in Fond du Lac, Green Lake and Dodge counties. University of Wisconsin officials noted that the plants thrived in the rich, prairie soils and climate of Wisconsin and were resistant to disease and insects.
With The United States' entrance into World War I looming on the horizon, University of Wisconsin officials began urging farmers to plant fields of hemp to meet the demand from the war. Matt Rens, who owned a farm near Alto, was among a handful of farmers who grew a hemp crop in 1914, according to his grandson Dennis Rens.
The seed — imported from Kentucky — was drilled into the ground in the spring. In September, the 6 to 8-foot tall stalks were cut and spread in windrows out in the field and left to ret — a process in which moisture helped to loosen the fibers. The stalks were typically turned over by hand three times by hand during the retting process. Afterward, the stalks were gathered, tied into bundles and brought to the mill.
According to Waupun historian Jim Laird, inmates from the Waupun State Prison and later German soldiers from the POW camps, helped to harvest the hemp crop.
Matt Rens who was touted as "America's Hemp King" in certain circles is credited for created a central processing plant for stripping fiber from the hemp stalk, thus the first hemp mill was born in 1915, according to Rens' grandson, Dennis Rens in his book "America's Hemp King".
Once at the mill, the stalks would be dried in kilns and then run through a breaking machine. The fibers were then separated from the stalk and combed out. Next the fibers were either graded as 'line fiber' or 'tow'. Line fiber was sought after by the U.S. Navy.
The hemp industry continued to boom in the years immediately following end of World War I. In 1918, Wisconsin became the leading hemp growing state in the U.S. and organizations like the Rock River Hemp Growers Association and the Hemp Order of Wisconsin Experimental Association were formed.
During this boom, Wisconsin ranked first in acreage and produced 70 percent of the nation's hemp fiber.
By then imports of fibers from the Philippines and the Netherland Indies began infiltrating the market, causing stiff competition for U.S. growers. Production of U.S. produced hemp plummeted and many mills closed following the crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.
Government intervention
The government moved to monitor the hemp industry following the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which required hemp growers to register with the Internal Revenue Collectors and pay a $1 permit fee.
The hemp industry experienced its second boom after the imports from overseas were cut off shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. With the world's supply of rope cut off, hemp suddenly became a "strategic war crop," according to Iowa State University archives. In 1938,Popular Mechanics magazine hailed hemp as the "Billion Dollar Crop."
The demand for fiber was so great, that in 1942 U.S. officials created a plan to build 42 government-owned and operated hemp mills in the upper Midwest, including Wisconsin. According to USDA data, industrial hemp production peaked in 1943 with more than 150 million pounds being harvested from 146,200 acres.
End of an era
As the Allies turned the tide of World War II in 1944, the government exited the hemp production business and government-owned mills were sold off at low prices. Without the war machine to consume the hemp flooding the market from the government mills, a glut resulted and producers were left wondering what to do, Rens noted.
"In response, the government provided a one-year guaranteed fiber price if the fiber couldn't be sold to spinning companies at that rate or higher," Rens wrote.
In 1946, the government purchased more than a half million pounds of Wisconsin fiber in their price support program. However, the government would also purchase the state's hemp crop of 1947 - all 4.65 million pounds of it. The purchasing program was officially completed in 1948, according to USDA archives.
State growers planted another big hemp crop in 1949 after learning that the U.S. had plans to help Allied countries in their rebuilding efforts, which included a plan to send millions of pounds of fiber overseas. When that plan fell through, farmers were left with a robust hemp crop and no prospective buyers.
With foreign competitors being able to import hemp at a lower cost, American hemp farmers found themselves facing few prospects for unloading their harvest of U.S. grown fiber. Also compounding the woes of hemp producers was the introduction of synthetic fibers like orlon and nylon and stricter federal drug laws that classified hemp as a controlled substance along with its plant cousin cannabis sativa, better known as marijuana.
"Hemp is in the same plant species as marijuana but it is bred and cultivated quite differently," said Irwin Goldman, chair of the Department of Horticulture in the College of Agriculture and Life Science at UW-Madison. "Cannabis bred for narcotic use is high in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant's main intoxicant, while in hemp THC content is far lower, not nearly enough to produce a high."
In 1970, federal drug law classified plants with any THC as an illegal substance — a classification that a group of U.S. lawmakers are trying to overturn.
Rens noted the last crop of hemp was processed at his grandfather's plant in 1958 and was then sold as bird seed.
The only remnants of a once booming industry that helped win two world wars is the building that housed Matt Rens' original hemp mill along Highway 49 and a nearby byway dubbed Hemp Road.
"(Matt) was a simple Wisconsin dairy farmer with a tenth grade education. Yet he took the concept of a (decorticating) machine and built it into a major industry within a year," Dennis Rens wrote. "He was a generous, creative, inventive and persistent entrepreneur...all traits that made him a highly successful and respected businessman and led to his becoming America's Hemp King."
Not so long ago...
· All schoolbooks were made from hemp or flax paper until the 1880s.
· It was legal to pay taxes with hemp in America from 1631 until the early 1800s.
· George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers grew hemp.
· For thousands of years, 90 percent of all ships' sails and rope were made from hemp. The word 'canvas' comes from the Middle English word "canevas" which comes from the Latin word cannabis.
· 80 percent of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc., were made from hemp until the 1820s, with the introduction of the cotton gin.
· The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross's flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp.
· Hemp was the largest cash crop until the 20th century.
· In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees.
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