Oleomargarine
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Oleomargarine. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
o-le-o-mar'ga-rin, a substitute for butter. It is made chiefly from animal fats. One formula for high grade oleomargarine is as follows: Lbs. Purified beef fat 100 Purified lard 130 Butter 95 Salt 32 Coloring material 1/2 Total. . . . . 357 1/2 A cheaper grade is obtained by substituting cotton-seed oil and milk for butter. The oil made from mutton tallow cannot be used, as it is almost impossible to deprive it of odor. The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine are controlled by United States statue. A manufacturer must pay a special tax of $600. All packages must be marked plainly with the name, oleomargarine. All marks or printing that might lead a customer or consumer to mistake the same for butter are forbidden. Internal revenue stamps must be affixed to packages to the amount of ten cents per pound for oleomargarine colored to represent butter and one-fourth of a cent per pound for the uncolored article. Wholesale dealers offering the colored article are required to pay a tax of $480 or $200 for the uncolored. Retail dealers pay a special tax of six dollars. These regulations are imposed in the interest of butter makers, and also for the protection of consumers who desire to know when they are buying genuine butter. See Butter ; Cotton ; Oil
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in chemistry the more oily part of beef fat, prepared extensively in this country by allowing the melted fat to cool slowly to 30°, when most of the stearin crystallizes out and is removed by pressure. Another brand of oleomargarine is prepared by adding nut oil to suet fat in such proportion as to reduce the melting point to that of butter fat. Both kinds are largely used in making up artificial butter and cheese. OLÉRON, an island lying from 2 to 10 miles off the W. coast of France, and forming part of the department of Charente-Inférieure. It is 19 miles long by about 5 broad, and is unusually fertile. On Oléron are the port of Le Château, and the small towns of St. Pierre d'Oléron and St. Georges d'Oléron.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 recipe is built on animal fat "purified beef fat, purified lard," and the punitive taxes it lists (ten cents a pound on margarine colored to look like butter) were the heart of a long political fight on behalf of dairy farmers. Congress repealed the federal color tax in 1950, and Wisconsin held out as the last state banning yellow margarine until 1967; by the late 1950s Americans were eating more margarine than butter. The product itself changed too: hydrogenated vegetable oils, chiefly soybean, replaced beef tallow and lard almost entirely, and margarine has been fortified with vitamin A since the 1940s. The hydrogenation that made it possible later proved its undoing in part, as the FDA moved to eliminate artificial trans fats from the food supply after 2015, forcing reformulation; and the word "oleomargarine" itself has shrunk to "margarine" outside of legal texts.
Written for this edition, 2026.