This is one of many types of butter churns that would have been used in the 1930s. Other types include a hand pumped churn, and a churn powered by a farm animal walking on a rotary wheel. This particular model uses a hand crank to turn a bucket filled with the milk product. There is a small window on the bucket, so that the person who is making the butter can tell when the consistency is correct, without having to stop churning. This was a very innovative invention in the 1930s!

Each farm had its own type of butter, with its own way of creating that butter. After the farm made the butter exactly the way it wanted, they would stamp the butter with an insignia of the farm. A market would have many different types of butter from many farms, and the only way to distinguish them would be from this marking. This is an early form of advertising, much like we have today. People would have choosen their butter based on what brand they liked. People in the 1930s had their favorite kinds of butter just as we do today!