When margarine was first introduced to the U.S. market in 1873 as a cheaper substitute for butter, dairy producers, fearful of intense competition and a price decline for butter, lobbied against the manufacturing and marketing of margarine. One favored way of limiting margarine was to restrict the color of margarine, so it would not look like butter.
By 1898, 26 states had regulated margarine under so-called “anti-color” laws, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of yellow-colored margarine (uncolored products were allowed). Other states went further: Vermont (1884), New Hampshire (1891), and South Dakota (1891) passed laws that required margarine to be colored pink.
Margarine color wasn’t just a matter for the states to decide. The federal government enacted the first national margarine legislation in 1886. The Oleomargarine Act permitted the addition of color to margarine but restricted margarine production and sale by levying a tax of two cents per pound on margarine whether it was colored or uncolored. The act proved ineffective, however, because inspection took time and money. And that was more than state inspectors could manage, according to the Sixteenth Annual Report of the Michigan Dairymen’s Association, published in 1900.
So, to make margarine restriction more stringent and effective, in 1902 Congress passed an amendment to the 1886 act, levying a higher tax on colored margarine. It enforced a 10-cent tax on “artificially colored” margarine while reducing the tax on uncolored products from two cents to one-fourth of a cent.
Margarine production decreased immediately, and significantly, afterward. Consumers wanted their margarine in yellow, particularly when serving it as a spread. After all, margarine was a substitute for butter, which many consumers expected to be the same yellow color all year round, even though the color of butter, in fact, was fluctuating seasonally (butter actually assumes a rich yellow color in early and mid-summer and pale yellow in autumn and winter due partly to cow’s feed).
Nevertheless, by 1910, margarine production had managed to rise to more than 140 million pounds annually—that’s 25 million pounds more than the amount produced in 1902. Margarine manufacturers managed this feat in part by an innovative workaround. They sold uncolored margarine with a capsule filled with yellow color solution so that consumers could just mix the dye with margarine at home themselves.
Soon, coloring margarine became a household chore and a regular part of American life. But the increasing consumption of margarine during and after World War II shifted the political climate over the bread spread, leading to the relaxation of the laws around coloring. Finally, in 1950, Congress repealed the 1902 margarine act. It took even longer still for Wisconsin—one of the strongest dairy states—to repeal its anti-margarine regulation in 1967.