2/8/2022 | Jennifer Grove, Registrar

William Mehring wrote, “The human hand can perform almost an infinite variety of work, but it is ill adapted to draw milk from a cow.” His milking machines sought to “obtain the milk in a natural way, that is, by regulated suction, as is demonstrated by the cow’s offspring.”

Patented in 1892, the Mehring milking machine shown here dates to about 1900. Owen Dorney of Bridgeport, Illinois, used it until 1965. The University of Illinois Department of Dairy Science acquired the milking machine in 1972, and it came to the museum in 1990.

Mehring’s machine could milk two cows at once. A cow stood on each side of the machine with the seat toward their heads and the pump adjacent to their udders. While seated, an operator pushed the pedal bar back and forth to create suction. Note the intricate arrangement of arms and knuckles connecting the pedal bar to the pump! Four rubber cups attached to a single metal collector, and a long rubber tube connected the collector to an intake valve on the bottom of the pump. This assembly is not shown. With suction established, the operator attached one cup to each of the cows’ teats. Milk flowed into the pump and emptied into a bucket hung on the spigot.

The Mehring machine is similar to modern milking machines. Powered by suction, the process is easier and healthier for cows. The collected milk is cleaner because the system is enclosed and the milk bucket does not sit on the barn floor. One shudders to think what could get into a bucket on the floor! Perhaps most importantly, the milker saved time and labor.

Mehring also pointed out his machine was “good to throw water to sprinkle a garden, to outen a fire and to clean water pipes.” Who knew?

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