The All-American Turkey show, which met in Grand Forks, North Dakota, from 1924 to 1942, brought people from across the contiguous US to the northern plains to exhibit their prize turkeys. The show served multiple purposes, including encouraging farmers to diversify production and increase their incomes by raising turkeys. Mostly farmwives took up the call, managing the farm's turkey flock; two-thirds of the turkeys exhibited at the shows were raised and exhibited by women. They also attended the Education Sessions at the shows, where they learned how to care for their flocks and to select breeding stock in order to bring their turkeys as close as was humanly possible to the exacting standards adhered to by the show's judges. Another purpose of the shows was to encourage consumers to eat more turkey and to eat it throughout the year, not just during the holiday season. In part, to fulfill this purpose, the shows introduced competition in dressed turkeys and boxed and canned turkeys. Finally, the shows were intended to be truly "All-American" by providing an opportunity for "turkey folk" to gather for a week each year to compete for more awards than were offered at any other poultry show, renew acquaintances, make new friends, and enjoy each other's company. That the shows succeeded handsomely in this purpose was evidenced by exhibitors from eighteen turkey-producing states and five Canadian provinces. The All-American Turkey Show was done in by its success. By the eve of World War II, its purposes had been fulfilled, and the shows were being held for little reason other than that there seemed to be no graceful way to discontinue them. It was the war, with its shortages of labor, gasoline, and rubber, that brought the All-American Turkey Shows to a merciful end. Shows were suspended for the duration of the war on the assumption they would begin again at war's end. They did not, and the All-American Turkey Shows passed into history. Includes bibliogaphic references, appendices, index, multiple black and white images and 12 pages of color images.
