Gordon L. Iseminger

The All-American Turkey Show: When Grand Forks, North Dakota, Was the Turkey Capital of the World, 1924-1942

The All-American Turkey show, which met in Grand Forks, North Dakota, from 1924 to 1942, brought people from all over the contiguous United States 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. The All-American Turkey Show was done in by its success. By the eve of World War II, the show’s 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 that they would begin again at war’s end. They were not, and the All-American Turkey Shows passed into history.