Women’s Entrée into Advertising Through the Brand Test Kitchen

Abstract

As branded food products spread in the early 1900s, advertisers began speaking directly to women shoppers. Adopting a women-advertising-to-women approach, national brands and advertising agencies hired home economics professionals and charged them with creating test kitchens to develop and test recipes, write advertising copy, correspond with consumers, and test products. They became the face and voice of brands, providing women entrée into the male-dominated advertising profession. These professional women brought an understanding of the needs of the housewife, knowledge of the emerging fields of dietetics and home economics, and a scientific approach to solving “home problems.” Brand test kitchens became a symbol of trust, signifying that the product was reliable, pure, and economical. Today major food brands such as Kraft, Heinz, General Mills, and Kellogg’s still maintain test kitchens to meet consumer needs, educate consumers on proper product use, and produce new branded recipes.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Washburn Crosby Company, “The Newest Thing in Baking!” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, February 1928, 172.

2 Gold Medal Flour, “Now a Renowned Cooking Expert Tells a New Way to Perfect Baking Results,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, July 1927, 154.

3 The terms test kitchens, experimental kitchens, domestic science kitchens, food laboratories, and laboratory kitchens are generally used interchangeably throughout advertisements and even in academic literature, despite having somewhat different functions. For the sake of this paper, we will use two of these terms: 1) lab kitchen, which is defined as a kitchen solely dedicated to the chemical composition, purity, and processing of the product and 2) test kitchen, which is a kitchen that emphasizes the practical applications of the food products, such as cooking and teaching.

4 For other short discussions of home economists in advertising, see Juliann Sivulka, Ad Women: How They Impact What We Need, Want, and Buy (Amherst, NY: Promethesus Books, 2009): 146-147.

5 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985), 33.

6 Association of National Advertisers, “A Diversity Report for the Advertising/Marketing Industry,” November 7, 2022, 9-10. https://www.ana.net/miccontent/show/id/rr-2022-11-diversity-advertising-marketing-industry.

7 Marchand, Advertising the American Dream; James Norris, Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 1865-1902 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990); Edd Applegate, The Rise of Advertising in the United States: A History of Innovation to 1960 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012); Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture (New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1998).

8 Katherine Parkin, Food Is Love: Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).

9 Daniel Delis Hill, Advertising to the American Woman, 1900-1999 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002).

10 Pamela Walker Laird, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).

11 Mary Ellen Zuckerman and Mary L. Carsky, “Contribution of Women to U.S. Marketing Thought: The Consumers’ Perspective, 1900-1940,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 18, no. 4 (1990): 313-318.

12 Karen Miller Russell, “The Power of Women: Flanley & Woodward and the Woman’s Angle in U.S. Public Relations,” Public Relations Review 46 no. 4 (2020): 1-10; Susan Henry, “Anonymous in Her Own Name,” Journalism History 23 no. 2 (1997): 51-62; Margot Opdyke Lamme, “Outside the Prickly Nest: Revisiting Doris Fleishman,” American Journalism 24, no. 3 (2007): 85-107; Karen S. Miller, “Woman, Man, Lady, Horse: Jane Stewart, Public Relations Executive,” Public Relations Review 23 no. 3 (1997): 249-269; Diana Martinelli and Elizabeth Toth, “Lessons on the Big Idea and Public Relations: Reflections on the 50-Year Career of Charlotte Klein,” Journal of Public Relations 4, no. 1 (2010): 334-350.

13 Russell points out that Sally Woodward, the other half of the PR firm duo of Flanley and Woodward, did not have a home economics degree, but did work with General Mills before joining Flanley to create their agency. So, while Woodward herself was not a home economist, her early work in education for General Mills likely prepared her well for their later agency work with The Processed Apples Institute and the California Prune Advisory Board where they created recipes and recipe books, designed advertising and wrote copy, and created promotional messages based on how women could use apples and prunes—all common tactics used by HEIBs. Russell, “The Power of Women,” 4.

14 Ellen Wayland-Smith, The Angel in the Marketplace: Adwoman Jean Wade Rindlaub and the Selling of America (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020); Mary Wells Lawrence, A Big Life in Advertising (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002); Beatrice Adams, Let’s Not Mince Any Bones (n.p.: Western Publishing Company, Inc., 1972), 34-35, 38, 71, and 319; Emily Westkaemper, Selling Women’s History: Packaging Feminism in Twentieth Century American Pop Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017); Judy Foster Davis, Pioneering African-American Women in the Advertising Business: Biographies of Mad Black Women (London: Routledge, 2016).

15 Sivulka argues that the business home economists created a public professional role for themselves while at the same time building that career on telling women that their place was in the home taking care of family. Sivulka, Ad Women, 146-147.

16 A complete list of food brand companies that operated test kitchens could not be found. To identify companies that had test kitchens for this study, two issues per year of Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies’ Home Journal between 1900 and 1930 (or whatever dates within that range that each magazine was published) were read to note any promotion of test kitchens for national food brands. Those that had any mention of company test kitchens and are still actively producing food today were included in this study.

17 Lisa Parcell and Margot Lamme, “Not ‘Merely an Advertisement:’ Purity, Trust, and Flour, 1880-1930,” American Journalism 29, no. 4 (2012): 94-127; and Margot Lamme and Lisa Parcell, “Promoting Hershey: The Chocolate Bar, The Chocolate Town, The Chocolate King,” Journalism History 38, no. 4 (January 2013): 200.

18 E. Jacobs & S. Shipp, “How Family Spending Has Changed in the U.S.,” Monthly Lab. Rev. 113 (1990): 20.

19 M. Truninger, “The Historical Development of Industrial and Domestic Food Technologies (post print version),” The Handbook of Food Research (2013): 82-108.

20 Mary Yeager Kujovich, “The Refrigerator Car and the Growth of the American Dressed Beef Industry,” The Business History Review 44, no. 4 (1970): 460–82, https://doi.org/10.2307/3112669.

21 David I. Smith, “19th Century Development of Refrigeration in The American Meat Packing Industry,” Tenor of Our Times 8, no. 1 (2019): 14.

22 P. Hertzmann, “The Refrigerator Revolution,” Gastronomy Symposium, Dublin, Ireland, May 31, 2016; and Truninger, “The Historical Development of Industrial and Domestic Food Technologies,” 82-108.

23 Hertzmann, “The refrigerator revolution.”

24 Procter & Gamble, “In Defense of New York Home Cooking,” advertisement, New York Times, October 21, 1923.

25 Elaine N. McIntosh, American Food Habits in Historical Perspective (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1995), 89, 92, and 99.

26 During this time, canning was simply a preservation method to handle an overabundance of crops or to increase the availability of vegetables in fruits in the off seasons. As such, national and regional offerings were still significantly limited. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, “The ‘Industrial Revolution’ in the Home: Household Technology and Social Change in the 20th Century,” Technology and Culture 17, no. 1 (January 1976): 1-23.

27 “History,” Libby’s International, April 3, 2020, https://libbys-export.com/history/.

28 Jacobs and Shipp, “How Family Spending Has Changed in the U.S.,” 20.

29 “Says Consumer has Few Friends in Washington: Robert S. Lyud Tells Home Economics Meeting Big Business Comes First Hits Standards Bureau Describes Efforts to Get Quality Rules Formed,” New York Herald Tribune, Jun 29, 1934.

30 Cowan, “The ‘Industrial Revolution’ in the Home,” 14.

31 Thelma Reinke Lison began at Gardner as a proofreader who took home recipes she proofread during the day to try them in her home kitchen. She then returned to work with comments and suggestions for improvement. Impressed with her work, Gardner executives encouraged her to get a MA in home economics and then created a home economics department for Gardner. She later created a high-altitude test kitchen in Salt Lake City and another in Laramie, Wyoming, first to test recipes for PET that used baking powder. In 1963 Gardner executives dissolved its home economics department, recognizing that most national brands had its own home economics department and no longer needed it as an agency service. Adams, Let’s Not Mince Any Bones, 34-35, 38, 71, and 319.

32 Bee Wilson, Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Harvey Levenstein, Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2003), 32-41. See also: “Fraud by the Wholesale,” Emporia Gazette, May 4, 1899; “Pure Food. First National Convention in the Interests of Pure Food,” Phoenix Weekly Herald, March 3, 1898; “The Adulteration of Flour,” Morning Oregonian, October 19, 1899; “Adulterated Flour,” Milwaukee Sentinel, February 6, 1898; “What Killed Our Ancestors,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 11, 1884; “Adulteration of Food,” Cleveland Herald, March 19, 1884; “The Adulteration of Food Supplies,” Daily Picayune, January 26, 1895; and “What Killed Our Ancestors,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 11, 1884.

33 Jesse Park Battershall, Food Adulteration and Its Detection (London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1887): 6.

34 Battershall’s book serves as a collection of findings of various chemists. The percentages used in this statement are not of Battershall himself, but of other chemists: Dr. Henry A. Mott for baking powder, various American chemists for coffee, and the States of New York and Massachusetts along with the National Board of Health in Washington for cinnamon. Battershall, Food Adulteration and Its Detection, 41, 103, 253.

35 The existence of the Bureau of Home Economics highlights this concern. The Bureau spent much of its effort in translating research on food, textiles, and home problems into tangible information for the public and education institutions. Further, it held open correspondence with the public to gain information on the problems surrounding the home. Paul Vernon Betters, The Bureau of Home Economics: Its History, Activities and Organization (Washington, DC: The Brookings institution, 1930), 1, 30-31.

36 The science community itself argued at the time that, “The chemist can tell us of impurity and hazard, but not of purity and safety.” Jabez Hogg, “Antiseptic Action of Spongy Iron, ‘Letter,’” Journal of the Society of Arts 31 (November 17, 1882): 467.

37 In general, impure foods resulted from improper cleanliness in storage, processing, or mishandling at retail or in the home. It was believed this could be remedied by educating the consumer. As author Moody Pugh May explained in 1905, “A people was never made clean and healthy against its will.” Adulterated food was more purposeful, done to cut corners to increase profit, to make food taste and look better, to preserve food longer, and to make food easier to handle through the addition or substitution of ingredients or processes. It should be noted that adulterated food was not always harmful to the consumer, but the panic surrounding it was of a zealous nature, nonetheless. Moody Pugh May, “Survey of Civic Betterment: Domestic Science as a Factor in Our Modern Education,” The Chautauquan: A Weekly Newsmagazine (1880-1914), 42, no. 3 (November 1905): 272.

38 May, “Survey of Civic Betterment,” 272.

39 Bentwich argued that novels could lead the public into action. This, in turn, led to the creation of the first consumer protection regulatory body in the US, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Norman Bentwich, “The Nineteenth Century and After: A Monthly Review,” London 60, no. 357 (November 1906): 785-794; “The Pure Food and Drug Act,” The Pure Food and Drug Act | US Capitol - Visitor Center. https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/congress-and-progressive-era/pure-food-and-drug-act.

40 Though there are numerous examples from this time period, Harvey W. Wiley, M.D., lifelong proponent of pure foods, provides numerous examples in his “False ‘Ads’ and Lying Labels” article within Good Housekeeping. Harvey W. Wiley, “False ‘Ads’ and Lying Labels,” Good Housekeeping 57, no. 3, September 1913, 385-394.

41 “Food Advertising Scored: Claims of Some Misleading, Home Economics Group Hears,” New York Times, April 19, 1936.

42 Edward J. Balleisen, “American Better Business Bureaus, the Truth-in-Advertising Movement, and the Complexities of Legitimizing Business Self-Regulation Over the Long Term,” Politics and Governance 5, no. 1 (2017): 42-53; and “Ad Men Learn What Is Wrong in Advertising,” New York Tribune, December 2, 1915.

43 Herbert W. Hess, “History and Present Status of the ‘Truth-in-Advertising’ Movement: As Carried on by the Vigilance Committee of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 101, no. 1 (1922): 211-220; H. J. Donnelly, “The Truth-in-Advertising Movement as It Affects the Wealth-Producing Factors in the Community,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 115 (1924): 161–73, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1015804; Balleisen,” American Better Business Bureaus,” 42-53.

44 Mary Barber, “The Cooperation of Home Economics Teachers with Business Firms,” The Iowa Homemaker 5, no. 8 (1925): 8, https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/handle/20.500.12876/41947.

45 Don Ensminger Mowry, Community Advertising: How to Advertise the Community Where You Live (Madison, WI: Cantwell Press, 1924), 69.

46 Children: The Parents’ Magazine, for example, hired Anne Peirce, who was touted as one of the “leading authorities on nutrition and home economics,” to vet advertising truthfulness. Other magazines took similar approaches, with Better Home & Gardens’ guarantee of a refund or other compensation for anything misrepresented in advertising within the magazine being the most well-known. “A Statement Regarding Our ADVERTISING STANDARDS,” Children: The Parents’ Magazine, September 1928, 63. And, for example: E.F.C, “Home Economist Favors Teaching of Advertising,” Better Homes and Gardens, June 1936, 86.

47 Kenneth Dameron, “Advertising and the Consumer Movement,” Journal of Marketing 5, no. 3 (1941): 234-247.

48 L. Gayle Royer, and Nancy Ellen Nolf, “Education of the Consumer: A Review of Historical Developments,” (1980): 13-15; Inger L. Stole, “History of Consumer Movements,” The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies (2015): 1-5.

49 Louis Bader and J. P. Wernette. “Consumer Movements and Business,” Journal of Marketing 3, no. 1 (1938): 3-15.

50 Dameron, “Advertising and the Consumer Movement,” 234-247.

51 Susie McKellar, “‘Seals of Approval’ Consumer Representation in 1930s’ America,” Journal of Design History 15, no. 1 (2002): 1-13.

52 Christine Frederick, Household Engineering: Scientific Management in the Home (Chicago: American School of Home Economics, 1920); Cowan, “The ‘Industrial Revolution’ in the Home,” 60-71.

53 Between 1910 and 1920 the percentage of self-declared female domestic servants as a percentage of the overall US population decreased by one fourth from 2.74 percent of the population in 1910 to 2.06 percent of the population in 1920. David M. Katzman, Seven Days a Week: Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 281-282.

54 Levenstein, Revolution at the Table, 72-85; and “Estimating Food Costs,” Journal of Home Economics 12, no. 4 (April 1920): 178-179. https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/hearth4732504_1_001

55 John Kenneth Galbraith, Economics and the Public Purpose (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).

56 Frederick, Household Engineering, 380.

57 Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 1-16.

58 Meghan Elias, Food in the United States, 1890-1945 (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press, 2009), 110; Parkin, Food Is Love, 9; Christina Ward, American Advertising Cookbooks: How Corporations Taught Us to Love Spam, Bananas, and Jell-O (Washington: Process Media, 2019), 25; Nicholas Bauch, “The Extensible Digestive System: Biotechnology at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, 1890-1900,” Cultural Geographies 18, no. 2 (2011): 209-229; H. Violle and Theodore C. Merrill, “Recent Applications of the Principles of Nutrition,” American Journal of Public Health 12, no. 7 (1922): 568-574; Richard D. Semba, “The Discovery of the Vitamins,” International Journal of Vitamin Nutrition Research 82, no. 5 (2012): 310-5.

59 D. Breese Jones, “The Chemistry of Proteins and Its Relation to Nutrition,” American Journal of Public Health 15, no. 11 (1925): 953-957.

60 “Constitution of American Home Economics Association,” Journal of Home Economics 1, no. 1 (February 1909): 40, https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/hearth4732504_1_001

61 Isabel Bevier, Home Economics in Education (New York: JB Lippincott Company, 1924): 120.

62 “The Elimination of Waste in the Household,” Journal of Home Economics 2, no. 3 (June 1910): 292-6, https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/hearth4732504_2_003.

63 Bertha Terrill, “A Study of Household Expenditures,” Journal of Home Economics 1, no. 5 (December 1909): 399-408, https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/hearth4732504_1_005; Frederick, Household Engineering.

64 Hazel K. Stiebeling, Marius Farioletti, F. V. Waugh, and J. P. Cavin, “Better Nutrition as a National Goal,” Food and Life, Yearbook of Agriculture (1939): 380-402.

65 Home economists also emphasized making the kitchen efficient, as it was estimated in 1920 that 70 percent of the housemaker’s time was spent in the kitchen. As such, home economists explained how to work more efficiently in the kitchen. They advocated for small, more compact, oblong kitchens that could save steps and reduce wasted movements. The ideal kitchen would allow ‘route’ work, allowing women to work in straight lines while separating food processing from cleaning. Maria Parloa, Home Economics: A Practical Guide in Every Branch of Housekeeping (New York: Century Company, 1906); Frederick, Household Engineering.

66 Emma Elizabeth Pirie and Fred Duane Crawshaw, The Science of Home Making: A Textbook in Home Economics (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, and Company, 1915).

67 Pirie and Crawshaw, The Science of Home Making.

68 Though this paper mostly refers to food laboratories and test kitchens as separate entities, this was not always the case. For example, in the 1890s the Rumford Food Laboratory and its accompanying Rumford Kitchen, both run by pioneering sanitary chemist Ellen H. Richards, applied her chemistry background and nutritional knowledge to drastically alter the diets of the working class American through an “education by every means” approach. Harvey Levenstein, “The New England Kitchen and the Origins of Modern American Eating Habits,” American Quarterly 32, no. 4 (1980): 369–86, https://doi.org/10.2307/2712458.

69 E.H. Richards, Plain Words about Food (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill Press, 1899), 48-49.

70 Clarence Ray Aurner, History of Education in Iowa, Vol. 4. (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1916), 236.

71 Megan Landolt, “Welch, Adonijah Strong,” Iowa State University Biographical Dictionary, July 30, 2021, https://isubios.pubpub.org/pub/z1shkaxg/release/1.

72 Aurner, History of Education in Iowa, 237.

73 “The School Lunch – A Symposium,” Journal of Home Economics 29, no. 9 (November 1937): 613-24, https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/hearth4732504_29_009.

74 “Constitution of American Home Economics Association,” Journal of Home Economics 1, no. 1 (February 1909): 40, https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/hearth4732504_1_001; “Announcement,” Journal of Home Economics 1, no. 1 (February 1909): 1-6, https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/hearth4732504_1_001.

75 Majorie M. Heseltine, “Home Economics Women in Business,” The Home Economist 6, no. 3 (March 1928): 66, 80, https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/hearth4732594_108_003.

76 Despite being recognized as an official section, tensions still rose between the HEIBs and the more traditional home economists. To quell this, in 1934, the AHEA decided to make all sections of the association more independent of each other in handling finances such as dues and publications. E. H. Katz, “History of the AAFCS Business Section,” Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences 92, no. 1 (2000): 117.

77 Part of this culminated with the truth-in-advertising movement, but was compounded with many women’s groups becoming vocal about limited product information or information which was not substantiated. One such example can be viewed in a symposium where buyers voiced their concerns over product labels. Kathleen McLaughlin, “Consumers’ Plea for Value Voiced by Women Leaders: Producers at National Session Hear Demands for Exact Data on Labels and Over Counter,” New York Times, June 6, 1939.

78 Emma Bugbee, “Mrs. Knox Says Running Factory Makes Her a Better Housekeeper: Took Over Late Husband’s Gelatine Business at 50; Runs it ‘Woman’s Way,’” New York Herald Tribune, October 11, 1937.

79 Jell-O, “I’m Not Much of a Cook, Hubby,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, December 1912, 14.

80 Emeline S. Whitcomb, “Trends in Home-Economics Education, 1926-1928, Bulletin 1929, No. 25,” Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior.

81 George H. Wyse, “The College Student and His Vocation, Natural Endowment, Training, Remuneration,” (master’s thesis, University of Arizona, 1925): 5.

82 Hazel Young, “The Field of Food Research: Recipes Developed and Testing Done Women in Food Work Series—9,” Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA), August 8, 1934, 8.

83 Hazel Young, “Testing Kitchen: This Form of Food Advertising Has Opened New Field Women in Food Work Series Background of Experience Lectures to Visitors Through Knowledge,” Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA), September 12, 1934, 8.

84 Not all companies had a harmonious relationship between labs and test kitchens. Gold Medal, be it a marketing ploy or not, distanced itself from lab testing in its advertising. Several advertisements stated that a chemist might be able to prove that two batches of flour are exactly alike chemically, but that does not mean they will bake the same. Instead, Gold Medal promoted the work of its test kitchens, which insured home baking success by testing each batch of flour by baking multiple loaves of bread. Washburn Crosby Company, “Now I am Always Sure That My Baking Will Turn Out Right,” Good Housekeeping, October 1927, 116.

85 Carolyn Goldstein, “Part of the Package,” in Sarah Stage & Virginia B. Vincenti, eds., Rethinking Home Economics: Women and the History of a Profession (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997): 292.

86 Young, “Testing kitchen,” 8.

87 Betty Crocker, “What to Do About the Man Who’s Grouchy at the Table,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, November 1934, 89.

88 Carnation Milk Products Company, “The Very Nicest Christmas Gift,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, December 1926, 185; H.J. Heinz Company, “New, Delicious Cereal… with a ‘Vegetable Effect,’” advertisement, Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan, July 1930, 132; and H.J. Heinz Company, “America Tasted Them and Clamored for More,” advertisement, Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA), January 24, 1934, 5.

89 Royal Baking Powder, “The Royal Baking Service from The Royal Educational Department,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, January 1921, 109.

90 Armour & Company, “The Responsibility of Your Table,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, October 1918, 110.

91 It is likely many manufacturers offered similar educational material, but it was rarely advertised within traditional print ads, and business archives of this material is rare.

92 Kellogg’s, “No! You Never Have to Coax Them to Eat,” advertisement, Children: The Parents’ Magazine, May 1929, 49; and Nestle’s Foods, “The Dangerous Business of Being a Baby,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, March 1914, 54.

93 Swift & Company, “Shopping for Meat,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, July 1926, 151.

94 Armour, “Meatless Dishes with the Meat Flavor for Lenten Season Days,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal 25, no. 5, April 1908, 51.

95 Gold Medal Flour, “Suppose You Were a Miller, Madam,” advertisement, New York Tribune, November 9, 1911. This 1911 ad is unique because it is not only well before test kitchens were regularly mentioned in ads, but confusingly the company website claims that Gold Medal “began a new way of testing flour – in a kitchen” in 1925, which is fourteen years later. “Our Story - History of Flour - Gold Medal Flour,” Gold Medal Flour, https://www.goldmedalflour.com/our-story/.

96 Gold Medal, “Cooking Experts Agree That This ‘Kitchen-tested’ Flour Doubles Your Chances of Perfect Baking Results,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, December 1927, 151.

97 Calumet Baking Powder, “Ask Them…The Millions of Cake Makers Who Praise Calumet’s Double-Action,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, October 1929, 64.

98 Amour Star Bacon, “Today We Cooked a Dish with Star Bacon Your Folks Would Love,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, September 1928, 133.

99 Gold Medal Flour, “Cooking Experts Agree.” As another example, a 1927 Gold Medal ad featured a large Devil’s Food cake along with a smaller image of the test kitchen and ran with the headline, “Now I Am Always Sure That My Baking Will Turn Out Right.” Washburn Crosby Company, “Now I Am Always Sure That My Baking Will Turn Out Right.”

100 Washburn Crosby Company, “Now I Am Always Sure That My Baking Will Turn Out Right.” Many Gold Medal ads also directly addressed the reasons for baking failures, explaining that unreliable flour is often to blame. Washburn Crosby Company, “Why Do You Have Those Mysterious Baking Failures?” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, November 1927, 210.

101 Gold Medal Flour bags still carry the text “Tested and approved in the Betty Crocker Kitchens.”

102 Hormel, “When Science Entered the Kitchen,” advertisement, Harper’s Bazaar, August 1929, 122.

103 Hormel, “Well, Girls – What Will You Have for Luncheon?” advertisement, Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan, May 1931, 189.

104 Carolyn Goldstein, “Part of the Package,” 292; and Procter & Gamble, “Story of “Crisco,” Printers’ Ink, October 5, 1916, 73-74.

105 Carolyn Goldstein, “Part of the Package,” 292.

106 Procter & Gamble, “Miss Olive Allen’s Choicest Recipes,” advertisement, New York Times, May 4, 1924.

107 Washburn Crosby Company, “Now I Am Always Sure That My Baking Will Turn Out Right.”

108 Carnation Milk Product Company, “The Very Nicest Christmas Gift.”

109 Alice Adams Procter, “This Month We Offer Virginia’s Most Famous Cake,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, September 1926, 246; Alice Adams Procter, “Here’s a Luscious Cool Dessert All Made For You,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, August 1929, 102; Alice Adam Procter, “The Hint That Sent Marian to the Grocer for Her Cake,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, April 1930, 218.

110 Ida Cogswell Bailey-Allen, “Tested and Approved Recipes: Tested for Good Housekeeping by Ida Cogswell Bailey-Allen,” Good Housekeeping, August 1915, 254-255, 258-259; Ida Cogswell Bailey-Allen, “Three Meals a Day: Bread and How to Make It,” Good Housekeeping, March 1916, 382-383, 385, 388-389; Ida Cogswell Bailey-Allen, “To my Friends, the Home Makers of America,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1924, 85; Beech-Nut Packing Company, “A Full Meal and a Quick One,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, June 1924, 83; Beech-Nut Packing Company, “Real Food!” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1923, 79.

111 Elsie Stark, “Why I Entered the Commercial World,” Home Economist, October 1928, 288-9.

112 Another common question Crisco asked readers was if an advertisement led to purchasing the product with the purpose of acquiring the product label to mail in for a recipe booklet, or if they purchased the product first and then saw the label offer. For example, see: Procter & Gamble, “Miss Olive Allen’s Choicest Recipes”; Procter & Gamble, “In Defense of New York Home Cooking.”

113 Armour & Company, “All Three Free,” Ladies Home Journal 29, no. 5, May 1912, 60; Armour & Company, “Better Keep Two Pails of ‘Simon Pure,’” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, December 1912, 9.

114 Procter & Gamble, “$10.00 bills – for Letters About Crisco’s Taste!” advertisement, New York Herald Tribune, August 7, 1927. Interestingly, this campaign is one of the earlier advertisements among food products that invited consumers to call, instead of just write, for a free sample of Crisco.

115 Procter & Gamble, “You Taste Milk. You Test Eggs. Now, Taste Crisco – Then Any Other Shortening. Then You’ll Understand Why Crisco’s Own Sweet, Fresh Flavor So Improves the Flavor of Your,” advertisement, New York Times, October 21, 1928.

116 Pabst-ett Corp., “Pabst-ett Contest,” advertisement, New York Herald Tribune, March 11, 1934; Pabst-ett Corp, “I Must Hurry! The Past-ett Contest Closes April 7^th!” advertisement, New York Herald Tribune, March 25, 1934; Planters, “A Sure Prize for Every Contestant Plus Participation in 1000 Dollars Cash Prizes,” New York Herald Tribune, May 28, 1933; Drake Bakeries Inc., “Have You Heard About the Drake Party Cake Contest?” advertisement, New York Herald Tribune, October 11, 1927; Drake Bakeries, Inc., “$500.00 for a Letter – And 794 Other Prizes,” advertisement, New York Herald Tribune, October 14, 1927; Kellogg’s, “$9,500 in Cash Prizes,” advertisement, New York Herald Tribune, November 3, 1935.

117 Young, “Testing Kitchen,” 8; “Josephine Gibson Eckert,” Orlando (FL) Sentinel, July 27, 2021, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1990-04-30-9004305630-story.html.

118 Armour & Company, “Genuine Food Value for Children Armour’s Grape Juice,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, March 1916, 95; Armour & Company, “Judge by the ‘Simon Pure’ Standard, Madam,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, May 1916, 89.

119 Armour & Company, “Inspect ‘Simon Pure’ Through the Glass Cover,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, September 1916, 7.

120 Beech-Nut Packing Company, “In the Good Old Summer Time,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, August 1923, 80.

121 Young, “Testing Kitchen,” 8.

122 Heinz Foods, “Savory Flavors,” advertisement, New York Times, November 10, 1933; Heinz Foods, “Tune In,” advertisement, New York Times, November 24, 1933; “Birdseye Frosted Foods, “‘OK’ Says Good Housekeeping: Answering Your Questions About Birdseye Frosted Foods,” advertisement, Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA), October 21, 1932, 5.

123 Young, “Testing Kitchen,” 8.

124 Kraft-Phenix Cheese Corporation, “Tune In The Kraft Radio Program: Bing Crosby and Famous Guest Stars Every Thursday Night,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, June 1936, 75; and Wonder Bread – Hostess Cake, “Pretty Kitty Kelly Smash Radio Hit!” advertisement, New York Herald Tribune, April 27, 1937.

125 Many magazines started to publish articles relating to the identity of women at the time, the so-called “trapped housewife.” For example, Alice Eleanor Jones’s “The Real Me” in Redbook questions whether women were really emancipated while it illustrated the psuedo-contentment of the housewife. A.E. Jones, “The Real Me: A Story for Every Woman Who Has Paused in the Midst of Chaos and Asked Herself: ‘Who Am I?’” Redbook, October 1962, 62-63, 137-140.

126 Stage and Vincenti, Rethinking Home Economics, 326.

127 As with many advertisements used within this paper, Armour continued to use Marie Giffords as its figurehead throughout the 1950s, only for her to vanish without a replacement in the 1960s. An example of the tonal shift of ads: Armour Star, “What Smoke Does for Meat,” advertisement, Better Homes and Gardens, October 1963, 8-9; Armour Star, “How Lean Should Bacon Be?” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, November 1961, 12-13.

128 For example, Procter & Gamble, “The New Crisco Made to Help Take the ‘Fat-Worry’ Out of Good Eating,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, November 1961, 75; Procter & Gamble, “White Glove Test Shows Frying Right in New Crisco Gives Digestible Fried Foods with No Greasy Taste!” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, January 1963, 3; Procter & Gamble, “This Prize-Winning Cook Says: ‘Fish Fried in Crisco Doesn’t Taste Greasy!’ (Naturally, It’s Digestible),” advertisement, Better Homes and Gardens, December 1964, 88; Procter & Gamble, “Here’s How the Best Cook in Danbury, Conn. Makes Fried Chicken with No Greasy Taste,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, May 1963, 181.

129 Knox Gelatine, “Lose Weight – Still Eat Real Food,” advertisement, Woman’s Day, March 1961, 23; Knox Gelatine, “Lovely Plaint Fingernails,” advertisement, Harper’s Bazaar, March 1958, 76; Knox Gelatine, “Weight Watchers! Here’s Will Power by the Packet,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, February 1963, 182.

130 Heinz Vinegars, “Help Yourself to a Prettier Figure,” advertisement, Better Homes and Gardens, June 1963, 16; Heinz Vinegars, “Help Yourself To a Prettier Figure,” advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, June 1964, 36; Mazola Corn Oil, “To Make Your Slim-Down Salads Sing with Flavor, Start with Heinz Vinegars and Mazola Corn Oil,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, June 1961, 14-15.

131 Gold Medal, “Free! ‘Holidays on Parade’ Bake Book Inside Gold Medal Holiday Sacks,” advertisement, Good Housekeeping, December 1965, 32-33; Gold Medal, “Make It a White Thumb Christmas!” advertisement, Good Housekeeping 167, no. 6, December 1968, 146-149; Gold Medal, “Gold Medal Gives You a Feeling of Confidence … Your White Thumb,” advertisement, Redbook, October 1962, 99.

132 Brooks Hepp, “Kellogg Co. Unveils New $2.2 Million Center for Innovation” Battle Creek Enquirer, September 4, 2019, https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/news/local/2019/09/04/kellogg-co-unveils-new-2-2-million-center-innovation/2210963001/; Kellogg’s, “Menuvation Center,” accessed February 5, 2023, https://www.kelloggsawayfromhome.com/en_US/CulinaryInnovation/MenuvationCenter.html.

133 “The Betty Crocker Kitchens,” Betty Crocker Kitchens, January 10, 2017, https://www.bettycrocker.com/betty-crocker-kitchens.

134 Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, “Kraft Heinz Keeps Five Test Kitchens Busy Trying to Stay Relevant,” Seattle Times, March 7, 2019, https://www.seattletimes.com/business/kraft-heinz-keeps-five-test-kitchens-busy-trying-to-stay-relevant/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Mullikin Parcell

Lisa M. Parcell is the Betty and Oliver Elliott Distinguished Professor of Communication and Graduate Coordinator for the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University. She studies advertising and public relations history, particularly the promotion of American food products between 1880–1960.

Paul Myers

Paul Myers is a research manager in the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University. His main research area is the intersection of advertising and its interaction with cultures, particularly early 1900s food advertising and its capitalization or facilitation of societal trends.