Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 to give a personalized response to consumer product questions. In 1954, General Mills introduced the red spoon logo with her signature, placing it on Gold Medal flour, Bisquick, and cake-mix packages.[1] A portrait of Betty Crocker appears on printed advertisements, product packaging, and cookbooks.
The character was developed in 1921 following a unique Gold Medal Flour promotion featured in the Saturday Evening Post. The ad asked consumers to complete a jigsaw puzzle and mail it to the then Washburn-Crosby Company, later General Mills, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In return, they would receive a pincushion shaped like a bag of flour. Along with 30,000 completed puzzles came several hundred letters with cooking-related questions.
Realizing that especially housewives would want advice from a fellow woman, the company’s Advertising Department convinced its board of directors to create a personality that the women answering the letters could all use in their replies. The name Betty was selected because it was viewed as a cheery, all-American name. It was paired with the last name Crocker, in honor of William Crocker, a Washburn Crosby Company director.[2]
The portrait of Betty Crocker was first commissioned in 1936. It has been updated seven times since her creation, reflecting changes in fashion and hairstyles.[3]
Described as an American cultural icon, the image of Betty Crocker has endured several generations, adapting to changing social, political, and economic currents.[4][5] Apart from advertising campaigns in printed, broadcast and digital media, she received several cultural references in film, literature, music and comics.
Creation
Image of Betty Crocker on the back of a box of pineapple cake mix, New Zealand, 1940-70s
Betty Crocker was created in 1921 by Washburn-Crosby and advertising executive Bruce Barton.[6] Crocker was based on a sous-chef from Franklin College — where Barton attended school — who made the delicious, if somewhat dry, baked goods for the cafeteria. Under Marjorie Husted's supervision, the image of Betty Crocker became the "Zeus" of General Mills. In 1928, Washburn Crosby merged with other milling companies to form General Mills.[4]
In 1924, Crocker acquired a voice with the debut of "The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air" on one station in Minneapolis. It was the country's first radio cooking program. Blanche Ingersoll followed by Husted was selected to portray Betty Crocker. The show proved popular and eventually was carried nationally on NBC Radio, with Agnes White Tizard as Betty. Over the next three decades, the women would anonymously portray Betty Crocker on the air and at cooking schools.[7]
In 1929, Betty Crocker coupons were introduced. Inserted in bags of flour, they could be used to reduce the cost of Oneida Limitedflatware.[8] By 1932, this scheme had become so popular that General Mills began to offer an entire set of flatware;[8] the pattern was called "Friendship" (later renamed "Medality").[9] In 1937, the coupons were printed on the outside of packages, copy on which told purchasers to "save and redeem for huge savings on fine kitchen and home accessories in our catalog".
The character made its packaging debut in 1937, appearing on Softasilk cake flour. The name appeared in various Gold Medal products but its first brand name appearance came in 1941 on soup mixes.[9]
Cookbooks
From 1930, General Mills issued softbound recipe books, including, in 1933, Betty Crocker's 101 Delicious Bisquick Creations, as Made and Served by Well-Known Gracious Hostesses, Famous Chefs, Distinguished Epicures and Smart Luminaries of Movieland.[10]
The Betty Crocker Cook Book of All-Purpose Baking was published as an aid to wartime considerations in cooking.[11]
In 1950, the first hardcover recipe cookbook was published, entitled Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook.[9] It was written by nutritionist Agnes White Tizard.[12]
In 2005, the 10th edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook was published,[13] as well as a Spanish/English bilingual book that collects some of the more common recipes for Spanish-speaking readers looking to cook American-style food.[14] An 11th edition, in ring-binder format, appeared in 2011. At least 17 other Betty Crocker recipe collections were also in print in 2015.
Media
Betty Crocker programs first appeared on radio on local stations in 1924. The first network Betty Crocker broadcast was on NBC in 1926. The show remained on network radio until 1953; most of the time the program was on NBC or CBS, but it was on ABC from 1947 to 1953.[15]
Betty Crocker was portrayed by several actresses, including Marjorie Husted on radio for twenty years, and Adelaide Hawley Cumming on television between 1949 and 1964.
A portrait of Betty Crocker was first commissioned in 1936,[18] a "motherly image" that "blended the features of several Home Service Department members" that was painted by Neysa McMein.[19] It subtly changed over the years, but always accommodated General Mills' cultural perception of the American homemaker— knowledgeable and caring.[18] The 1996 portrait of Betty Crocker, according to General Mills, was partially inspired by a "computerized composite" of "75 women of diverse backgrounds and ages."[20] These portraits were always painted, with no real person ever having posed as a model.[citation needed]
In 1945, Fortune magazine named Betty Crocker the second most popular woman in America; Eleanor Roosevelt was named first.[21] In the same year, Fortune "outed" Betty Crocker as a fictitious creation, calling her a "fake" and a "fraud."[specify][16]
There are several Betty Crocker–branded products, including plastic food containers and measuring cups, and a line of small appliances such as popcorn poppers and sandwich makers.[citation needed]
In 2006, the Betty Crocker catalog operation went out of business with all of its inventory on sale.[23] Points were redeemable until December 15, 2006. Afterward, unused points were available to be converted into discounts for a small period thereafter on a short-lived website.[24]
Crocker, Betty. Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book. New York: McGraw-Hill and General Mills, 1950 (first edition of the "Big Red" cookbook).
Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN0-19-507678-8.
Gray, James. Business Without Boundary: The Story of General Mills. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954 (scholarly history of General Mills, including the invention of Crocker).
Marks, Susan (2007). Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food University of Minnesota Press. ISBN978-0-8166-5018-7. (Popular book.)
Shapiro, Laura. "Is She Real?" In Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America, 169–209. New York: Viking, 2004. (Chapter on Betty Crocker in a popular book with footnotes.)
Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate and which share features with desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.
General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company originally gained fame for being a large flour miller. It is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis.
The Pillsbury Company is a US-based company that was one of the world's largest cake manufacturers and producers of grain and other foodstuffs until it was bought by General Mills in 2001. Antitrust law required General Mills to sell off some of the products, so the company kept the rights to refrigerated and frozen Pillsbury branded products, while dry baking products and frosting were sold to the Orrville, Ohio–based Smucker company under license. Brynwood Partners agreed to purchase Pillsbury's dry baking and frosting assets from Smuckers for $375 million in July 2018. In September 2018, the sale was completed along with other brands including Martha White and Hungry Jack.
Red velvet cake is traditionally a red, crimson, or scarlet-colored layer cake, layered with ermine icing. Traditional recipes do not use food coloring, with the red color possibly due to non-Dutched, anthocyanin-rich cocoa, and possibly due to the usage of brown sugar, formerly called red sugar.
Depression cake is a type of cake that was commonly made during the Great Depression. The ingredients include little or no milk, sugar, butter, or eggs, because the ingredients were then either expensive or hard to obtain. Similar cakes are known as "War Cake", as they avoided ingredients that were scarce or were being conserved for the use of soldiers. A common depression cake is also known as "Boiled Raisin Cake", "Milkless, Eggless, Butterless Cake", or "Poor Man's Cake". "Boiled" refers to the boiling of raisins with the sugar and spices to make a syrup base early in the recipe. However, some bakers do include butter. Boiled raisin-type cakes date back at least to the American Civil War.
Bisquick is a pre-mixed baking mix sold by General Mills under its Betty Crocker brand, consisting of flour, shortening, salt, sugar and baking powder.
Marjorie Husted was an American home economist and businesswoman who worked for General Mills and was responsible for the success and fame of the brand character Betty Crocker. Husted wrote Betty Crocker's radio scripts and was her radio voice for a time.
Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company was an American flour milling company that operated about one-quarter of the mills in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when the city was the flour milling capital of the world. Formed as a business entity, Northwestern produced flour for the half-century between 1891 and 1953, when its AMill was converted to storage and light manufacturing. At its founding, Northwestern was the city's and the world's second-largest flour milling company after Pillsbury, with what is today General Mills a close third. The company became one of three constituents of a Minneapolis oligopoly that owned almost nine percent of the country's flour and grist production and products by 1905. This occurred as a result of their attempt at a United States monopoly.
Bakery mix is an add water only pre-mixed baking product consisting of flour, dry milk, shortening, salt, and baking powder. A bakery mix can be used to make a wide variety of baked goods from pizza dough to dumplings to pretzels. The typical flavor profile of bakery mix differs from that of pancake mix. Bakery mixes do not require refrigeration.
Adelaide Hawley Cumming was an American broadcaster whose career spanned three decades. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, she was educated in New York, where she studied music at the University of Rochester, intending to work in opera. She became a music teacher instead, teaching in Alabama, and later a singer on the vaudeville circuit. In 1935, she began her long career in radio and later television, becoming widely known for shows like "The Woman Reporter", "Woman's Page of the Air", and "News of the Day" on NBC and CBS. From 1950 to 1964, she appeared in her final role as "Betty Crocker" for General Mills, making her one of the most recognizable women in America at the time. After her career in broadcasting and entertainment, she went back to school and earned her PhD in speech education in 1967 at 62 years old, teaching English as a second language until her death at the age of 93.
The Betty Crocker Cookbook is a cookbook written by staff at General Mills, the holders of the Betty Crocker trademark. The persona of Betty Crocker was invented by the Washburn-Crosby Company as a feminine "face" for the company's public relations. Early editions of the cookbook were ostensibly written by the character herself.
Sponge cake is a light cake made with eggs, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.
Mill City Museum is located in the ruins of the Washburn "A" Mill next to Mill Ruins Park on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The museum, an entity of the Minnesota Historical Society that opened in 2003, focuses on the founding and growth of Minneapolis, especially flour milling and the other industries that used hydropower from Saint Anthony Falls. The mill complex that the museum is within, dates from the 1870s and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is also part of the St. Anthony Falls Historic District and within the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area.
Margo Oliver was a Canadian cookery expert. She was the food editor of Weekend Magazine and wrote a number of cookbooks as well as articles on the subject of cooking.
The Betty Crocker Kitchens is a division and part of the test kitchens at the world headquarters of General Mills in Golden Valley, Minnesota, operator of the Betty Crocker brand. They are modeled after and equipped like a kitchen that would be found in an American home, since the company's products and recipes tested are intended for home use. Marjorie Husted, an economist hired by the Washburn-Crosby company, was not only a key player in developing the persona of Betty Crocker but also recognized the subtle difference in how home cooks measured and approached recipes compared to how these recipes were made in the test kitchens. Based on her cooking instruction experience, Hustad felt that Betty Crocker's recipes need to be reliable and fool-proof for the home cook. She passed her observations on to the company's research department.
Bacon cake is a cake made with bacon, either savory or sweet, and generally baked in an oven, although it's sometimes cooked in a skillet on a range top.
A baking mix is a mixed formulation of ingredients used for the cooking of baked goods. Baking mixes may be commercially manufactured or homemade. Baking mixes that cater to particular dietary needs, such as vegan, gluten-free, or kosher baking mixes, can be bought in many places.
Applesauce cake is a dessert cake prepared using apple sauce, flour and sugar as primary ingredients. Various spices are typically used, and it tends to be a moist cake. Several additional ingredients may also be used in its preparation, and it is sometimes prepared and served as a coffee cake. The cake dates back to early colonial times in the United States. National Applesauce Cake Day occurs annually on June 6 in the U.S.
Agnes White Tizard was an American home economist and nutrition consultant who worked for General Mills and was associated with the brand character Betty Crocker. Tizard was the voice of Crocker on the radio for 20 years, and wrote the original Betty Crocker Cookbook in 1950. Tizard was the first host of a radio cooking program in the United States.
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