Cheerful social history follows the career of General Mills's
long-lived celebrity spokeswoman. First things first: Betty Crocker
isn't a real person. She was created, in an unwittingly brilliant
move, by the publicity department of Washburn Crosby, makers of
Gold Medal Flour, after a magazine contest brought in a flood of
cooking questions to the company. The letters were answered, but
the male publicity director certainly couldn't sign his own name to
the responses; thus was Betty created. Her last name was given in
honor of then-recently retired company director William G. Crocker,
but her first name was chosen simply for its "wholesome" sound.
From these simple origins, an empire grew-one supported by a large
staff of cooks and home economists who were constantly testing
recipes and looking for kitchen innovations. Betty was a radio
pioneer, with a first show debuting in 1924 and, later, with her
Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air. She went to Hollywood in
the '30s to interview the stars, Marjorie Child Husted being the
public face of Betty Crocker on these occasions. Betty assisted
homemakers in stretching their budgets during the Great Depression
and offered innovative ways to cook with rations during WWII. And
while Betty Crocker was always firmly in the woman-as-homemaker
camp, she advocated greater recognition for what was often
thankless work, creating the Betty Crocker Home Legion. In the
1950s, Betty Crocker offered convenience foods-Bisquick, cake
mixes-that matched the shiny new postwar prosperity. Though her
popularity hit its high-water mark in the middle of the 20th
century, she remains a force even in the General Mills of today.
Marks excels in putting her subject in context, and alongside her
historical account, she places numerous letters from women who
wrote to Betty to ask questions or inform her about their lives.
Like a Betty Crocker recipe: goes down easy. (Kirkus Reviews)
IN 1945, FORTUNE MAGAZINE named Betty Crocker the second most
popular American woman, right behind Eleanor Roosevelt, and dubbed
Betty America's First Lady of Food. Not bad for a gal who never
actually existed. "Born" in 1921 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to
proud corporate parents, Betty Crocker has grown, over eight
decades, into one of the most successful branding campaigns the
world has ever known. Now, at long last, she has her own biography.
Finding Betty Crocker draws on six years of research plus an
unprecedented look into the General Mills archives to reveal how a
fictitious spokesperson was enthusiastically welcomed into kitchens
and shopping carts across the nation. The Washburn Crosby Company
(one of the forerunners to General Mills) chose the cheery
all-American "Betty" as a first name and paired it with Crocker,
after William Crocker, a well-loved company director. Betty was to
be the newest member of the Home Service Department, where she
would be a "friend" to consumers in search of advice on baking --
and, in an unexpected twist, their personal lives. Soon Betty
Crocker had her own national radio show, which, during the Great
Depression and World War II, broadcast money-saving recipes,
rationing tips, and messages of hope. Over 700,000 women joined
Betty's wartime Home Legion program, while more than one million
women -- and men -- registered for the Betty Crocker Cooking School
of the Air during its twenty-seven-year run. At the height of Betty
Crocker's popularity in the 1940s, she received as many as four to
five thousand letters daily, care of General Mills. When her first
full-scale cookbook, Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, or "Big
Red," as it is affectionately known, was released in 1950,
first-year sales rivaled those of the Bible. Today, over two
hundred products bear her name, along with thousands of recipe
booklets and cookbooks, an interactive website, and a newspaper
column. What is it about Betty? In answering the question of why
everyone was buying what she was selling, author Susan Marks offers
an entertaining, charming, and utterly unique look -- through words
and images -- at an American icon situated between profound
symbolism and classic kitchen kitsch.
General
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