Betty Crocker programs first appeared on radio on local stations in 1924. On television and radio broadcasts, Betty Crocker was portrayed by several actresses, on radio by Marjorie Husted for twenty years, and on television by Adelaide Hawley Cumming between 1949 and 1964. Unfortunately, Crocker is more Pepper than Debbie in that she is not — and never has been — a real person. So, he came up with up a sort of pseudo female him — a know-it-all, take-charge, ageless homemaker named Betty Crocker. It was written by nutritionist Agnes White Tizard. But the truth is a bit more complicated. Food and Wine presents a new network of food pros delivering the most cookable recipes and delicious ideas online. The first network Betty Crocker broadcast was on NBC in 1926. [8], In 1950, the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook was published. Inserted in bags of flour, they could be used to reduce the cost of Oneida Limited flatware. In 1924, Betty Crocker got a voice with the debut of the daytime radio broadcast Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air, voiced and scripted for a decade by Marjorie Husted. But Gale always felt bad that it was him, a man, who was signing the letters. Whether she was real or not, they could get a response back from her," said Marks in 2005, "And that actually helped her [...] to become almost real.". The name was created for the … It was won by a secretary named Florence Lindeberg, who's neat, ornamental but legible signature now forever belongs to Betty Crocker. In some ways, that was her appeal. But it didn't matter. What's more, hundreds of letters accompanied these finished puzzles asking questions like "What's a good apple pie recipe?" In 1954, General Mills, an American Fortune 500 corporation, branded the red spoon logo, giving various food-related merchandise the Betty Seal of Approval. In 1928, Washburn Crosby merged with other milling companies to form General Mills. At least 17 other Betty Crocker recipe collections were also in print in 2015. The response was, for whatever the reason may be, overwhelming. © Bloomberg via Getty Images. Or was she a phony like Dr. Pepper? At first, it was only on-air in Minneapolis with "Betty Crocker" (an actress) dispensing recipes and tossing out advice to women across the city. "[17] These portraits were always painted, with no real person ever having posed as a model. Betty Crocker's challenger Sara Lee: Real. Did she live and breathe like other well-known food icons like Colonel Sanders, Duncan Hines or Chef Boyardee? In the back of the October 1921 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, a jumbled cut-out puzzle appeared alongside an ad for Gold Medal Flour, a product produced by the Washburn Crosby Company of Minneapolis. Credit: Betty Crocker was created in 1921 by Washburn-Crosby and advertiser Bruce Barton. The Minnesota Historical Society revealed that the 1996 face of the brand was a blend of the previous Betty Crocker portrait and features from 75 contest winners. It was the country's first radio cooking program. "Crocker" was in honor of the recently retired and beloved former director of the company, William G. Crocker. Here's the tale of how the woman that was once called "America's First Lady of Food" was created. 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. Hawley continued to portray Betty Crocker until 1964. [15] 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. In 1924, Crocker got turned onto the burgeoning new media of radio with her own show. The tale of the woman who was once called "America's First Lady of Food.". [13] She also appeared in the CBS network's first color commercial, in which she baked a "mystery fruit cake". You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be … © Copyright 2020 Meredith Corporation. Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. For over seven decades, brownie, frosting, Hamburger Helper and mystery fruitcake enthusiasts across the world have been asking the same question: Is the beloved, seemingly ageless homemaker Betty Crocker real? [14], A portrait of Betty Crocker was first commissioned in 1936,[15] a "motherly image" that "blended the features of several Home Service Department members" that was painted by Neysa McMein. We’ve assembled a list of 50 of the world’s most reliable, inexpensive wines – bottles that offer amazing quality for their price year in and year out. According to Susan Marks' book Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food, Washburn's ad department manager Samuel Gale saw this complication as an opportunity. "Betty" was simply because it sounded wholesome and cheery. Since we've established that Betty Crocker is not a "real" person, but an idea, there has never been an actual photograph of her. 1. Later renditions of Betty Crocker have also been inspired by real people. Surprising, then, that Betty Crocker isn’t actually a real person. She appeared for several years on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,[12] and even had her own TV show, Betty Crocker Star Matinee. A slow cooker can can take your comfort food to the next level. An 11th edition, in ring-binder format, appeared in 2011. Unlike Chef Boyardee, the following brands feature fictitious people: Betty Crocker, Mrs. Butterworth, Aunt Jemima, and Ronald McDonald. Wives, homemakers and kids across the country received letters from Betty Crocker, answering questions like how long to bake chocolate chip cookies, Then there was this query that Marks shared with CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers in 2005: "I don't make your fudge cake because I like white cake. Unfortunately, Crocker is more Pepper than Debbie in that she is not — and never has been — a real person. But the truth is a bit more complicated. Sadly, the story of Betty Crocker is not the tale of a sweet, matronly woman whose cakes and pies were so good that they needed to be introduced to the masses. [18] In the same year, Fortune "outed" Betty Crocker as a fictitious creation, calling her a "fake" and a "fraud. For decades after, Crocker became sort of a mentor and best friend for those kitchen warriors around the nation. 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". Video: 9 Healthy Kitchen Staples That Cost Less Than $1 Per Serving, In 1945, controversy struck. this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines. [20][21], "Accomplished Alpha Delta Pi Members in Education and Science", "Adelaide Hawley Cumming, 93, Television's First Betty Crocker", "From Bold Suffragette to Betty Crocker - 150 Years of SAIC", "Betty Crocker's Absurd, Gorgeous Atomic-Age Creations The iconic brand's midcentury recipes evoke the era's peculiar optimism, encased in gelatin and smothered in mayonnaise", The General Mills Radio Adventure Theater, Hazard analysis and critical control points, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Betty_Crocker&oldid=989101587, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012, Articles needing more detailed references, Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Betty Crocker Soda Licious (discontinued), This page was last edited on 17 November 2020, at 01:45. The relatively small staff of Washburn Crosby received over 30,000 completed puzzles, all looking for their pincushion prize. Unfortunately, Crocker is more Pepper than Debbie in that she is not — and never has been — a real person. Betty Crocker recipes and tips from the "Atomic Age" of the 1950s are of cultural interest. It all began with a puzzle. [1] A portrait of Betty Crocker, first commissioned in 1936 and revised several times since, appears on printed advertisements and product packaging. [citation needed], 1941–1945: The Betty Crocker Cook Book of All-Purpose Baking was published as an aid to wartime considerations in cooking. Betty Crocker. For almost 30 years, Husted went on to provide the voice for the Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air radio program, making the name not just a brand, but a real American icon. The show proved popular, and eventually was carried nationally on NBC Radio, with Agnes White as Betty. "(Gale) thought a woman at home does not want advice from a man who supposedly doesn't know his way around the kitchen."