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Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929
The story of a pantry shelf, an outline history of grocery specialties: a machine-readable transcription.
An Evolution of
Five Decades
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{begin handwritten}{ILLEGIBLE} Oct. 19-'25{end handwritten}
When the American housewife of today stands before her well-stocked pantry shelf, she gives little thought to the very different picture that met her grandmother's eyes fifty years ago.
Fifty years ago sanitary, sealed packages had never been seen. "Down street" at the grocery store a request for a pound of soda biscuits would have on occasion dislodged the cat from pacific slumber in the cracker-box. A sugar barrel open alongside was impartially hospitable to flies and dirt the whole day through. There was no white sugar; only mealy, soft, brown sugar, and it came only in barrels. Even oatmeal was hardly known; sometimes the wealthy had "Scotch Oats," but it was expensive. Vinegar and black molasses were trudged home in pail or demijohn.
Kitchen cabinets were unheard of; there were only cupboards. And a ledge in the well or a damp cellar had to essay the cooling of foodstuffs now more efficiently protected by inviting white refrigerators.
In the homes of that day there were no furnaces. Instead "base-burners" and fireplaces did duty. Electric light and gas were unknown; the homes of the better sort used wax candles. For the rest tallow "dips" were good enough, and were regularly made in the kitchen.
Cake-soap was a curiosity known only in the larger cities. For the most part, the American housewife made her own "soft soap" with the lye she produced from the wood ashes from stove and fireplace.
It has been a far cry from this to present-day gleaming kitchens with their snowy white tile, their gas and electric
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ranges and many utilities for labor saving. And what a contrast with today's well stocked pantry shelves, lined with serried rows of standard packaged products known throughout the land for their purity and excellence!
What has brought about this great change?
Principally there have been three factors--
the enterprise of American manufacturers
the power of advertising
the influence of the woman's periodical
In this book we have undertaken to gather the histories of some of these better-known products whose names are household words today--to show you some aspects of the business enterprise that has built these great commercial successes. The stories are at once romantic and significant to every student of business methods.
These are not our stories--they are autobiographies of success. We have taken the privilege of an introductory presentation of the part that the Butterick Publications have borne in this great development. But after that we have brought our characters on the stage to tell you their own stories in their own way.
Then, like Balieff in the Chauve-Souris, we stand aside and saying "ver" goot audjence," wave the performers to their task.
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