A Century in Advertising - Part 3

A Century in Advertising - Part 3

My look at some of the advertisements and products of yesteryear. Some weird and whacky, some surprisingly still around today. Here are their stories.

1907 - Corn Flakes

Corn flakes, or cornflakes, are a popular breakfast cereal made by toasting flakes of corn. The cereal was first created by John Harvey Kellogg in 1894 as a food that he thought would be healthy for the patients of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan where he was superintendent. He saw his invention of corn flakes as part of his health movement that he called “biological living.”

This was a time when the wealthy might have steak and pie for breakfast. Kellogg thought that meat and certain seasoned foods increased sexual desire, and that plainer food, especially cereals and nuts, could curb it. He was obsessed with unwanted sexual desires!

But despite Kellogg's obsessions, the breakfast cereal proved popular among the patients and the Kellogg Company (Kellogg's) was set up to produce corn flakes for the wider public. A patent for the process was granted in 1896. There is no evidence it prevented sexual desire!

1908 - Teddy Bears

A teddy bear is a soft toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff in Germany in the early years of the 20th century, and named after President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, the teddy bear became an iconic children's toy, celebrated in story, song, and film.

The name originated from an incident on a bear hunting trip in Mississippi in November 1902, to which Roosevelt was invited by Mississippi Governor Andrew H. Longino. There were several other hunters competing, and most of them had already killed an animal. A suite of Roosevelt's attendants, cornered, clubbed, and tied an American black bear to a willow tree after a long exhausting chase with hounds. They called Roosevelt to the site and suggested that he should shoot it. He refused to shoot the bear himself, deeming this unsportsmanlike, but instructed that the bear be killed to put it out of its misery, and it became the topic of a political cartoon by Clifford Berryman in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902

Morris Michtom saw the drawing of Roosevelt and was inspired to create a teddy bear. He created a tiny soft bear cub and put it in the shop window with a sign "Teddy's bear," after sending a bear to Roosevelt and receiving permission to use his name. The toys were an immediate success and Michtom founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company.

1909 - Chewing Gum

Keith Pandolfi comments that: “The practice of chewing gum dates back thousands of years, its enduring popularity evident in the dried chicle (a natural gum derived from trees) found among Mayan ruins in southern Mexico and the thousands of grayscale ovals pressed into city sidewalks around the world.”

Taking its name from the “chicle,” Chiclets is a brand of candy-coated chewing gum made by Cadbury Adams. The product's name is derived from the Spanish word chicle which is the name for chewing gum. Introduced in 1900, the original flavor was peppermint and assorted fruit flavors are still available in Algeria, Colombia, Argentina, Egypt, Canada, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Mexico, Venezuela, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Dominican Republic, United Kingdom, and parts of the Americas

What is interesting about this 1909 advertisement is that it sees gum as a mark of sophistication, part of dressing up, dining, and finishing the meal not with a mint, but with a chewing gum. Times have changed and gum is seen more of a casual pastime than something one does at dinner parties!