by Susan Marks
Betty undoubtedly offered realistic and timely advice to women in the 1920s, given their limited options for work outside homemaker, wife, and mother. The commercial motive behind each friendly piece of advice was easy to overlook in the pleasure of Betty’s company.
The Betty Crocker Service Program
Washburn Crosby supported the radio broadcasts with advertisements in leading women’s magazines. Readers were reminded to “Tune in on Gold Medal Radio Station (WCCO—416.4 meters), St. Paul-Minneapolis. Interesting programs daily. Also cooking talks for women every Mon., Wed., Fri. at 10:45 AM, by Betty Crocker, Gold Medal Flour Home Service Dept.” By 1925, two distinct radio programs evolved: The Betty Crocker Service Program and, on Fridays, The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air (also called Gold Medal Flour Radio Cooking School).
* * *
Washburn Crosby Company Gold Medal Flour
GENERAL OFFICES
Gold Medal
House Service Department
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
Jan. 20,1925.
Mrs. J. P. Lindquist,
Waseca, Minn.
Mrs. J. P. Lindquist:
I was very much pleased with the report of your work in the GOLD MEDAL Radio Cooking School. It has been a privilege to count you among the members of the class and I am glad to tell you that you have completed the course satisfactorily and are entitled to a Certificate. I hope that if will be possible for you to join some of the other courses, and that you will tell your neighbors and friends about our Cooking School, so that they can also take advantage of it.
It has been my purpose to give this Cooking, School the same high standard that is so carefully maintained succeeded in making the lessons entertaining and instructive to you.
In return, you can do me a great favor.
The success of my work is judged by the sale of GOLD MEDAL FLOUR and FOODS. You can express your appreciation for this Cooking School and for my work in no better way than to ask your grocer for and insist upon getting “GOLD MEDAL” every time. It is because I am satisfied that you will enjoy using these products that I can heartily recommend them to you.
In behalf of the GOLD MEDAL Home Service Department, it gives me great pleasure to present this Certificate to you.
Cordially yours,
GOLD MEDAL HOME SERVICE DEPARTMENT WASHBURN CROSBY COMPANY
BY
BC Enclosure
MILLS AT MINNEAPOLIS, BUFFALO, CHICAGO, KANSAS CITY, LOUISVILLE, GREAT FALLS, KALISPELL
EAT MORE WHEAT
* * *
* * *
Starting Next Monday, Sept. 21st
Keep this page for reference
Read details below
FREE to WOMEN!
Famous GOLD MEDAL “Kitchen-Tested” Recipes by Radio—three times each week
In our model kitchen—conducted by home economics teachers and cooking experts—we are constantly studying and working on the food problems that worry housewives.
For many years we have been sending to women throughout the country the results of our experiments; for example, household helps, balanced menus, and the famous Gold Medal “kitchen-tested” recipes for the handy Gold Medal Flour Recipe Box.
So great has been the response that we have continually sought ways and means to bring this service into more direct contact with all of you who have been so appreciative of our efforts.
We have found at last, we believe, the ideal way: the radio!
And so we are happy to announce that starting next Monday, September 21st, you can now tune in three times each week on the “Betty Crocker, Gold Medal Flour, Home Service Talks”.
Every Monday—Wednesday—and Friday. At approximately 10:45 in the morning. Check the stations at the side and tune in Monday on your favorite. We know you will like it. Thousands of women are proving this to us by their letters of appreciation to our own Gold Medal Station, Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Send today for your free booklet—giving full program for 29 weeks. Just send name and address. A postcard will do.
WASHBURN CROSBY COMPANY, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
GOLD MEDAL FLOUR-Kitchen-tested
MILLED BY WASHBURN CROSBY COMPANY, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., ALSO CREATORS OF WASHBURN’S PANCAKE FLOUR, GOLD MEDAL CAKE FLOUR, WHEATIES AND PURIFIED BRAN
Tune in on Gold Medal Rad’o Station (WCCO—416.4 meters), St.Paul-Minneapolis. Interesting programs daily. Also cooking talks for women. 10:45 Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. By Betty Crocker, Gold Medal Flour Home Service Department.
“Service to the Northwest”
* * *
At approximately 10:45 a.m.—every Monday, Wednesday and Friday—these 12 big stations will broadcast the “Betty Crocker. Gold Medal Flour, Home Service Talks”.
Station City
WEEI Edison Electric Illuminating Co. Boston
WEAF American Tel. & Tel. Co. New York
WFI Strawbridge & Clothier Philadelphia
WCAE The Pittsburgh Press Pittsburgh
WGR Federal Telephone Mfg. Co. Buffalo
WEAR Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Cleveland
WWJ The Detroit News Detroit
WHT Wrigley Building Chicago
WCCO GOLD MEDAL Staion St. Paul Minneapolis
KSD St. Louis Post-Dispatch St. Louis
WDAF Kansas City Star Kansas City
KFI Earle C. Anthiony, Inc. Los Angeles
Watch for local announcements
* * *
In September 1925, what began as Betty Crocker’s local radio show on Washburn Crosby’s WCCO went national.
* * *
Much to the surprise of many Washburn Crosby executives, thousands of listeners readily participated in Betty’s on-air cooking school. The privilege of trying out Betty Crocker’s recipes came at no cost to students. Each received a member report questionnaire, to be returned with their completed lessons, along with the grocer’s signature, ensuring that students used only Gold Medal Flour. By mailing in the written results of their work, they would qualify to earn their diplomas and graduate in an annual commencement ceremony broadcast. In twenty-seven years of broadcasting, The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air produced more than a million alumni.
Dear Betty
Brilliantly practical and relevant to listeners’ lives, Betty Crocker’s radio programs were a hit with her public. Women could not help but express appreciation:
With such interesting cooking talks as yours on the radio and available to the majority of housekeepers, I really think it won’t be long before we’re a nation of inspired cooks.
*
Please accept my thanks for the recipes and talks. I write each recipe down on a card, as you give them out in such a nice slow way, it makes it easy. In that way, I can make up the recipe very soon if I wish to. So thank you so very much for all the new tricks you’ve taught me. Forty-five years of cooking and to learn new ways now is wonderful.
*
There is just one reason I shall hate to pass on (I’m 77) and that is I’ll not get your recipes. However, I shall send in a call to St. Peter, perhaps he’ll comply—watch for it. I guess I mean listen.
*
I have listened to every one of your cooking school programs and have decided that I’m not a very good housekeeper. I’m really glad I’m still single.
*
You are certainly a Godsend to young wives (including me) who have recently assumed culinary responsibilities.
*
I can’t tell you how very much I enjoy your talks. I wonder if you realize how much you are helping me, or rather I should say “us.”
*
The delightful thing about you and your staff is that you make the humdrum exciting.
As Betty noted in an early broadcast, men also took an interest in her cooking shows: “And the men—indeed I have not forgotten the men—I was delighted to have so many of them interested in joining our school.” Listeners of both sexes responded dramatically with
letters wholly removed from cooking inquiries. Troubles with in-laws, neighborhood quarrels, and disagreeable spouses were just a few of the personal matters listeners asked for Betty’s help with. In an era when the quest for improved education and employment routinely drew young women away from their rural roots and into urban centers, Betty often did what Mother was too far away to do—advise, instruct, console.
As the dean of her own cooking school, Betty Crocker ascended from the familiar to the powerful—even mystical—role in American culture that was destined to be hers. No longer one of many home economists offering yet another ringing product endorsement, Betty had become a national authority on food.
National Betty
As listenership grew, so did product loyalty, which in turn drove sales of Gold Medal Flour products. And Betty Crocker’s shows contributed greatly to WCCO’s success. In 1924, a sample daily playlist allocated two slots for Betty Crocker’s “Home Service” segments. And by the end of 1925, Betty Crocker’s radio program expanded its broadcast to a total of twelve regional stations. WGR in Buffalo, New York, was the first, followed by stations in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Kansas City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Detroit.
At each station, a different woman spoke as Betty Crocker, but all read from the same script, written in the Minneapolis “mother kitchen.” In 1925, Bettys around the nation asked, “Won’t it be fun to think that you and your sister in Pennsylvania or Ohio and your good friend in Iowa and your aunt in California can all join the same cooking school and have your radio lessons together?”
Betty’s cooking show was a national sensation, with 47,000 new registrants. Women and men of all ages, married couples and children were among the students. Blind and housebound students also informed Betty Crocker that her on-air classes were helpful. Welcoming the 1926 graduating class, Betty marveled at the advancing technology of radio:
Good morning, everybody! I wonder if you realize that we are making history this morning? This program marks a new era in the history of broadcasting. Thousands of you, sitting in your own homes in forty-five states of the United States, are graduating together as you have gone to school together, over the air. In this age of wonderful inventions, such unusual experiences come to us each day that we accept as a matter of course many occurrences that a few years ago would have been considered miraculous.
Our program this morning has never been duplicated. It would not have been possible twelve short months ago. Our class is without doubt the largest cooking class that has ever been organized. It covers the largest territory, has the greatest number of graduates, and has only one teacher.
Each week, “tens of thousands” of new letters to Betty arrived, requesting general cooking and baking tips, as well as advanced tutoring. Newlyweds in particular felt at a disadvantage in the modern kitchen: “I am a young bride wanting so much to do things right in cooking, but so often I make a grand mess of things. Why don’t schools everywhere stress cooking and sewing more? I could have used that much more than my knowledge of Latin and Spanish.” Continually, homemakers expressed interest in learning fail-safe baking techniques, new recipes, and quickand easy dishes. In the name of Betty Crocker, every single letter was carefully answered.
The Secret Life of Betty Crocker
Knowledge of Betty Crocker’s identity was restricted to company insiders. Brand loyalty was a lucrative proposition, and Washburn Crosby had much to gain by keeping Betty’s secret. From her very first radio broadcast, the truth was carefully guarded, especially by the actresses who played her. The only admission made on air was that Betty Crocker did not do the recipe testing alone, but rather in the company of her growing Home Service staff. It’s reasonable to speculate that most listeners genuinely believed in Betty Crocker. Some had an idea that she was based in Minneapolis, and that other women spoke for her on radio stations located in other cities.
No grand conspiracy cloaked Betty Crocker, nor did the milling company deliberately set out to deceive customers. Yet Wash-burn Crosby did not officially set the record straight for many years. Why risk unnecessarily disappointing Betty’s fans at a time when the relationship was still new, untested?
Who‘s in the Kitchen with Betty?
As the medium of radio matured, so did the Betty Crocker Service Program and Cooking School of the Air. In the show’s fourth season, in 1927, Betty debuted a new style decidedly smoother and more intimate than in previous broadcasts. Marjorie Child Husted, newly promoted from the ranks of Gold Medal Flour home economists to director of the Home Service Department, was responsible for putting the polish on Betty’s updated style. Husted’s impressive tenure as the woman behind the woman would run for twenty years.
One of her first duties was to take over scripting—and sometimes broadcasting—Betty’s radio program. On October 5, 1927, Husted embraced the “diversity” of her audience and expounded on the value of radio:
Marjorie Child Husted, the woman behind Betty Crocker for twenty years. To many, she was Betty Crocker.
I like to picture you as I talk. I can see experienced housekeepers peeling potatoes, or doing some other “sitting down” job while they listen for the little hints which help relieve the monotony of the old routine. I see busy mothers of small children, grandmothers, brides and young housekeepers, and the shut-ins, who are bed-fast or helpless, who tell me they never fail to watch for this hour…. Isn’t it wonderful that no matter where you are we can meet this way to discuss the things we are all interested in? The radio admits no barrier of time or distance. Not so many years ago we had to go out visiting with near neighbors, perhaps gossiping over the back fence, or we waited for a club meeting or sewing circle to exchange recipes. But now, though I am miles away, I can talk to you, and radio friends in Massachusetts can exchange ideas with those in California.
Marjorie Child Husted was not exactly Betty personified. A graduate of the University of Minnesota who had put in four years with Washburn Crosby, Husted was a woman who knew how to take command, speak her mind, list her numerous achievements, and lecture businessmen on the right way to sell to Mrs. Consumer. A veteran of Red Cross welfare relief work, Husted also had heart. Her relief work took her into poor communities, where women had very few resources. She parlayed her education and experience into a career that tapped into the needs, desires, and burdens of homemakers. Husted’s talent for serving the public while turning a corporate profit impressed her supervisors, especially Sam Gale.
Under Husted’s direction, Betty Crocker’s cooking shows were added to the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) 1927 national lineup. Her show expanded from twenty minutes to one hour, three times a week. Among the first of its kind, as well as the longest-running, The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air received the highest ratings in its category.
Despite Betty’s growing fame, no one knew much of anything about her, except that she was a food expert from a flour company, who claimed to be a friend. Husted was discerningly skilled at balancing the mysteries of Betty with the familiar. To help deflect attention from the details of Betty’s biography, Husted (through Betty) encouraged listeners to make Betty’s program their own program—in essence, a national conversation among women, about “women’s concerns.” Predating the Dear Abby newspaper column by decades, Betty read listeners’ letters on air and solicited their responses. “Please don’t let me do all the planning,” she encouraged readers in a 1927 autumn broadcast.
Write to me anytime—give me your suggestions for the subjects you would like discussed in these talks. Tell me your special problems—perhaps I can help. Send me your ideas, for I’m sure you can help me from the wealth of your experience.
What emerged was a growing fascination with love in relation to food. These themes were the basis for Betty’s popular hardcover recipe booklet, “15 Ways to a Man’s Heart by Betty Crocker,” suggesting that at least one of those ways might be cake. In one 1928 radio program, Betty Crocker reminde
d listeners of the husband-keeping power of her fudge cake recipe, eliciting this response: “I don’t make your fudge cake [recipe] because I like white cake, but my neighbor does. Is there any danger of her capturing my husband?”
Husted was fond of relating this anecdote at home economics seminars and women’s club meetings as proof that romance sells. Homemakers would politely inquire about a delicious-sounding cake recipe, but a recipe coupled with Cupid generated responses by the thousands.
Your Betty Crocker
“You can do it and I can help you” was Betty’s resolute validation. Betty’s message—that women at home were exactly where they were needed most—was hardly novel, but her delivery was.
In her 1927 season finale, Betty bid her “friends” farewell for the summer:
And now in closing I want to tell you how rich I feel in all the unseen friends the radio has brought me. This season ends with this talk. The Gold Medal Flour Company has asked me to thank you for the interest you have taken in my efforts to serve you. I hope that I have been able to bring to each one of you what we consider the most important service of all—a thorough understanding of the necessity for the highest quality Kitchen-tested Flour for all your baking. Your loyalty and interest have been the greatest inspiration to me. May we always be friends.
Betty Crocker won far more notice for her innovative recipes than for her theatrical flair. Yet the performance aspect of her radio shows is often overlooked. Like the most sought-after celebrity, Betty was simultaneously accessible and aloof, appearing to have it all, do it all, and be slightly above it all.