by Susan Marks
Gold-N-Sno took top honors in the Cake Naming Contest, but the real prize was Betty’s in the form of a new show called “Letters Brought to Life.” Starting in 1931, broadcast-worthy letters were developed into scripts with a “service angle of drama.” In one episode, “Not So Dumb,” Betty Crocker set the scene:
A cake named Gold-N-Sno won first prize.
Hello Everybody! A recent survey discloses that the fact that out of 11,000,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, one out of every three is employed. Isn’t that an amazing figure! It seems even more amazing when you consider that a great number of these women are holding down two jobs—and many of them are married, and come to the big important job of homemaking—keeping a husband well fed, etc. The question is: Can the average woman do both jobs, and do them well?
Our Letters Brought to Life today tells the story of a young woman who had to answer that question under rather dramatic circumstances….
The drama begins with Ken, a frantic lawyer who is desperate for clerical help before a big court case. A plucky stenographer, Dunn, suggests to Ken’s wife, Nancy, that she come to the office to work for Ken. At first Nancy resists serving Ken both in and out of the home. After some debate between the women, Dunn reveals that she, too, is married and manages to balance both worlds with the help of Betty Crocker’s brochure “Seven Golden Rules for Business Housekeepers.” By the end, Nancy is convinced that she can also tend “both burners” and expresses gratitude for Dunn’s advice.
Encouraged by popular response to the story of Ken and Nancy, and tales of couples like them, Betty Crocker devoted substantial broadcast time to the philosophy of attracting and keeping a mate. In one series, she invited eligible bachelors and bachelorettes to the microphone. Listeners couldn’t quite agree on the perfect plan for love and marriage.
Here’s a new slant on your “what do we want in wives” controversy. We [“two satisfied bachelors”] can and do very well cooking anything the average good housewife can cook. Possibly show them a recipe or two. We wash our own undies and sox. Make our own bed and scrub our floor. We entertain nice young ladies and won’t let them do the dishes. We enjoy life and don’t have to account for being out after 9 p.m. We’re satisfied and don’t want any wives to get in our way. Further, we’re both in our late twenties and have been going this way for the past 10 years with the exception of the two years we both tried wives. It didn’t last and were we glad to get back together. Yes, we use Gold Medal Flour and we’d like to invite you to dinner.
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I get a kick out of your interviews with the young men of marriageable ages. I imagine some of them will stay single for a long time.
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I want you to know how perfect your fall cooking school was broadcasted. Your interviews with eligible young men on what men want in the women they marry was most enlightening and it does give inspiration to live a little more romantically when we are given a few ideas to live up to, and knowing that it is what the men really want after all.
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I can’t say that I care much for your talks about what different men want in their [future] wives. Most of us who listen are married and our husbands have all they’re going to get, unless it’s some different food, for which you are giving us recipes in that time. Besides we all know they won’t get what they are looking for. They’ll fall in love with some pretty nitwit and won’t even stop to ask whether or not she can cook!
Betty Crocker promoted the partnership between General Mills and local bakers by suggesting that homemakers order her “glorious cake.”
Some listeners clustered around the proverbial back fence to exchange gossip about those housewives whose skills weren’t quite up to the Betty Crocker standard.
I feel sorry for some of the young men I see getting married. They are getting wives who can’t cook or manage home. One of my girl friends has a wonderful husband, but she doesn’t care about cooking or making a home either. I have told her if she didn’t change, she would lose him and so has her own mother. If she used Gold Medal products it would lighten her tasks and make homemaking and meal planning real fun instead of drudgery.
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I always enjoy your talks so much, especially your interviews with young men. Some of them certainly expect a whole lot of the girls they expect to marry some day. I wonder should know what the girls think about it? Well, I think all girls should know how to cook, before they get married, and I am sure if they listen to your talks they will receive some very valuable information.
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I enjoy your talks on what kind of girl men shall like to marry. It calls to mind the many little defects in our homemaking and appearance, which we are only too happy to improve on. Your talk is like a spiritual mirror, where we can see our defects. I am doing lots better in many things.
Betty’s most popular bachelor interview series highlighted men of various professions: “The Mechanic Wants a Smiling Wife”; “The Girl the Farmer Dreams Of”; “The Ideal of the Young Advertising Man”; “The Young Doctor Describes the Wife He Wants.” One show, “The Girl the Football Hero Is Looking For,” elicited a barrage of mail from Betty’s loyal listeners. The football player informed Betty and the nation that he dreamed of an old-fashioned wife who would keep house like his mother—frugally and without any electrical appliances. Some of the responses to his wish list:
The football star, to my way of thinking, is an unmitigated ass. I certainly hope no girl ever ruins her life by marrying him.
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What a selfish, conceited football hero you chose to interview. Whew! Didn’t like a thing about him. Made me cross all day just knowing he is alive …
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From what I see and hear from the girls of today, your football man will have some trouble finding his girl. His kind are rather scarce, but I think he has the right idea.
In “A Word to the Wives,” Betty interviewed husbands about food, and its place in the experience of domestic bliss. This series, with its helpful hints designed to create harmonious households and to keep husbands from straying, was geared toward young women of marriageable age. Betty Crocker’s words of wisdom inspired wide-ranging responses from brides, would-be brides, and nonbrides of all ages.
I can’t begin to tell you how much I have enjoyed your broadcasts. I must admit that these last few broadcasts have rather set me wondering, “Isn’t there something I could do to make my husband more comfortable around his own fireside?”
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Your new series of talks and helps are stunning in their originality and oh, so exciting and reviving the old desire to please.
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Please send me a carbon copy of the husband you broad-casted this morning.
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I too think husbands should tell wives of their good points more. Most of them never fail to tell them their faults.
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I enjoy your little talks so much and I might say although not married, and hardly expect to be, yet I keep a little apartment with my sister. And we like nice inexpensive things to eat. And, with your recipes I can manage to make our evening meal after we come home from business. So please do not think these good things you tell us are just to cater to mere men. We unclaimed blessings are just as important.
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Do you know I think that if women were as eager to learn new ways of fixing new dishes or remodeling the old ones, as they are in new beauty aids and how to make themselves more lovely, they wouldn’t have so much trouble in keeping their husbands in good humor. Not that they shouldn’t keep themselves lovely.
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I too enjoy the talks you have been giving on matrimony. Personally I believe most husbands want a loving companion first, but they also want a good cook. My husband always delights in the new dishes I make.
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How I do enjoy your talks and suggestions that we get over the radio! Especially interesting were the talks on what men like. My mother always said the easy way to a man’s heart
is through his stomach. Just a plain everyday saying but quite true I think.
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My husband is just about the best man God ever made—he don’t smoke, he don’t drink and don’t swear, he don’t use bad language and he don’t ever go out without me. We have been married over 15 years, and we haven’t had a quarrel, a fight or argument. He is the most unselfish person, I come first in everything! But he has a sweet tooth, he likes my cooking and baking and thinks I am about tops. When he has only one weakness, I will try to satisfy it!
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If you really want your husband to be crazy over you just doll up, treat him rough and give him nothing. I’ve seen this work out too many times to ever believe anything different, even if it shouldn’t be that way. So, there you have my opinion on the matter.
Sweet on Betty
Much to the entertainment of the Gold Medal Home Service staff, a number of smitten bachelors took their chances as to whether Betty Crocker was a Miss or a Mrs., and wooed her with love letters, gifts, valentines, and marriage proposals. One man confessed that he was not interested in cooking, just the cook, requesting that Betty give him some sort of sign over the radio if she too was interested. “I pride myself on being a gentleman and I have never been guilty of this sort of thing before, but your voice and manner have so appealed to me that I just could not refrain.”
Husted’s unfinished autobiography contains a vivid record of Betty’s effect on men: “Many men wrote in. They would listen to radio on their way to jobs or because it was such a novelty that they would make a point of listening in the morning. The letters were often humorous, but also some were quite serious when they said they would like to marry Betty Crocker—or would like her to consider them because they were eager for a wife who could cook.”
Though the lovelorn never got anywhere with Betty, her staff were not always quite so aloof. Wrote one gentleman with nothing to lose, “Dear Madame, I should be pleased to have one of your recipe booklets as per announcement on the radio. I wonder would it be possible to include a good cook to prepare it for me? I am a lonely widower and am in need of a good companion. Thank you in advance.” An attached memo from one Betty Crocker staff member to another reads, “Don’t turn this one down! I will get you a hubby yet!”
Correspondences occasionally sprang up between Betty Crocker staff members and lonely bachelors—and at least one resulted in marriage. News of the union leaked to the press, leading to false rumors that Betty was ending her radio career to get married. In response, General Mills took out a full-page magazine ad and devoted radio time to setting the record straight with Betty’s adoring public. On air, Betty Crocker commented:
I was afraid last spring that you might think I wouldn’t be back on the air with you this year, because the newspaper printed something about Betty Crocker getting married. That was all a mistake. The girl who was married was a former member of our staff, but Betty Crocker is right here as usual. Instead of practicing making biscuits for a husband, I’m afraid I will have to be content to keep doing my cooking in the GOLD MEDAL Kitchen so that we can work out all these recipes for you. I have loads of fun doing my work here in our GOLD MEDAL Home Service Department and nothing could give me more satisfaction than to hear, as I often do, that I am helping you with your housekeeping problems.
From Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two Cookbook.
Betty’s charms were a counterweight to the cares of the Great Depression. Her beguiling manner lifted the spirits of millions—just as her message won their loyalty. As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in 1933, “Perhaps one of the real blessings of the depression is that we are beginning to find out that there are things in the world worth doing and that we do not have to waste time.”
Hooray for Hollywood!
In 1934, Will Hays, the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, reflected on the film industry’s effect on its times: “No medium has contributed more greatly than the film to the maintenance of the national morale.” Even at the Depression’s depths, 60 million to 80 million Americans attended the movies each week, developing an intense and lasting love affair with Hollywood and its real-life cast of celebrities. General Mills, too, saw its future in Hollywood, and made plans to send Betty Crocker—Husted—west to meet film stars. An insider’s peek into the domestic lives of celebrities was a provocative twist for the heretofore kitchen-bound Betty.
In 1933, Husted approached Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM) and later Paramount and Warner Bros. studios, all of which agreed to let Betty Crocker interview their contracted stars. MGM, quick to recognize the crossover appeal of Betty Crocker, staged many publicity outings. Escorted by studio executives, Husted/Crocker enjoyed cocktail parties, sightseeing trips, luncheons, yachting excursions, and movie debuts. Soon she had free access to closed movie sets and permission to interview anyone she cared to, including the studio’s cooking staff, about Hollywood fare. “In addition to her fame as an actress,” Betty learned, Joan Crawford—who, not unlike Betty Crocker, got her stage name as the result of a contest (this one had been devised by MGM’s Louis B. Mayer)—“is known in Hollywood for her clever home management. She plans all her own menus.”
Movie stars and studio heads found Husted as Betty irresistible, and several invited her home to meet their families. Betty Crocker became something of a media darling, posing for publicity photos around town. One shot shows Husted poolside, dressed in a long polka-dot dress and holding a frying pan, with swimsuit-clad Hollywood starlets surrounding her. Then as now, there was nothing “Hollywood” about Betty Crocker, but her novelty was universal, even in Tinseltown.
After a summer hiatus in 1936, Husted spiced up Betty’s radio broadcasts with stories from her California adventures. However, Hollywood did not go to Betty’s head. Dispensing with celebrity dish, she portrayed movie stars as real people who just happened to have high-profile careers. Many of Betty’s Hollywood-themed broadcasts centered on the fact that Hollywood folk ate food, just like the rest of the nation—only they ate less of it. In one such broadcast series, “Question Box,” Betty warned of the dangers of crash dieting:
There is no place in the country where you run into so many wild theories about food as you do in Hollywood. I met a charming girl in Hollywood this summer who was the temporary victim of the baked potato and skim milk diet…. She did look sort of woebegone after a few days of that monotonous fare, that it seemed cruel to let her go on.
Betty explained how she sat the young actress down and taught her the importance of a balanced diet. Next, Betty counseled her audience to ignore fad diets and follow the lead of Norma Shearer, a sensible and nutritionally sound actress:
So I advise, instead of eating a small amount of vegetables and fruits, and then “going to town” on the desserts and candy, tip the balance the other way; fill up the “aching void” with more vegetables, green salads, fruits, light soups, etc. And go mightily careful on the sweets or rich foods. But don’t forget the exercise, and don’t leave out the plain simple foods in the required daily food list. And enjoy good meals! Why, what do you suppose Norma Shearer’s favorite Sunday breakfast is? Pancakes, sausage and green salad. Doesn’t that sound good to you?
Betty Crocker’s radio broadcasts overflowed with stories about the eating and cooking habits of screen stars, among them Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Jean Hersholt, Robert Young, Cary Grant, Dolores del Rio, and Dick Powell. In a 1937 broadcast, Betty recalled her visit with Greta Garbo’s leading man during a break in the filming of Camille:
Of course I asked Robert Taylor about his food interests, and he was very amusing about that. I’ll tell you what he said on Friday, when I give you the recipe for his favorite food, Lemon Meringue Pie—the kind his mother makes! But I will tell you now that he said, “I like good plain foods.” And I think that’s true of most men, don’t you? And that’s why we put so many recipes for good plain food in our recipes folders that are packed in each sack of Gold Medal “Kitchen-test
ed” Flour. And I think if you all watch for these recipes folders, they will help keep your men folk happy—for you’ll find that they contain recipes for delicious pies, cakes, muffins and meat dishes, too, that will be favorites with the men.
Betty’s prize recipes included stand-out favorites: Streusel-filled Coffee Cake (1923), Pineapple Upside Down Cake (1924), Lemon Meringue Pie (1928), Pigs in Blankets (1933), and Favorite Fudge Cake (1936).
Physicians, the Secretary of the Committee on Foods of the American Medical Association, Emily Post, Oscar of the Waldorf, and actresses Sylvia Sidney, Claudette Colbert, and Margaret Sullavan gave bread their endorsements in Betty Crocker’s “Vitality Demands Energy” (1934).
The subject of fame blended smoothly with Betty’s traditional mix of food and love, as Betty’s Hollywood shows included news about celebrities juggling diet, exercise, and home life with Hollywood careers. Betty never missed an opportunity to inquire about celebrities’ love lives and solicit their views on the ingredients of a successful marriage. (Robert Taylor “didn’t feel competent to talk about women in any way.”) Betty didn’t waver from her belief that good food could improve even the best of relationships.
Studios extended Husted repeat invitations for visits, interviews, and joint promotions. Betty Crocker became a publicity must for high-profile celebrities like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Bing Crosby, Helen Hayes, and the young Elizabeth Taylor. Celebrities’ favorite recipes were a hit among Betty Crocker’s followers, especially Clark Gable’s wife’s recipe for Coconut Cake, Irene Dunne’s recipe for Kentucky Nut Cake, and Robert Taylor’s mother’s recipe for Lemon Meringue Pie. One listener wrote to Betty, “The Clark Gable frosting sounded very intriguing. I can’t imagine a movie star’s wife working in a kitchen baking a real cake!”