Pitch perfect: bread

As the Pitch Perfect series continues, today we feature a collection of 1949 advertising slogans that were used to market various baked goods, bakeries, and baking products, including breads, biscuits, crackers and baking powders.

Always in good taste (Colonial Bakeries), Jersey City, N.J.
Always oven-fresh (Britis Educator Biscuits).
America’s finest bread (Langendorf United Bakeries). San Francisco.

Baked in freshness (Grocer’s Biscuit Co.), Louisville, Ky.
Baker’s own jobbing house, The (B’klyn Master Bakers’ Purchasing Assn.).
Baker’s of America’s finest bread (Langendorf).
Bakes right because it is made right (Made-Rite Flour).
Baking aid that nature made, The (Falk American Potato Flour Co.).
Balanced for perfect baking (Pillsbury).
Best by test (Calumet Baking Powder Co.), Chicago.
Best food the grocer sells, The (Campbell System, Inc.).
Best for all your baking (Purity Flour).
Better baking with less fuel (Pyrex glassware), Corning Glass.
Better biscuits made the better way (Sawyer Biscuit Co.).
Bread is your best food, eat more of it (Fleischmann Co.), New York.

Completes the feast (National Fruit Cake), National Biscuit Co., New York.
Cone-ing on the campus (Illinois Baking Co.), Chicago.
Contains no alum (Magic Baking Powder).
Costs less by the biscuit (Mrs. Tucker’s Shortening), Sherman, Tex.

Delicious whole wheat bread, The (Wheatine Co., Rahway, N.J.).
Don’t ask for crackers, say Snow Flakes (Pacific Coast Biscuit Co.).
Double-acting (baking powder), Crescent Mfg. Co., Seattle, Wash.

Eat bread. . . more bread (The Fleischmann Co.).
Eat Johnston Cookies, the taste that thrills (R.A. Johnston Co.), Milwaukee.
Every bite a delight (Grennan Cake Co.), Detroit.
Every shake a fresh cake (North American Dye Co.), Mount Vernon, N.Y.
Read More »

Pitch perfect: advertising

This week, as part of our ongoing series of collections of old advertising slogans, culled from a 1949 book called American Slogans, we’re getting a little meta. This week’s slogans are taken from companies that trafficked in advertising — large ad firms that are still powerful today, newspapers, marketers of promotional doodads, you name it:

Advertise and realize (Pencil Specialty Co.).
Advertising is the power of an idea multiplied (D’Arcy Adv. Co.).
Advertising that follows through to sales (Lithographers Nat. Assn.).
Advertising makes sense, makes dollars (John A. Lane).
Advertising with a basic idea (J. Walter Thompson Co.).
Always remember, the Diamond Advertising Service doesn’t cost–it pays.
An agency is known by the clients it keeps (Gottschalk-Humphrey).

Better business is our aim (Business Adv. Agency).
Bright by day, light by night (Pyrograph Adv. Sign Corp.).
Budgeteer (Specialists in increasing patronage), Carl Morgan Associates.
Builders of business (Willmark Service System).
Built on bedrock (Johnson, Read & Co.).
Business is good, but advertising makes it better (Cornelia Evans).

Color in advertising (Munro & Harford Co.).
Constant excellence is the key to success (N.W. Ayer).
Creators of direct mail literature (D. H. Ahrend Co.).
Customer patronage (Carl Morgan Associates).

Displays that move goods (Julian Mass Co.).

Economical advertising emoplys merchandised advertising (New Eng. Merch. Inc.).
Eyes have it, The (Transit Advertisers, Inc.).
Read More »

Yesterday's future, today!

Old magazines are always a treat to peruse. They provide a glimpse of life as it was once lived that’s not always easy to find elsewhere.

I’m especially drawn to the advertising one discovers in these yellowed periodicals, and targeted niche publications like Popular Mechanics can yield especially rare delights.

The good folks at Popular Science seem to have a handle on the appeal and value of yesterday’s news. They’ve made their entire archive — 137 years’ worth — available for free on their website.

Every issue, including the delightful and evocative covers, can be viewed there.

image-Popular Science covers

Who could resist stories such as these (all taken from the March 1933 issue):

  • Grasshopper Plane Jumps into the Air
  • New Safety Razor Has Oscillating Blade
  • Brake Stops Fast Train in 100 Feet
  • Odd Design in New Streamline Car
  • Shattered Men Rebuilt by Master Surgeons
  • New Pleasure Car Is Also a Light Truck

And then, of course, there are the advertisements, all of which are included in the archive as well.

image-ads from Popular Science

My hat’s off to the publishers of Popular Science; they have exactly the right idea in making this material freely available online. Here’s hoping all other publications of long-standing follow their lead.