“To the Markets of the World”

in t he Mi ll Ci ty, 1880–1930

Kate Roberts and Barbara Caron

It is a peaceful, timeless As one historian observes, “Before scene. The man in the foreground the 1880s the names of most manu - steadies a flat-bottomed boat loaded facturers had been virtually with grain sacks while another, bent unknown to the people who bought forward under his load, carries a sack their products. Tobacco was tobacco toward a humble windmill (fig. 1). and flour was flour until manufac - Superimposed on this nostalgic turers started promoting those vignette is a thoroughly modern brand names to customers. ”3 message: “Advertising did not make How did companies convince Gold Medal Flour the Leading customers and investors of their Brand in this country. But Quality superiority? An 1889 chromolitho - did—and constant advertising graph from the Washburn Mill hasn’t hurt it any.” Company, probably given to flour The easy merger of past and buyers and shipping agents for dis - present in this 1906 advertisement play in their offices, illustrates one mirrored the flour-milling industry common method of attracting atten - itself, where state-of-the-art tech - Fig. 1 Full-page ad from the North- tion (fig. 2). A poster-sized image niques were revolutionizing the western Miller, December 12, 1906 shows the company’s modern pro - ancient practice of grinding grain duction and distribution methods into flour. Nationwide, the advertis - efficient distribution networks, re - and features combine harvesters, a ing industry came into its own in cruitment of the best and brightest centrally placed roller mill, and rail roughly the same period that Min - minds in the business—and “con - cars and steamships leading “to the neapolis reigned as the world’s stant advertising. ”2 markets of the world. ”4 flour-milling capital: 1880–1930. 1 In their early years as industry From headquarters on opposite leaders, Washburn-Crosby and Kate Roberts, exhibits developer, and shores of the Mississippi River, Pillsbury produced many types of Barbara Caron, associate exhibits Washburn-Crosby Company and its advertisements, all with the com - developer, are members of the exhibit chief rival, Pillsbury Company, be - mon goal of acquainting potential team for the Minnesota Historical Society’s new Mill City Museum in came industry leaders through investors and customers with the Minneapolis, opening in September. timely equipment upgrades, highly companies and their leading brands.

308 Fig. 2 Poster created by the St. Paul Dispatch, 1889, showing wheat “from the fields of Dakota to the markets of the world”

Sprin g/Summer 2003 309 Such sweeping views of indus - all popular methods of reaching inates the scene (fig. 5). Like trial progress appeared in other potential customers. In a Gold Wash burn-Crosby, Pillsbury- formats, too, including an advertise - Medal flour trade card issued about Washburn had recognized the need ment for C. A. Pillsbury and Com - 1904, the familiar industrial view of to forefront just one of its brands. pany from the October 15, 1882, Washburn-Crosby’s mills appears in (The “Pillsbury’s Best XXXX” trade - issue of the Northwestern Miller, a the background (fig. 4). In the fore - mark, registered in 1875, is still Minneapolis-based trade journal ground, a profusion of barrels and found on the company’s packaging.) 6 with national and international bags sports the Gold Medal seal. This lively image hints at things to distribution (fig. 3). The half-page Like most mills, Washburn-Crosby come in flour advertising. Women ad includes a dramatic illustration packaged its products under several emerged as primary flour purchasers of the company’s mills overlooking brand names. But it was Gold in the early-twentieth century, and St. Anthony Falls (both scaled larger Medal—the company’s “Superlative” they were increasingly pictured in than life), the company’s brand brand, renamed after it captured the advertisements. Even more interest - names and owners, and prominent gold medal at the 1880 Millers’ Inter - ing is the child in the foreground mention of its export trade. Typical national Exposition in Cincinnati— who brandishes a tiny loaf of of its time, this advertisement show - that was to become Washburn- bread—a pint-sized predecessor of cases a thriving industrial complex Crosby’s signature flour. A similar the legions of satisfied customers to at peak production. 5 composition appears on the cover of appear in future advertisements. Advertising was by no means an 1897 pamphlet from the rival This shift from views of a com - limited to office displays and maga - Pillsbury-Washburn Company, pany’s headquarters to glimpses of zine pages. Trade cards, pamphlets, where a triumphant female figure its customers became increasingly package inserts, and envelopes were atop a barrel of Pillsbury’s Best dom - prominent. The earliest advertise -

Fig. 3 Ad from the export edition of the Northwestern Miller, October 15, 1882, stressing Pillsbury’s place in the global economy

310 Minnesota History Milling in Minneapolis

1856 Cadwallader C. Washburn of Maine establishes now operates three separate milling companies: the Minneapolis Mill Company, which controls W. D. Washburn, C. C. Washburn, and Washburn- waterpower and leases water rights to mill Crosby. operators on the west side of St. Anthony Falls. Washburn-Crosby’s William Dunwoody convinces a Glasgow firm to place a small order for flour, 1861 W. D. Washburn, C. C.’s brother, enters the signaling the beginning of flour exporting in lumber and sawmilling business. Minneapolis.

1866 C. C. Washburn builds his first flour mill in 1878 Washburn’s A Mill explodes. C. C. Washburn Minneapolis. Called “Washburn’s Folly” and rebuilds and equips it with the newest technology, later known as the B Mill, it is the largest flour making it, for a brief time, the largest mill in the mill west of Buffalo, New York. world. Mill City Museum is located in the ruins of this mill. 1869 Charles A. Pillsbury and his father, George A. Pillsbury, secure one-third interest in the 1879 C. A. Pillsbury and Company contracts with archi - Minneapolis Flouring Mill. George’s brother, tect LeRoy S. Buffington to build the new Pillsbury John S. Pillsbury, buys into the partnership. A Mill on the east side of the Mississippi River.

1870 The Pillsbury family purchases a bankrupt mill, 1889 A London financial syndicate purchases several which becomes the first independent operation Minneapolis milling companies, including of C. A. Pillsbury and Company. C. A. Pillsbury’s and W. D. Washburn’s, creating Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company, Ltd., 1873 W. D. Washburn adds flour milling to his the largest flour miller in the world. sawmilling company. 1908 After unsuccessful grain speculation, Pillsbury- 1874 C. C. Washburn’s A Mill is completed; its Washburn goes into receivership. capacity of 3,000 barrels per day is three times larger than the B Mill’s. 1909 Pillsbury Flour Mills Company, an operating company, incorporates in Minneapolis and leases the Pillsbury-Washburn mills.

1928 Several regional milling companies merge with Washburn-Crosby to form General Mills. With 27 companies in 16 states, it becomes the world’s largest flour miller.

1935 To reduce expenses and avoid holding-company legislation, Pillsbury Flour Mills incorporates in Delaware.

1989 Grand Metropolitan, based in the United Kingdom, Sometimes rivals, now one company: acquires Pillsbury. Washburn-Crosby A Mill and the Pillsbury B (closer to river), postcard, 1915 1997 GrandMet merges with Guinness to form Diageo.

1877 Washburn-Crosby Company is founded by 2001 General Mills, based in Golden Valley, acquires brothers C. C. and W. D. Washburn along with Pillsbury from Diageo to become one of the W. D.’s brother-in-law John Crosby. The dynasty world’s largest food companies.

Sprin g/Summer 2003 311 Fig. 4 Trade card, about 1904. Many shoppers collected these brightly colored advertisements, often saving them in albums. ments showing satisfied consumers In 1907, while this maid giants in direct public communica - focused on servants—a group better and others graced the pages of the tion with each other—one of few acquainted with the subtleties of Northwestern Miller, an equally instances in modern marketing his - flour varieties than the well-to-do striking but altogether different tory in which an advertising cam - homeowners who paid the food bills. advertisement made its first appear - paign has so directly challenged In the 1890s Washburn-Crosby ance. Rather than depicting the con - that of a competitor. 7 featured a pair of maids merrily sumer, it addressed her with a short, The “Because Pillsbury’s Best” rolling a barrel of Gold Medal flour direct slogan destined to become part campaign appeared in magazines into a pantry (fig. 6). These images of the American popular lexicon (fig. for little more than a year, perhaps appeared on calendars, trade cards, 8). “Eventually—Why Not Now?” because a shortage of wheat at the envelopes, and magazine advertise - was the brainchild of Benjamin Bull, end of World War I forced millers to ments. A decade later, household a Washburn-Crosby executive who increase the undesirable bran con - helpers were still appearing in oversaw the company’s advertising. tent in their flours. 8 The company Washburn-Crosby advertisements, The slogan appeared in magazine did not produce “Pillsbury’s Best” in but their unencumbered merriment advertisements, on billboards and 1918; it marketed a variety of alter - had been replaced by knowing packaging, and later on a neon sign nate flours instead. While the com - smiles. In a 1908 advertisement, a suspended over Washburn-Crosby’s pany reprised “Because Pillsbury’s young maid looks confidently over A Mill, usually in a script said to Best” advertisements in early 1919, it her shoulder at a stack of Gold have been modeled after Bull’s own also forged an advertising direction Medal flour bags (fig. 7)—or is she handwriting. Beginning in 1915, that was to have more lasting im - casting a reassuring glance toward Pillsbury answered its chief rival in pact. An advertisement appearing in the reader? Either way, the message its own advertisements (fig. 9). “The Ladies’ Home Journal showcases is clearly that the competent con - Flour Question Settled—Because Pillsbury offerings, from flour and sumer chooses Gold Medal flour. Pillsbury’s Best” put the corporate bran to cereal, along with mouth-

312 Minnesota History Fig. 5 Pamphlet cover, 1897, an early instance of women and children appearing in advertising

Sprin g/Summer 2003 313 Fig. 6 Advertising on a grocer’s envelope, 1899, one of several places these merry maids appeared watering products made from them able, they were learning to manage ground view is not the industrial (fig. 10). The industrial scene so households without the servants that landscape so prominent in early prominent in earlier advertisements had been available to their mothers advertising, but a more consumer- appears here in an impressionistic and grandmothers. Many young friendly view of Betty’s workplace— haze, as if receding into memory, women were moving away from the the test kitchen staffed by home while the brightly lit packages with relatives who once would have been economists. In a similar vein, a plate their distinctive red-and-white their closest domestic advisers. 9 of perfect biscuits takes center stage swirls take center stage. Appearing To fill the educational void cre - in a series of educational advertise - in the popular press more often than ated by these changes, advertise - ments for Pillsbury’s Best flour. in trade journals, Pillsbury’s “Family ments for household products began Each advertisement in this series of Foods” advertising campaign to take on an instructional tone. offers a brief primer on the qualities focused on brand recognition and One of the most notable domestic of “balanced” flour necessary for responded to consumers’ needs to advisers to arrive on the scene was successful baking. 10 choose from a growing assortment Betty Crocker, introduced by Wash - From detailed renderings of mill of products on grocers’ shelves in burn-Crosby in 1921. Not only was buildings and machines to mouth the years after World War I. Betty a trustworthy friend, but her watering depictions of piping-hot “kitchen-tested” recipes and house - biscuits, advertisements reflect the Product diversi fication hold tips were widely available in close watch Washburn-Crosby and was just one of many changes facing cookbooks, advertisements, and Pillsbury kept on the changing mar - American women, who by the 1920s package inserts. In a 1925 advertise - ketplace—and on each other. During were making the majority of food- ment from Farmer’s Wife, Betty Minneapolis’s reign as the “Mill City” buying decisions for their house - Crocker looks directly at the from 1880 to 1930, innovations in holds. These women were spending reader—presumably a housewife— flour production and packaging were more time outside their homes, in with a reassuring smile, while hold - matched by innovative advertise - paying jobs or volunteer activities. ing a plate of perfectly cut and ments—key ingredients in the Minne - As domestic help became less afford - baked biscuits (fig. 11). The back - apolis millers’ recipes for success.

314 Minnesota History Fig. 7 Bags replaced barrels of flour, but Gold Medal brand was still the maid’s choice; Northwestern Miller, November 18, 1908.

Sprin g/Summer 2003 315 Fig. 8 The first “Eventually” ad, Northwestern Miller, September 11, 1907

316 Minnesota History Fig. 9 Pillsbury’s rebuttal, first published in the Northwestern Miller, September 22, 1915

Sprin g/Summer 2003 317 Fig. 10 Ad showcasing a variety of Pillsbury products, Ladies Home Journal, October 1919

318 Minnesota History Fig. 11 Betty Crocker takes center stage in this ad from the Farmer’s Wife, July 1925.

Notes 1. James D. Norris, Advertising and Water Power Flour Mills,” Minnesota ‘why not now?’ and ‘Gold Medal’ flour the Transformation of American Society, Historical Society report, 1977, p. 55–56. would be brought to the minds of both.” 1865–1920 (New York: Greenwood Press, 5. For more on the use of industrial See William C. Edgar, The Medal of Gold: 1990). “By the turn of the century,” Norris scenes in late-nineteenth-century advertis - A Story of Industrial Achievement (Minne - writes (p. 39), “advertising in popular ing, see Pamela W. Laird, Advertising apolis: Bellman Press, 1925), 268. magazines often exceeded a hundred Progress: American Business and the Rise 8. Powell, Pillsbury’s Best, 105. pages an issue.” of Consumer Marketing (Baltimore: Johns 9. For more on women’s domestic life 2. Washburn-Crosby and Pillsbury were Hopkins University Press, 1998), 122–23. in the 1920s as reflected in advertising, see by far the largest flour millers in Minnea- 6. The XXXX mark in the Pillsbury’s Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: polis, controlling 87 percent of the city’s Best logo is “rooted in the symbolism of The Making of the American Mass Market mills in 1890; see Lucile M. Kane, The Falls the Middle Ages. Bakers then had marked (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989). of St. Anthony: The Waterfall that Built their best flour, for use in the preparation 10. “Society needed more advice, adver - Minneapolis (1966; rev. ed., St. Paul: of communion bread, with three crosses”; tisers often observed, simply because the Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987). see William J. Powell, Pillsbury’s Best: complexity of consumer choices had re - 3. Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and A Company History from 1869 (Minnea- vealed new dimensions of public incompe - Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American polis: Pillsbury Co., 1985), 32. tence”; see Roland Marchand, Advertising Advertising (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth 7. While Bull is credited with creating the American Dream: Making Way for Publishing Co., 1998), 48. the “Eventually” campaign, the production Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley: Univer - 4. Symbolizing modernization in the of Washburn-Crosby’s advertisements was sity of California Press, 1985), 343. For industry, roller mills processed wheat apparently handled by outside firms. The more on Betty Crocker, see Susan Marks- through a succession of rollers. This allowed same appears to be the case with Pillsbury. Kerst, “Betty Crocker: Marketing the millers to make high-quality flour at Describing the popularity of the “Even - Modern Woman,” Hennepin History 58 unprecedented rates. The first complete tually” slogan, Northwestern Miller editor (Spring 1999): 4–19. automatic roller process in the U.S. was William Edgar wrote, “In an incredible installed in the Washburn A Mill in 1879. short time the perpetual interrogation See Robert M. Frame III, “Millers to the became a by-word. If anyone happened to World: Minnesota’s Nineteenth-Century say ‘Eventually,’ another would finish with All images are from the MHS collections.

Sprin g/Summer 2003 319 Copyright of Minnesota History is the property of the Minnesota Historical Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles, however, for individual use.

To request permission for educational or commercial use, contact us.

www.mnhs.org/mnhistory