UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Baking Powder Wars A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Linda Ann Civitello 2017 © Copyright by Linda Ann Civitello 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Baking Powder Wars by Linda Ann Civitello Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Mary A. Yeager, Chair How did a mid-nineteenth century American invention, baking powder, replace yeast as a leavening agent and create a culinary revolution as profound as the use of yeast thousands of years ago? The approach was two-pronged and gendered: business archives, U.S. government records and lawsuits revealed how baking powder was created, marketed, and regulated. Women’s diaries and cookbooks—personal, corporate, community, ethnic—from the eighteenth century to internet blogs showed the use women made of the new technology of baking powder. American exceptionalism laid the groundwork for the baking powder revolution. Unlike Europe, with a history of communal ovens and male-dominated bakers’ guilds, in the United States bread baking was the duty of women. In the North, literate women without slave labor to ii do laborious, day-long yeast bread baking experimented with chemical shortcuts. Beginning in 1856, professional male chemists patented various formulas for baking powder, which were not standardized. Of the 534 baking powder companies in the U.S., four main companies—Rumford, Royal, Calumet, and Clabber Girl—fought advertising, trade, legislative, scientific, and judicial wars for market primacy, using proprietary cookbooks, lawsuits, trade cards, and bribes. In the process, they altered or created cake, cupcakes, cookies, biscuits, pancakes, quick breads, waffles, doughnuts, and other foods, and forged a distinct American culinary identity. Baking powder made baked goods cheaper to prepare and shortened their cooking time radically. This new American chemical leavening shortcut also changed the breadstuffs of Native Americans, African Americans, and every immigrant group and was a force for assimilation. The wars continued in spite of scandals exposed by muckraking journalists and investigation by President Theodore Roosevelt, through WWI, the 1920s, the Depression, and WWII in every state and territory in the United States until standardization finally occurred at the end of the twentieth century. Now, baking powder is used by global businesses such as McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin’ Donuts, International House of Pancakes, and in home and commercial kitchens around the world. The legacies left by baking powder fortunes include endowed chairs at Harvard and Yale; and the Indianapolis 500 and Triple Crown horse racing winners. iii The dissertation of Linda Ann Civitello is approved. Janice L. Reiff Stuart A. Banner Mary A. Yeager, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 iv Table of Contents 1 The Burden of Bread: 1 Bread Before Baking Powder 2 The Liberation of Cake: 28 Chemical Independence, 1796 3 The Rise of Baking Powder Business: 57 The Northeast, 1856-1876 4 The Advertising War Begins: 92 “Is the Bread That We Eat Poisoned?” 1876-1888 5 The Cream of Tartar Wars: 123 Battle Royal, 1888-1899 6 The Rise of Baking Powder Business: 144 The Midwest, 1880s-1890s 7 The Pure Food War: 173 Outlaws in Missouri, 1899-1906 8 The Alum War and World War I: 211 “What a Fumin’ about Egg Albumen,” 1907-1920 9 The Federal Trade Commission Wars: 243 The Final Federal Battle, 1920-1929 10 The Price War: 271 The Fight for the National Market, 1930-1950 11 Baking Powder Today: 311 Post–World War II to the Twenty-First Century Bibliography 346 v List of Tables 6-1. Prices in the Hulmans’ Store, 1853 159 7-1. Contested in the Baking Powder Wars 180 9-1. Calumet Overtakes Royal 267 10.1 Baking Powder Market Shares, 1935 293 10.2 Baking Powder Consumption, 1927-1937 301 vi Abbreviations Used BPC Morrison, A. Cressy. The Baking Powder Controversy. Reproduction from Harvard Law School Library. New York: American Baking Powder Association, 1904-1907. Also “The Making of Modern Law,” a collection of legal archives, and BiblioLife Network. RCW Rumford Chemical Works Archive. Rhode Island Historical Society. Providence, Rhode Island. vii curriculum vitae Linda Civitello / Los Angeles, CA 90034 / 310.213.5779 [email protected] EDUCATION: 2001 M.A., History, UCLA (Thesis: “Top Dogs and Work Horses: Animal Labor in the Hollywood Film Industry”); 1971 B.A., English, Vassar College. Summer 2016, Bread and the Bible, Yale University. Certificate, Commercial Ice Cream Production, Penn State U. Professional Chef online classes, Culinary Institute of America. PUBLICATIONS Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight That Revolutionized Cooking (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017). Screen Cuisine: Food & Film from Prohibition to James Bond. Forthcoming, 2018 (Rowman & Littlefield, Food & Gastronomy Series, Ken Albala, ed.) “Windows on the World” (pp. 644-645; was also Los Angeles liaison for Windows of Hope fundraising dinners on October 11, 2001); “Grand Central Oyster Bar” (pp. 243-244); “Movies” (pp. 394-395); and “Kitchen Arts & Letters” (pp. 320-321) in Andrew F. Smith, ed., Savoring Gotham: A Food Lover’s Companion to New York City (New York: Oxford U. Press, 2015). Cuisine and Culture: a History of Food and People. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., three editions: 2003, 2007, 2011). First edition won the Gourmand Award for Best Culinary History Book in the World in English (U.S.). Used in culinary schools in the U.S. and Canada. “Indigenous Peoples Day and Diet: The Truth About Fry Bread”; and “Baking Powder Wars in Los Angeles,” (2017); in Edible Los Angeles magazine; I am the Food History columnist. The Rag Man’s Son: an Autobiography by Kirk Douglas. My credit reads: “Linda Civitello worked long and hard in helping me to dig this story out of my guts. Without her encouragement, research, and help in the writing, this baby might never have been born. I wish to express my deep thanks and appreciation to Linda.” (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.) TEACHER/READER Great Russian Novel. Teaching Fellow, UCLA; class satisfies writing requirement. French Cinema and Culture, UCLA. Teaching Assistant. The History of Chocolate. UCLA Extension. The Reign of Louis XIV. UCLA Extension. Spanish Society from the late Middle Ages through the Golden Age, UCLA. Reader. Rise of the Greek City-State, UCLA. Reader. American West, UCLA. Reader. Physiology of Taste. Art Institute, Santa Monica. History of Food. California School of Culinary Arts (Cordon Bleu); Art Institute, Santa Monica and Costa Mesa. AP U.S. History, Film & Fiction (Senior Seminar), AP English Literature, World History. Concord High School, Santa Monica, CA. Nominated for a Disney Teacher of the Year Award. AP U.S. History, Honors U.S. History, Asian Studies. Westridge School for Girls, Pasadena, CA. viii PAPERS AT CONFERENCES 2018, American Chemical Society, “Food at the Crossroads.” Will present two papers. 2018, “Cookbook Morality: Lydia Maria Child vs. Corporate Cookbooks.” American Literary Association annual conference. “The Baking Powder Revolution.” American Chemical Society annual conference, 2017. “The History of Baking Powder.” Harvard University, Capitalism in Action conference, 2011. “The Technology of Cake.” Food and Technology Conf., NYC. Created, moderated panel, 2014. “Tastes, Tales, Traditions: the Cuisines of Persia, Syria, Turkey.” The Cookbook Conference 2, NYC. Created and moderated panel, 2013. “Cookbooks and Efficiency.” The Cookbook Conference, NYC, 2012. “Food on Napoleon’s Retreat from Moscow.” Association for the Study of Food and Society. “Maya, Aztec, and Inca Cuisines.” UCLA Institute for International Studies. “Industrialization and Food.” UCLA Institute for International Studies. MEDIA TV on-camera: BBC Who Do You Think You Are?; Bizarre Foods; National Geographic. Radio: Interviewed on NPR, America’s Test Kitchen; KCRW, Evan Kleiman’s Good Food; KPCC, Pasadena, CA; Fitness Gourmet, CSUN radio, solo 30-minute guest; also Host. TV Writer. The International Guinness Book of World Records. 60-minute, prime-time special for ABC-TV. Top-rated show of the season opening week. Filmed in Japan, India, France, England, Las Vegas. / TV Events Co-ordinator/Researcher. The Second International Guinness Book of World Records, The Third International Guinness Book of World Records. Two prime- time 60-minute specials for ABC-TV shot in Germany, England, and the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil and Colombia. Was asked to write both shows, but WGA went on strike. CONSULTANT “Emily Dickinson: Baker & Poet.” City of Los Angeles, Dept. of Cultural Affairs “Big Read” program, 2017. Spoke and hands-on bread demo in high schools and libraries; used heirloom flour to bake Dickinson’s Black Cake and Coconut Cake for LA City Hall event, 130 people. Getty Museum, Los Angeles. (1) Wrote and recorded audio tour for food-and-art themed artworks. (2) Lecture and hands-on cooking class for 25 people in connection with exhibit Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance. (3) Spoke to art teachers on “The Art of Food: Living the Examined Life.” (4) Gallery Talk, Food and Art in the Ancien Regime in connection with the museum’s acquisition of the magnificent Machine d’Argent table centerpiece. Assistant to the President and Assistant Secretary of the Corporation of the Los Angeles-based Australian Films Office Inc. Co-ordinated the first Australian Film Festival held in the U.S., at NYC’s Lincoln Center and the United Nations, to introduce Americans to Australian films. LANGUAGES. French, qualified at the PhD level; Italian, Latin, Middle English ix Chapter 1 THE BURDEN OF BREAD Bread Before Baking Powder Who then shall make our bread? . It is the wife, the mother only—she who loves her husband and her children as woman ought to love . —Sylvester Graham, 1837 Treatise on Bread, and Bread-Making A woman should be ashamed to have poor bread, far more so, than to speak bad grammar, or to have a dress out of fashion.