MORE JELLO IMAGES

Here are some more images from my Jello Ephemera Collection. We'll start with the 1916 recipe book, which is all about the new bride starting her family life with Jello.

Jello Recipe book 1916. PSAW ephemera collections

Jello Recipe book 1916. PSAW ephemera collections.

"Though the honeymoon is not yet over and everything she does is still perfect, the young housewife who is no cook has gone through a period of awful trepidation while preparing that first dessert."

This was in the day when young ladies of a certain class didn't live alone before they were married, and most likely had household help doing the cooking.

Jello recipe book. 1916, PSAW ephemera collections.

"In her old home she had never been taught to cook, as so, when her father and mother, making their first visit to "the children"miss her from the room for a moment and then witness her triumphant return, bearing a tray with tea things and napkins and spoons for two, and two beautiful dishes of Jell-o upon it..."

Jello recipe book, 1916. PSAW ephemera collections.

"Father and mother and other "company" have come and gone many times  before baby arrives, and the lovely bride, looking hardly a day older, has become a proficient housekeeper."

Jello Recipe book, 1916, centerfold. PSAW ephemera collections.

Jello recipe book, 1916. PSAW ephemera collections.

On this beautiful summer afternoon three of her schoolmates - all happily marries- gather at her home to live again their girlhood life and exchange confidences regarding the whims of their husbands and the cleverness of their babies..."


Jello recipe book, 1916. PSAW ephemera collections.

The Jello girl made her first appearance in 1904. She was Elizabeth King, whose father, Franklin King, was an artist at the ad agency that made the Jello Ads. The Jello girl remained a staple of Jello ads for forty years. She appears at the end of the Jello Bride Recipe Booklet, as well as on the front cover.

"Attention, children! Some day you will be buying groceries, and if they have continued to go up in price, you will do well to consider the cost of different articles of food."


Jello recipe book. PSAW ephemera collections


Jello Recipe book. 1912. PSAW ephemera collection


Jello Recipe book. 1917. PSAW ephemera collection
 


Detail. Jello recipe book 1917. PSAW ephemera collection.

Look how beautifully the lithography tolerates enlargement.




Jello Recipe book. 1918. PSAW ephemera collections.

 


Jello Recipe book, 1915. PSAW ephemera collections.


Jello Recipe book. Date unknown. PSAW ephemera collections

This book has more gorgeous beautifully printed images than any other. And the copy I have is in brilliant shape. The rest of the images in this post are from this book.

Comments

[lotusgreen]

so first i'm wondering who the little girl is, and then i'm wondering if the artist is the woman who invented & drew the cupie dolls--and it is!

it's ROSE O'NEILL! bunch of jello stuff online! thanks!

[David Apatoff]

It's funny... this week on Leif Peng's Today's Inspiration blog he showed illustrations for U.S. Steel which used a highly attractive spokeswoman standing around construction sites talking about all of the important applications for steel. She obviously had no connection whatsoever to the product, and everyone had a big laugh about what dopes men are, and how easy they are to manipulate.

Now I am looking at your ads for Jello and I see wedding gowns and handsome husbands, which again have no connection whatsoever to the product. I would hate to think that women are as easy to manipulate as men...

[Liza Cowan]

David, I love Leif's blog and I love your blog as well. And I did read his post on US Steel.

But of course women are as easy to manipulate as men. Otherwise advertising wouldn't work. Because what they are really selling isn't product, but values. I mean, they are selling products using values. For men, the appeal to masculinity is through heteronormative sex, i.e. pretty girls, or other forms of masculinized behaviour.

Advertising appeals to women through values like family home and beauty. Not that these need to be values associated with women, but advertising is one of the venues that creates this kind of cultural femininity. So it works to sell product, but more important, it works to sell culturally shaped masculinity and femininity.