Posted on 11/22/2020 6:42:29 AM PST by Rebelbase
TAMPA (WFLA) – Ann Turner Cook was only 4 months old when she became famous as the original Gerber baby. She turned 94 on Friday.
According to the company’s website, Gerber held a contest in 1928 to find a face to represent their baby food.
Many artists submitted oil paintings, but Dorothy Hope Smith, who specialized in children’s portraits and happened to be Cook’s neighbor, submitted a charcoal sketch which was selected.
Cook’s face appeared on Gerber products beginning in 1928 and became the official trademark in 1931.
Gerber started using this in 1928...that’s not when she was born.
Apparently (Snopes) Humphrey Bogart’s baby pic was used to market other brands of baby food. He was (also Snopes) 30yo in 1928, not that that would be prohibitive, but that’s what Snopes (idiots) implies.
I had no choice. That's what my mother bought from the supermarket.
Then a few years later, she started bringing home from the supermarket volumes of Funk & Wagnalls.
My father worked for Gerber from 1948 to 1984. He started at Gerber’s plant in Oakland, California. Our family moved to Fremont, Michigan, where Gerber was headquartered, in 1963 (I was 8 years old at the time). My dad was a chemist by trade and was a problem-solver whenever production lines had problems. He traveled to Rochester many times over the years.
The Gerber family sold their shares in the company to a Swiss pharmaceutical firm called Sandoz circa 1994. Sandoz and another Swiss company, Ciba-Geigy, merged and formed Novartis.
When Novartis acquired Gerber, they wrote in their annual report that the laboratory where my father worked was the largest privately funded infant nutrition research institution in the world. Gerber is today owned by Nestle.
One thing about the Gerber baby: the original sketch has never been edited. Contrast this with Betty Crocker, who seems to undergo an almost annual revision.
Today, Gerber food products are made only at two locations in the USA: Fremont: and fort Smith, Arkansas.
Happy birthday baby Smith!!
She hasn’t changed a bit
In the ‘50s, as a very young woman, I volunteered at Republican headquarters in Grand Rapids Michigan. They asked me to stay as a paid employee because I could forge Dan Gerber’s signature perfectly on fundraising letters. He was the honorary head of the party in Michigan.
My kids were raised on Gerber baby food. I recently looked at the supermarket for Gerber applesauce I wanted for a recipe. It’s total krep today, filled with sugar and preservatives. YUK.
See my post #27. What you say is very interesting and the sale by Gerber family undoubtedly explains the decline in quality.
Looks great at 94!
Oh yes. My wife gets to take care of her during the week because my daughter is working on her Masters Degree. My wife loves it.
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