“Even you can serve this dessert to your family, without the use of a servant.” “I couldn’t keep a house without Jell-O.”Įarly ads emphasized the beauty and glamor of these desserts that were formerly unattainable to the average household, said Wendy Woloson, a historian at Rutgers University-Camden who studies consumer culture in 19th-century America. “How often some ingredient is forgotten or not rightly proportioned and the dessert spoiled,” ran another ad. Jell-O also distributed free recipe books, a new marketing strategy at the time.īy 1907, Jell-O sales crossed $1 million.Įarly Jell-O advertising depicted women as inept, needing the help of a simple recipe like Jell-O.

The ads, depicting fancy Jell-O molds in startling new colors, stood out. Genesee tried to turn Jell-O into a brand consumers would ask for by name, and salesmen would go door-to-door to local grocers to persuade them to place ads of Jell-O in windows and behind the counters. The advertising, targeted at women in magazines like Ladies’ Home Journal, stressed how easy the new product was to make - and for only 10 cents, about the cost of a loaf of bread. Orator Woodward, the owner of the company, turned over the advertising, which was in its nascent stages, to ad firms in New York. Jell-O’s fortunes quickly changed under Genesee. In 1899, he sold the rights to Jell-O to Genesee for $450. Wait couldn’t get his new product off the ground. How she landed on the name has been lost to history, but some historians believe it was inspired by the product Grain-O, a substitute for coffee, that was also made in LeRoy by the Genesee Pure Food Company. Wait trademarked a name for his invention, Jell-O, based on an idea from his wife May. (It’s not known exactly how he added the colors.) The first flavors of his product, which were extracted from natural fruits, were orange, lemon, strawberry and raspberry. Wait came up with a sweet, flavored powder that could be added to boiled water, cooled, and was ready to serve. Wait, who dabbled with developing cough remedies and teas, added flavoring and coloring to granulated gelatin, a flavorless food ingredient. In 1897, Pearle Wait, a carpenter in LeRoy, a small town outside of Rochester, New York, found an answer to the problem.

“If ever there was a food calling out for a convenience product solution, it was gelatin,” Wyman wrote. Gelatin desserts were for the elite who had cooks and servants to labor through the elaborate and time-consuming process of making gelatin, often extracted from the feet of calves or other animal parts. During the Victorian era in Europe, decorative gelatin molds were a symbol of high society and served to royalty.

Desserts with gelatin, which is essentially purified glue, have a luxurious history.

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