1919 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

An Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting the sale, transportation, importation, and exportation of intoxicating beverages is proclaimed January 16 to go into effect January 16, 1920 (see 1913). Per-capita consumption of beverage alcohol has been averaging 1.96 gallons per year, but a War Prohibition Act passed last year goes into effect at the end of June to continue until demobilization. Drafted by Rep. Andrew J. Volstead, 38 (R. Minn.), and passed over President Wilson's veto October 28, a Prohibition Enforcement Act (Volstead Act) defines as "intoxicating" any beverage containing 0.5 percent alcohol or more but makes a few exceptions, such as wine for sacramental purposes (see 1920).

Prohibition Advertisement
Prohibitionists finally obtained a constitutional amendment to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages. It didn't work.

Henry J. Heinz dies of pneumonia at his Pittsburgh home May 14 at age 74 (see 1905). His company has grown to include seed farms, container factories, and more than a score of food-processing plants.

The Fleischmann Co. launches a national advertising campaign to urge housewives to buy bakery bread instead of baking at home. The company now sells most of its yeast to commercial bakers (see 1876; Standard Brands, 1929).

Minneapolis-born Stillwater, Minn., inventor Charles Strite files for a patent May 29 on an automatic pop-up electric toaster (see 1908). Working as a mechanic at Stillwater during the Great War, Strite found that the toast served in the plant's cafeteria was often burned, so he devised a toaster with a heating element, a dual-lever design, a variable timing mechanism, and powerful springs that eject a piece of toast when it is done (see 1921; Toastmaster, 1926).

U.S. margarine production reaches a level of one pound to every 2.4 pounds of butter, up from one to every five pounds in 1914 (see 1881; 1921).

General Motors (GM) selects the name Frigidaire for a new refrigerator produced by GM, which has paid $56,000 to acquire Guardian Refrigerator Co., a one-man firm that was close to bankruptcy. GM has sponsored a naming contest and will make Frigidaire almost a generic for refrigerator.

Kellogg's All-Bran is introduced by the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes Co. (see 1915; 1922).

U.S. ice cream sales reach 150 million gallons, up from 30 million in 1909.

The Eskimo Pie has its beginnings in the "I-Scream-Bar," a chocolate-covered ice cream stick patented by Danish-born Latin teacher-candy store proprietor Christian Nelson of Onawa, Iowa, who solves the dilemma of schoolchildren who come into his shop and cannot decide whether to spend their nickels on candy or ice cream (see 1921; Good Humor, 1920).

Homogenized milk gains success for the first time in the United States, at Torrington, Connecticut (see 1904). Arthur G. Weigold of the Torrington Creamery has tried to sell the milk on his home-delivery routes, consumers accustomed to seeing a cream line at the top of their milk bottles have resisted the new product, but Weigold sells the milk to restaurateurs, many of whose patrons find it better tasting, more uniform in appearance, and more digestible than ordinary milk, although some object that it tastes sterilized (see 1932).

Coca-Cola's Asa G. Candler turns 68 December 30 and sells out for $25 million to a group headed by Ernest Woodruff (see 1916; 1923).