¹ By comparison, general manufacturing rose sixfold over the same period, Gabaccia, Donna R., We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 55–56.Google Scholar

² Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1975), 699.Google Scholar

³ Byington, Margaret F., Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town (Philadelphia, 1910), 75–77Google Scholar; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, How American Buying Habits Change (Washington, D.C., 1959), 112–124Google Scholar; National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., The Cost of Living in the United States (New York, 1925), 72–74, 94–95Google Scholar; Chapin, Robert Coit, The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families in New York City (New York, 1909), 154–62Google Scholar; Cummings, Richard Osborn, The American and His Food: A History of Food Habits in the United States (Chicago, 1940), 247–49.Google Scholar

⁴ On flour consumption in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Cummings, The American and His Food, 236–37.

⁵ Chandler, Alfred D. Jr, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).Google Scholar

⁶ Tedlow, Richard S., New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America (New York, 1990)Google Scholar; Strasser, Susan, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York, 1989)Google Scholar; Marchand, Roland, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley, Calif., 1985)Google Scholar; Lears, Jackson, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Porter, Glenn and Livesay, Harold C., Merchants and Manufacturers: Studies in the Changing Structure of Nineteenth-Century Marketing (Baltimore, 1971).Google Scholar

⁷ In 1877, food advertising accounted for one percent of the revenues of the nation's biggest advertising firm, N.W. Ayer; in 1901, 15 percent of N.W. Ayer's revenues came from the food industry, the largest of any category. Hower, Ralph, The History of an Advertising Agency (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 634–42.Google Scholar

⁸ Mayo, James, The American Grocery Store: The Business Evolution of an Architectural Space (Westwood, Conn., 1993), 51–52.Google Scholar

⁹ For most of his life, John Henry Heinz used his middle, rather than his first, name. Like his oldest son, he was known as Henry Heinz. To distinguish the two, I refer to the elder Heinz as John Henry.

¹⁰ When the British novelist Charles Dickens visited Pittsburgh in 1842, he noted that it “is like Birmingham in England, at least its townspeople say so… It certainly has a great quantity of smoke hanging over it, and is famous for its iron works.” Dickens, Charles, American Notes (New York, 1996), 203.Google Scholar See also “Pittsburgh,” The Atlantic Monthly 21:123 (Jan. 1868): 17–36 and “Pittsburgh,” Harper's Weekly 15:738 (18 Feb. 1871): 147.

¹¹ Handlin, Oscar, “The City Grows,” in Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City, ed. Lorant, Stefan (Garden City, N.J., 1964), 87Google Scholar, 101. By 1880, the city was home to more than 250,000 people (J. Cutler Andrews, “The Civil War and its Aftermath,” in Lorant, Pittsburgh, 161).

¹² U.S. Commerce Department, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 2, 666.

¹³ Quoted in Handlin, “The City Grows,” in Lorant, Pittsburgh, 92. On the political history of Pittsburgh, see Holt, Michael Fitzgibbon, Forging a Majority: The Formation of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh 1848–1860 (New Haven, Conn., 1969).Google Scholar

¹⁴ “Pittsburgh,” Atlantic Monthly, 20. See also Ingham, John N., “Reaching for Respectability: The Pittsburgh Industrial Elite at the Turn of the Century,” in Collecting in the Gilded Age: Art Patronage in Pittsburgh, 1890–1910, ed. Weisberg, Gabriel P., Mclntosh, DeCourcy E., and McQueen, Alison (Hanover, N.H., 1997), 3–8.Google Scholar

¹⁵ As an adult, Henry Heinz described his father as “a giant in strength and endurance” and very indulgent toward his children (quoted in Alberts, Robert C., The Good Provider: H.J. Heinz and His 57 Varieties [Boston, 1973], 3Google Scholar). But the entrepreneur always ascribed his professional success wholly to his mother (“Last Will and Testament of Henry Heinz,” MSS 57, H.J. Heinz Company Collection [hereafter MSS 57], Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pa. [hereafter HSWP]. See also Cork, Hugh, “His Fifty-Eighth Variety,” Organized Work and Workers [Feb. 1911], 55–56Google Scholar; McCafferty, E. D., Henry J. Heinz: A Biography [New York, 1923], 19).Google Scholar

¹⁶ My mother, Henry Heinz wrote in middle age, “could handle me because she knew how to inspire me; because she knew what to say, when and how” (quoted in McCafferty, Henry J. Heinz, 30).

¹⁷ We don't know exactly when Henry began his formal education. Alberts implies the young man went to school before age twelve (The Good Provider, 4–5), and Eleanor Foa Dienstag notes that by his twelfth birthday, Henry was walking a mile and a half each way to school in a neighboring village (In Good Company: 125 Years at the Heinz Table, 1869–1994 [New York, 1994], 22).

¹⁸ On nineteenth-century housework, see Cowan, Ruth Schwartz, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York, 1983)Google Scholar and Strasser, Susan, Never Done: A History of American Housework (New York, 1982)Google Scholar. On the status of specific domestic tasks, see Cowan, More Work for Mother, 31. On late twentieth-century time constraints and domestic responsibilities, see Hochschild, Arlie Russell, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home & Home Becomes Work (New York, 1997)Google Scholar and Schor, Juliet, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (New York, 1991).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Cowan, More Work for Mother, 31.

²⁰ On Heinz's immigrant origins and their relationship to his business, see Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat, 156–58.

²¹ “Manufacturers of Pennsylvania,” (1875), 383, Alberts MSS 37, box 3, folder 6, HSWP.

²² On food safety and adulteration in the late nineteenth century, see Angell, George T., Autobiographical Sketches and Personal Recollections (Boston, 1884), 59–62Google Scholar; Martin, Edgar W., The Standard of Living in 1860: American Consumption Levels on the Eve of the Civil War (Chicago, 1942), 244–45Google Scholar; Bates, C. O., “Pure Food laws,” Iowa Academy of Science Proceedings 8 (1900), 209Google Scholar; Department of Agriculture, Division of Chemistry, Bulletin 13, Foods and Food Adulterants (Washington, D.C., 1887–1903). For secondary sources, see Young, James Harvey, Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (Princeton, N.J., 1989), 3–65Google Scholar; May, Earl Chapin, The Canning Clan: A Pageant of Pioneering Americans (New York, 1937), 318–28Google Scholar; and Cummings, The American and His Food, 91–104.

²³ Young, Pure Food, 31–65, 107–12.

²⁴ See, for example, Beck, Lewis Caleb, Adulteration of Various Substances Used in Medicine and the Arts (New York, 1846).Google Scholar

²⁵ Young, Pure Food. On canned foods, see McElroy, K. P. and Bigelow, W. D., “Canned Vegetables,” in Division of Chemistry, Bulletin 13, Foods and Food Adulterants, part 8 (Washington, D.C., 1893).Google Scholar

²⁶ Alberts, The Good Provider, 6. See also “Henry John Heinz,” in Story of Old Attegheny City, compiled by the Writers' Program of the Works Project Administration (Pittsburgh, 1941), 153–54, Alberts MSS 37, series II, box 3, folder 7, HSWP. In 1861, the average annual wage for a skilled laborer—carpenter, blacksmith, etc.—was about $375 (Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 165). Price deflators are from Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 211 and Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President (Washington, D.C., 1997), 304.Google Scholar

²⁷ Williamson, Harold F. and Daum, Arnold R., The American Petroleum Industry, Volume 1: The Age of Illumination, 1859–1899 (Evanston, Ill., 1959).Google Scholar

²⁸ Titusville, one writer observed in 1860, “is now die rendezvous of strangers eager for speculation. They barter prices in claims and shares; buy and sell sites and report the depth, show, or yield of wells, etc. Those who leave today tell others of the well they saw yielding 50 barrels of pure oil a day … The story sends more back tomorrow… Never was a hive of bees in time of swarming more astir, or making a greater buzz.” Quoted in Yergin, Daniel, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (New York, 1992), 29.Google Scholar

²⁹ The region's frantic boom fueled intense land speculation. In early 1865, for example, oil was discovered in Pithole Creek, a village fifteen miles from Titusville. By June of that year, a farm that had been virtually worthless in 1864 sold for $1.3 million. In September, it was resold for $2 million (Yergin, The Prize, 31).

³⁰ Ibid., 30.

³¹ Yergin, The Prize, 29. In 1871, Pittsburgh's sixty refineries had a combined total of 36,000 barrels a day. Andrews, “The Civil War and its Aftermath,”in Lorant, Pittsburgh, 163.

³² Conversation with Frank Kurtik, Archivist, Heinz Family Office, Pittsburgh, Pa. (hereafter Heinz Family Office), 26 Aug. 1996; Heinz Order Books, 1869–1871, Heinz Family Office; Henry Heinz Notebook, 1868–1869, Heinz Family Office.

³³ Henry Heinz had worked with Noble in 1868, when they had organized a partnership to manufacture bricks in a small town north of Pittsburgh.

³⁴ The Anchor, Dienstag theorizes, was “probably chosen because it was a Christian symbol” that appealed to Heinz's religious inclinations (In Good Company, 24).

³⁵ Henry Heinz Order Book 1870–1871, Heinz Family Office.

³⁶ Gibson, Campbell, “Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790 to 1990,” Population Division Working Paper No. 27 (Washington, D.C., 1998), tables 8–15.Google Scholar

³⁷ See, for instance, Henry Heinz Notebook of 1875 and 1876, Heinz, Noble & Co., Heinz Family Office.

³⁸ The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz, Mar. 1875, Heinz Family Office.

³⁹ “Outline of the H.J. Heinz Company,” 1, MSS 57, box 2, folder 7, HSWP. See also “Manufacturers of Pennsylvania,” 385.

⁴⁰ “Outline of the H.J. Heinz Company,” 2.

⁴¹ Angell, Autobiographical Sketches, 59.

⁴² “Outline of the H.J. Heinz Company,” 2; May, The Canning Clan, 8–11.

⁴³ See Chandler, The Visible Hand, 363–68.

⁴⁴ “In 1875, for example, Heinz dealt with pickle manufacturers in Cleveland, Philadelphia, and other cities (Henry Heinz Notebook, 1876–1877). See also “Manufacturers of Pennsylvania,”384.

⁴⁵ “Manufacturers of Pennsylvania,” 381.

⁴⁶ See Heinz's notes on pickle preservation in Henry Heinz, “Recipe Book” (labeled “Records”), 27, Heinz Family Office. He credits his brother John with discovering a process for preserving pickles in vinegar without significantly softening or discoloring the cucumbers: “John [Heinz] by a number of experiments demonstrated beyond a doubt that by first heating the vinegar from 125 to 140 [degrees], heating the vinegar by turning straw into it …, and allowing it to gradually cool off, it would preserve pickles in a perfect condition…” See also 20–21, 40, 50, 65, 90, 95, 102, 122, 130; Henry Heinz Notebook of 1876–1877; Henry Heinz Notebook of 1868–1869, Heinz Family Office.

⁴⁷ Henry Heinz, “Recipe Book,” 108.

⁴⁸ Chandler, The Visible Hand, 473. See also Chandler, Alfred D. Jr, Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 14–18.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ The word “brand” is a very old one, dating back to the Middle Ages, when it connoted a burning piece of wood or torch. By the fifteenth century, its meaning had widened to include distinctive marks on goods and more generally, farm animals, to designate origin or ownership. Marks on products also came to indicate specific quality standards and genuineness. In the early modern period, for example, trade guilds like the Goldsmith's Company of London stamped all their goods. But prior to the late nineteenth century, the concept of a brand had primarily defensive connotations when it was applied off the farm. Identifying marks on various products were used to protect buyers from fraudulent or defective goods. Only a few eighteenth-century manufacturers, such as Josiah Wedgwood, used their names or reputations as part of a focused marketing strategy to help interest consumers in their products. On the history of trademarks, see Borden, Neil, The Economic Effects of Advertisin (Chicago, 1944), 21–24.Google Scholar On Josiah Wedgwoods branding strategy, see Koehn, Nancy F., “Josiah Wedgwood and the First Industrial Revolution,” in Creating Modern Capitalism: How Entrepreneurs, Companies, and Countries Triumphed in Three Industrial Revolutions, ed. McCraw, Thomas K. (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 37–42.Google Scholar See also Cummings, The American and His Food, 104–109.

⁵⁰ Tedlow, New and Improved, 14. One of the earliest references to “brand” in its modem business context comes from an 1889 Supreme Court case involving a trademark dispute. The plaintiff accused the defendant of violating its trademark by using the word “Tycoon.” The defendant argued that the word “Tycoon” could not have been lawfully adopted and used as a trade-mark, because it had long been a word in common use as a brand name for various kinds of tea imported from Japan. The court found in favor of the defendants (Corbin v. Gould, no. 131 Supreme Court of the United States. Argued 22 Nov. 1889; decided 3 Feb. 1890). By the first decade of the twentieth century, the term “brand” began to gain academic fluency in connection with the “trust problem.” See Jenks, Jeremiah, The Trust Problem (New York, 1900), 29Google Scholar; Beardsley, Charles, “The Tariff and the Trusts,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 15:3 (May 1901), 385CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Montague, Gilbert, “The Conservation of Business Opportunity,” Journal of Political Economy 20:6 (June 1912), 617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵¹ “Manufacturers of Pennsylvania,” 384.

⁵² Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 224. Income figures are for the years 1869 through 1900.

⁵³ On the pace of activity in late nineteenth-century Pittsburgh, see “Pittsburgh,” Atlantic Monthly. On Chicago, see Ralph, Julian, Our Great West: A Study of the Present Conditions and Future Possibilities of the New Commonwealths and Capitals of the United States (New York, 1893), 1–29.Google Scholar As Ralph observed in the late nineteenth century, “I have spoken of the roar and bustle and energy of Chicago. This is most noticeable in the business part of town, where the greater number of the men are crowded together. It seems as if the men would run over the horses if the drivers were not careful. Everybody is in such a hurry and going at such a pace that if a stranger asks his way, he is apt to have to trot along with his neighbor to gain the information, for the average Chicagoan cannot stop to talk,” 2.

⁵⁴ Garbaccia, We Are What We Eat, 156, 46.

⁵⁵ Mayo, The American Grocery Store, 51–52.

⁵⁶ “Forty Years of Progress,” The 57, 10:9 (1909), 9, Heinz Family Office.

⁵⁷ In 1932, Howard Heinz, one of Henry's sons and then president of the company, commented on the sociological consequences of the rise of food processing. One of the greatest benefits of the food industry, he wrote, “has been what it has done for women. It has released them from the drudgery of the kitchen, increased their leisure, and made it possible for them either to engage in business or to enjoy the social life of the community without seriously interfering with their duties and responsibilities as home makers,” (Heinz, Howard, “The Industry of Food,” in A Basis for Stability, ed. Crowther, Samuel [Boston, 1932], 195).Google Scholar For a contrasting view of the effects of mass production on household work, see Cowan, More Work for Mother, 69–101.

⁵⁸ John Morton Blum, “The Entrepreneurs,” in Lorant, Pittsburgh, 234; Alberts, The Good Provider, 12.

⁵⁹ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” ed. Robert C.Alberts, 19 Aug. 1875, 10, Alberts MSS 37, box 4, folder 2, HSWP.

⁶⁰ “Outline of the H.J. Heinz Company,” 2.

⁶¹ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 24 Apr. 1875, 3; 1 May 1875, 4; 5 May 1875, 4–5; 6 May 1875, 5.

⁶² “The Personal Diaries of H.J. Heinz,” 19 Apr. 1879.

⁶³ “Outline of the H.J. Heinz Company,” 2; “Manufacturers of Pennsylvania,” 384.

⁶⁴ “Manufacturers of Pennsylvania,” 384.

⁶⁵ Alberts, The Good Provider, 13.

⁶⁶ “The Personal Diaries of H.J. Heinz,” 27 May 1875.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 7 Oct. 1875.

⁶⁸ Ibid., 8 Apr. 1875.

⁶⁹ Ibid., 20 Apr. 1875.

⁷⁰ Ibid., 3 July 1875.

⁷¹ “Outline of the H.J. Heinz Company,” 3.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ “The Personal Diary of H.J. Heinz for the year 1875,” transcribed by Frank J. Kuitik, 8 Oct. 1875, 70, Heinz Family Office.

⁷⁴ Couvares, Francis G., The Remaking of Pittsburgh: Class and Culture in an Industrializing City, 1877–1919 (Albany, N.Y., 1984), 101.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ “The Personal Diary of H.J. Heinz for the year 1875,” 2 Oct. 1875, 69; “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 8 Oct. 1875, 12.

⁷⁶ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 29 Nov. 1875, 15.

⁷⁷ Heinz, Noble & Company was charged with hiding inventory and other goods for the purposes of defrauding creditors. In early 1876, the firm was acquitted of the charges.

⁷⁸ Twelve other firms filed bankruptcy petitions in Allegheny County that week. In the bankruptcy documents, Heinz, Noble & Company's assets were listed as $110,000. Its liabilities totaled $160,000 (or about $1.25 million and $1.90 million respectively in 1997 dollars) (Alberts, The Good Provider, 22). Price deflators are from Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 211 and Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President, 304.

⁷⁹ “People will censure us,” Heinz wrote on 7 Jan. 1876, “no matter how or what we do, and we get no credit for anything good we have done, but censure for everything that they don't like.” See also entries for 15 Dec, 17 Dec, 23 Dec, 25 Dec, 26 Dec, 27 Dec, 28 Dec, 30 Dec. 1875; 7 Jan., 12 Jan., 13 Jan., 15 Jan., 28 Jan. 1876, The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz.

⁸⁰ The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz, 30 Dec. 1875.

⁸¹ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 13 Jan. 1876, 21.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ According to the agreement, John and Frederick Heinz each had a one-sixth interest in the company; as did Henry and John's mother, Anna Schmitt Heinz. Henry Heinz was prohibited from participating in any partnership. His wife, Sallie Young Heinz, assumed the remaining 50 percent interest in the company.

⁸⁴ McCafferty, Henry J. Heinz, 89.

⁸⁵ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 8 Apr. 1876, 27.

⁸⁶ Ibid., 13 July 1876, 29.

⁸⁷ Ibid., 14 June 1876, 28.

⁸⁸ Ibid. 30 Aug. 1876, 30.

⁸⁹ Ibid., 30 Sept. 1876, 30.

⁹⁰ On the relationship between industrial growth, managerial imagination, and customer satisfaction, see Levitt, Theodore, “Marketing Myopia,” Harvard Business Review 38:4 (1960): 45–56.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Ibid., 46. With reference to current business performance, Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad have argued that an organizational ability to imagine new markets and create core competencies to serve these markets is a critical factor of competitive success (“Corporate Imagination and Expeditionary Marketing,” Harvard Business Review 69:4 [July-Aug., 1991]: 81–92).

⁹² Levitt, “Marketing Myopia,” 56.

⁹³ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 2 Nov. 1876, 31; 4 Dec. 1876, 33.

⁹⁴ Ibid., 14 Dec. 1876, 33–34.

⁹⁵ “H.J. Heinz Company Sales: Consolidated and by Company,” 1, MSS 57, box 2, folder 14, HSWP. Price deflators are from Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 211 and Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President, 304.

⁹⁶ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 16 Dec, 1876, 34.

⁹⁷ In 1880, company sales exceeded $197,000 on which F. & J. Heinz earned income of $31,000. (“H.J. Heinz Company Sales: Consolidated and by Company,” 1; “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 28 May 1880, 79).

⁹⁸ “Outline of the HJ. Heinz Company,” 4. Andrew Smith, who has written on the history of commercial ketchup, dates Heinz's introduction of the product to the later years of Heinz, Noble & Company. Smith, Andrew F., Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment (Columbia, S.C., 1996), 42.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Ibid., 22.

¹⁰⁰ By the midpoint of the war, the Federal government and the Confederacy combined had over 400,000 men in the field, creating a huge, incessant demand for food that would remain edible over several weeks. May, The Canning Clan, 23–24.

¹⁰¹ Smith, Pure Ketchup, 33–58.

¹⁰² In the late nineteenth century, California also became a center of ketchup production (Ibid., 36).

¹⁰³ Ibid.

¹⁰⁴ Dienstag, In Good Company, 154.

¹⁰⁵ “Outline of the HJ. Heinz Company,” 4.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid., 2.

¹⁰⁷ “H.J. Heinz Company Sales: Consolidated and by Company,” 1. Price deflators are from Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 211 and Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President, 304.

¹⁰⁸ Alberts, The Good Provider, 51.

¹⁰⁹ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 11 Oct. 1881, 99.

¹¹⁰ “H.J. Heinz Company Sales: Consolidated and by Company,” 1. Price deflators are from Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 211 and Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President, 304.

¹¹¹ “It is part of the Company's policy,” a Heinz newsletter noted in 1909, “to regard no article as completely sold until it has been consumed.” “Our Branch Houses: The Heinz System of Distribution Direct to the Trade and How it is Handled,” The 57, 10:9 (1909): 18, Heinz Family Office.

¹¹² “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 25 Aug. 1876, 29. On the significance of fairs and trade shows in late nineteenth-century marketing, see Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 180–84.

¹¹³ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 6 Nov. 1876, 32.

¹¹⁴ At the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, for example, the company had three exhibits: one serving food, one displaying employee photographs, and one displaying the goods Heinz produced for the American and British armies (Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 180–81).

¹¹⁵ Souvenirs and other similar promotions represented substantial expenditures for the business. In 1892, for example, Heinz contracted for $10,000 in advertising matter (about $192,900 in 1997 dollars). This was more, he noted, “than ever before in my life” (The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz, 10–15 July 1892). Price deflators are from Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 211 and Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President, 304.

¹¹⁶ In 1904, for example, almost 100,000 retailers attended the three-week long Cleveland Retail Grocers Association Food Show. According to the company newsletter, The 57, six employees staffed the company exhibit. Heinz “salesmen of the Cleveland Branch were on hand every night and made many friends among the visiting grocers. At the conclusion of the exhibition, all of the goods used in the Heinz Exhibit were sold intact to H. Klaustermeyer Co., whose store is one of the finest in the city of Cleveland.” “Ohio Food Shows and Festivals,” The 57 7:8 (1904): 7, H. J. Heinz Company, Pittsburgh, Pa. (hereafter H.J. Heinz Company). On food industry trade shows more generally, see Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 183–84.

¹¹⁷ 0n the Columbian Exposition, see Badger, R.Reid, The Great American Fair: The World's Columbian Exposition ir American Culture (Chicago, 1979)Google Scholar and Rydell, Robert W., All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1916 (Chicago, 1984).Google Scholar See also Cronon, William, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York, 1991), 341–42Google Scholar and Miller, Donald L., City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (New York, 1996), 488–505.Google Scholar Some of the best primary sources are guidebooks to the Exposition, including: The Best Things to be seen at the World's Fair (Chicago, 1893), The Artistic Guide to Chicago and the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893), and A Week at the Fair: Illustrating the Exhibits and Wonders of the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893).

¹¹⁸ Miller, City of the Century, 488.

¹¹⁹ Historian Susan Strasser estimates that U.S. consumer products companies each spent as much as $30,000 (about $553,000 in 1997 dollars) on their individual displays at the Columbian Exposition (Satisfaction Guaranteed, 181). Given the relative size of the Heinz pavilion, it's reasonable to conclude the Pittsburgh company devoted substantially more than this sum to its marketing efforts at the worlds fair. Price deflators are from Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 1, 211 and Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President, 304.

¹²⁰ A Week at the Fair, 127.

¹²¹ As the New York Times reported two weeks after the Columbian Exposition closed, “It has just been discovered that the gallery floor of the Agricultural Building has sagged where the pickle display of H.J. Heinz stood, owing to the vast crowd which constantly thronged their goods.” 14 Nov. 1893.

¹²² Alberts, The Good Provider, 127.

¹²³ Henry Heinz prohibited company billboards in and around Pittsburgh.

¹²⁴ Quoted in Blum, “The Entrepreneurs,” 235. See also “Birth of Trade Mark Described in Article, Number 57 Turns Up in Many Weird Ways,” The 57 News, 9 Mar. 1920, 1, 3, H.J. Heinz Company.

¹²⁵ “Birth of Trade Mark Described in Article,” 3.

¹²⁶ Ibid.

¹²⁷ Madison Square, a company newsletter noted, “is a beautiful park covering several acres of ground in the center of the great metropolis, and the sign can be seen for quite a distance up Fifth Avenue and Broadway.” “Heinz Electric Sign, New York,” Pickles 5:3 (May 1901), 1–2, Heinz Family Office.

¹²⁸ In 1901, the sign was dismantled to make way for the Flatiron Building, which still stands at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street.

¹²⁹ The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz, 5 Aug. 1880.

¹³⁰ Alberts, The Good Provider, 132.

¹³¹ Ibid., 133. During a hurricane in 1944, the “5” on the “57” sign fell into the sea, and the company's management decided to abandon the pier as a business endeavor.

¹³² “Visitors at the [Home of the 57] in 1903,” The 57 7:9 (Feb. 1904): 1, H.J. Heinz Company.

¹³³ The company's manufacturing facilities, Henry Heinz noted, “are open every working day in the year for the inspection of the public. This has gained for us additional confidence, because it offers people an opportunity of finding out for themselves the true quality of our products, and the cleanliness that is observed in their manufacture.” “A Gigantic Pickle Concern,” Pickles 4:5 (1900): 3, H. J. Heinz Company. See also Purinton, Edward Earle, “The Plant that Made the Pickle Famous,” The Independent 101:3705 (17 Jan. 1920): 93–95, 116–17.Google Scholar

¹³⁴ The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz, 10–15 July 1892.

¹³⁵ Alberts, The Good Provider, 123.

¹³⁶ Jones, Thomas O. and Sasser, W.Earl, “Why Satisfied Customers Defect,” Harvard Business Review 73:6 (Nov./Dec. 1995): 88–99Google Scholar.

¹³⁷ The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz, 5 Jan. 1893.

¹³⁸ Alberts, The Good Provider, 139.

¹³⁹ See, for example, The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz, 2 Mar. 1878, 7 Mar. 1878. The word “salesmanship,” as historian Timothy Spears has written, did not enter common usage until late in the nineteenth century. An earlier term, “fastening,” was used to describe the face-to-face interaction between “drummers,” wholesale agents hired to drum up custom, and provincial merchants who traveled to urban centers on purchasing trips. An 1832 commercial publication described the sales process: “Drumming in a mercantile sense consists in fastening upon every man, whether stranger or otherwise, who labors under suspicion of having come to the city to purchase goods for the country market; and the object thereof is … to obtain as great a share as possible of the wholesale business.” Asa Greene, “Mercantile Drumming,” Constellation (5 May 1832), quoted in Spears, Timothy B., 100 Years on the Road: The Traveling Salesman in American Culture (New Haven, Conn., 1995), 29–30.Google Scholar See also Friedman, Walter A., “The Peddler's Progress: Salesmanship, Science, and Magic, 1880 to 1940,” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1996)Google Scholar, and Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 58–88.

¹⁴⁰ The Personal Diaries of Henry J. Heinz, 17 Nov. 1881.

¹⁴¹ The Licensed Victualler and Catering Trades'Journal, 21 June 1899, 645. Establishing and maintaining such a distribution network was significantly more expensive than working with existing wholesalers. In the late nineteenth-century, Heinz's selling costs exceeded 33 percent of gross revenues. Connor, John, Rogers, Richard, Marion, Bruce, and Mueller, Willard, The Food Manufacturing Industries: Structure, Strategies, Performance, and Policies (Lexington, Mass., 1985), 47.Google Scholar

¹⁴² Pickles 4:2 (1900): 2, H. J. Heinz Company.

¹⁴³ The 57 8:6 (1904), 9, H.J. Heinz Company. See also “Two Essential Points for a Successful Salesman,” Pickles 2:7 (1898), H.J. Heinz Company.

¹⁴⁴ “Getting Close to the Buyer,” Pickles 5:12 (1902), 1, H. J. Heinz Company.

¹⁴⁵ Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 194–200; Chandler, The Visible Hand, 290–99; and Horst, Thomas, At Home Abroad: A Study of the Domestic and Foreign Operations of the American Food Processing Industry (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 17Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁶ “There are grocers in even'territory,” noted an early twentieth-century company Heinz sales manual, “who are progressive up-to-date merchandisers and who are able to sell a large volume of Heinz products. These key stores are deserving of vour special attention, and at every opportunity you should plan an outstanding Heinz sale which will not only increase the volume during the period of the sale but will help to make the dealer and the clerks more interested in the Heinz line and his customers better acquainted with the 57 Varieties.” 57 Sales Manual (Pittsburgh, Pa., n.d.), 84, MSS 57, HSWP.

¹⁴⁷ “The Salesman as Advertiser,” Vickies 2:4 (May 1898): 4–5, H. J. Heinz Company.

¹⁴⁸ Companv publications, such as “Superior Store Displays,” outlined specific merchandising techniques and were intended to help strengthen relationships between Heinz sales representatives and grocers. As the early twentieth-century booklet explained, “The devices listed herein are the inventions of a corps of experts employed by the Company who devise ways and means of a practical nature for display purposes. They are intended to stimulate interest in interior store displays, which are recognized as the last link in the chain of advertising—the final reminder—necessary to influence the sale.” “Superior Store Displays,” 1, MSS 57, box 4, folder 10, HSWP. On sales management at the turn of the century, see Friedman, Walter A., “The Science of Selling: Managers, Salesmen, Scientists, and Prospects, 1880 to 1920” (unpublished paper presented to the Business History Seminar, Harvard Business School, 1997)Google Scholar, “The Peddler's Progress,” and “John H. Patterson and the Sales Strategy of the National Cash Register Company, 1884 to 1922,” Business History Reciety 72:4 (Winter 1998): 552–584.

¹⁴⁹ 57 Sales Manual, 81.

¹⁵⁰ Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 196.

¹⁵¹ “From Day to Day: How the Convention Opened and How it Progressed,” Pickles 5:10 (1902): 7, H.J. Heinz Company.

¹⁵² “Our Annual Conventions,” Pickles 2 (1898): 1, H.J. Heinz Company.

¹⁵³ “From Day to Day,” 6.

¹⁵⁴ See, for example, Henry Heinz's straggle with the Noble brothers in early 1876 to control the failed company's trademark (“The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 20 Mar. 1876, 1 May 1878, 26, 44).

¹⁵⁵ On the relationship between brand equity and product extension, see Aaker, David A., “Should You Take Your Brand to Where the Action Is?” Harvard Business Review 75:5 (Sept./Oct. 1997): 135–143Google Scholar; Aaker, David A., Building Strong Brands (New York, 1996), 269–302Google Scholar; Farquhar, Peter, “Managing Brand Equity,” Journal of Advertising Research, 30:4 (Aug./ Sept. 1990): 7–12Google Scholar; Farquhar, Peter, Han, Julia, and Ijiri, Yuji, “Strategies for Leveraging Master Brands,” Marketing Research 4:3 (Sept. 1992): 33–43Google Scholar; King, Stephen, “Brand Building in the 1990s,” Journal of Consumer Marketing 8:4 (Fall 1991): 43–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murphy, John M., Brand Strategy (New York, 1990), 110–14Google Scholar; Webber, Alan, “What Great Brands Do,” Fast Company 10 (Aug./Sept. 1997): 96–103.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁶ “Outline of the H.J. Heinz Company,” 4.

¹⁵⁷ Ibid., 4–6.

¹⁵⁸ Fruit jellies were an exception. Competition from the Campbell Soup Company, combined with housewives'preference for making their own preserves, depressed sales in the late nineteenth century (Potter, Stephen, The Magic Number: The Story of [57] [London, 1959], 49–50).Google Scholar

¹⁵⁹ May, The Canning Clan, 2. See also Johnson, Laurence A., Over the Counter and on the Shelf: Country Storekeeping in America, 1620–1920 (Rutland, Vt, 1961), 84–92Google Scholar and Keuchel, Edward F., “Master of the Art of Canning: Baltimore, 1860–1900,” Maryland Historical Magazine 67:4 (1972): 352–55.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁰ May, The Canning Clan, 7–12.

¹⁶¹ Potter, The Magic Number, 49.

¹⁶² Keuchel, “Master of the Art of Canning,” 359.

¹⁶³ Alberts, The Good Provider, 49.

¹⁶⁴ “The Private Diary of H.J. Heinz,” 7 Mar. 1877, 35.

¹⁶⁵ Chandler, The Visible Hand, 295.

¹⁶⁶ The hole-in-cap can was used mainly for liquids. They were inserted through a small hole in the top of the can, which was soldered shut after filling.

¹⁶⁷ The Licensed Victualler & Catering Trades' Journal, 645. Heinz also worked with company farmers on the development of improved seed hybrids, “Pittsburgh—A Great City,” American Monthly Review of Reviews 31:1 (Jan. 1905): 65.

¹⁶⁸ “Pittsburgh—A Great City,” 65. Many of these employees were seasonal, hired to work during the peak periods of planting and harvesting.

¹⁶⁹ Chandler, The Visible Hand, 312, 349.

¹⁷⁰ Potter, The Magic Number, 52.

¹⁷¹ Alberts, The Good Provider, 74.

¹⁷² Ibid., 79.

¹⁷³ As a result of this 1886 meeting, Heinz became a household word in the United Kingdom. Heinz baked beans on toast remains a staple in the English diet today, and many modern British consumers assume Heinz is a British brand.

¹⁷⁴ “Our European Progress,” The 57 7:6 (1903): 2, H.J. Heinz Company.

¹⁷⁵ HJ. Heinz Company: Producers, Manufacturers, and Distributors of Pure Food Products (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1910), 22, Heinz Family Office.

¹⁷⁶ “H.J. Heinz Company Sales,” MSS 57, box 3, folder 1, 1915F, HSWP.

¹⁷⁷ McCafferty, Henry J. Heinz, 171.

¹⁷⁸ McCafferty, Henry J. Heinz, 106. The company changed its name from F. & J. Heinz to H.J. Heinz in 1888.

¹⁷⁹ See, for example, Hotchkiss, George Burton and Franken, Richard B., The Leadership of Advertised Brands: A Study of 100 Representative Commodities Showing the Name and Brands that are Most Familiar to the Public (Garden City, N.J., 1923), 113Google Scholar.