Cold Open

It’s May 28th, 1897, on a street in LeRoy, New York.

23-year-old Pearle Wait knocks on a front door and then steps back. He shifts impatiently, eager to make his first sale of the day.

A few weeks ago, Pearle stumbled onto a new food product by accident. Intending to make a cough syrup, he mixed gelatin crystals with coloring and flavoring. But when he added hot water and then cooled it, the mixture set into a soft and wobbly solid—that tasted great. Pearle called the sweet treat Jell-O, and he thought it would be a hit with housewives. But so far, he’s been wrong. He’s been hawking it door to door all morning, and he’s not had a single purchase.

The door opens, and the cries of a baby float out onto the street. A tired-looking housewife in a stained apron stands in the doorway. Pearle flashes her a smile and holds up a paper bag of Jell-O crystals and launches into his well-rehearsed sales patter. But the housewife shakes her head. She doesn’t understand what he’s selling—and she’s not interested in finding out.

The door closes in Pearle’s face before he’s finished. So with a sigh, he steps off the porch and moves to the next house. He’ll keep trying for now. But he knows if he can’t make Jell-O pay soon, he’ll have to give up on the entire venture.

Even as Pearle Wait yet again fails to secure a sale, more than 200 miles away in Washington, D.C., a clerk at the U.S. Patent Office is picking up the next paper from a stack on his desk. He scans it, barely pausing, then stamps it. And just like that, it’s official. Pearle Wait is now the owner of the trademark for Jell-O. But a stamped certificate won’t sell a single box. If this strange new dessert is going to become one of the most recognizable brands in America, it will need far more than just the approval the Patent Office issued on May 28th, 1897.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is May 28th, 1897: Jell-O’s Trademark.

Act One

It’s September 9th, 1899, in the Town Hall of LeRoy, New York, two years after Jell-O was trademarked.

49-year-old Orator Woodward takes a piece of paper handed to him by a clerk and reads it line by line. Beside him, Pearle Wait shifts in his seat—but Orator won’t be rushed. He hasn’t built a successful business by skimming the fine print, and he intends to make sure that this agreement is airtight.

Orator has been in the business of selling remedies and medicines for more than two decades. His products include headache tonics and corn plasters, and his bestseller is a caffeine-free alternative to coffee made from roasted grains. Now, he’s about to expand into something new—a gelatin dessert.

Cooks have used gelatin for years, but the rubbery substance has always been tricky to work with. Only wealthy households with full-time kitchen staff were able to spend the time needed to use it in recipes. But that changed a few years ago, when a man across town stumbled onto a quick and easy way to turn gelatin into a dessert. That man, Pearle Wait, struggled to make Jell-O pay, but Orator could see its potential. The trouble wasn’t the product—it was the man behind it. Pearle was a novice businessman, with no idea how to turn his new dessert into a real moneymaking venture. So, Orator made an offer to buy Jell-O for $450, about the same as the average annual salary, and Pearle quickly accepted.

So after checking the paperwork once again, Orator signs his name. He then passes the paper to Pearle, who adds his own signature. And finally the clerk signs it as a witness. The three men shake hands, and Orator leaves the town hall with a spring in his step. His Genesee Pure Food Company is now the owner of the Jell-O name and recipe.

And over the next few months, Orator sets to work on his new acquisition. He scales up production and expands Jell-O’s reach beyond LeRoy, New York, distributing it all across the Northeast. Using his existing contacts, he gets Jell-O into stores that already stock his other products. But despite Orator’s confidence that his business skills will turn Jell-O around, it proves tougher than he expected.

Because soon, hundreds of complaints are rolling in. Customers who have bought Jell-O for the first time can’t get the gelatin to set after they’ve added hot water. Even after sitting overnight in the middle of winter, the dessert is still a runny, unappetizing mess in the morning. Orator has no choice but to refund the unhappy patrons. He then tries to figure out what’s gone wrong.

He soon discovers the source of the problem. The temperature in his warehouse had plunged below freezing during a recent cold snap, spoiling the Jell-O crystals kept there. So everything he’s produced so far has to be dumped. Orator quickly makes more from scratch, this time keeping the packets of Jell-O in more controlled conditions. But even though he’s identified why the gelatin went bad, the damage has already been done. Customers who had a poor first experience with Jell-O aren’t willing to try again. And with few repeat orders, unsold stock starts piling up.

By the fall of 1900, Orator is considering cutting his losses. He offers to sell his excess Jell-O stock, the recipe, and the trademark for just $35—less than a tenth of what he paid for it a year earlier. But even at that price, there are no takers. Orator is stuck.

So, he tries to make the best of it. He relaunches Jell-O with an aggressive direct marketing strategy. Salesmen travel from town to town on horse-drawn rigs branded with the Jell-O name. They drop leaflets at every house explaining what Jell-O is and how busy cooks can use it to create a fast, simple, but tasty dessert. They plaster the streets with enormous canvas signs and billboards. Demonstrators hand out samples at church socials and community events, along with promotional molds and dishes.

This new approach works. Housewives begin to embrace Jell-O as a convenient, time-saving option in the kitchen and many become regular customers. Within two years, Jell-O is raking in annual revenues in excess of $250,000, and Orator must double the size of his factory to keep up with demand.

But he won’t enjoy that success for long. In 1906, just as he reaches the peak of his career, Orator Woodward will die at the age of just 49. But his widow and children will soon discover that Orator’s success has caught the eye of other entrepreneurs, and Jell-O will soon have competitors eager for their own slice of this wobbly dessert.

Act Two

It’s 1916 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, ten years after the death of Jell-O owner Orator Woodward.

40-year-old Otis Glidden straightens a stack of envelopes in the corner of his new factory. One catches his eye because it hasn’t been taped shut properly, so he opens it up to check the contents before it’s sent to the customer. Still he can’t resist taking out one of the packets inside, proudly smoothing the label of his new product—Jiffy-Jell.

Almost 20 years ago, Otis was hired by Orator Woodward to work for the Genesee Pure Food Company in LeRoy, New York. There, he helped to mix and produce Jell-O and became one of the few people who knew the closely guarded recipe. But recently, Otis decided that he’d had enough of working to make someone else rich, so he struck out on his own. With his brother, he left LeRoy and built a factory in Wisconsin, where land is cheaper. They also hope it’s far enough from New York that their copycat product won’t draw the attention of Jell-O’s lawyers. Because Jiffy-Jell is Jell-O with a twist. Instead of blending flavor and color into the gelatin crystals, Otis puts the flavoring and coloring into an alcohol solution. He then packages it in sealed glass vials, separate from the powder. Customers mix it in themselves when they make the gelatin—and Otis believes this gives Jiffy-Jell a bolder flavor than Jell-O.

And to break into the market, Otis takes out ads in women’s magazines. He offers every household a free packet of Jiffy-Jell, inviting them to compare it to its more established rival. Soon, Otis’s factory is overwhelmed as thousands of letters arrive every week requesting a free sample. The feedback is encouraging too. Customers are impressed and many claim that Jiffy-Jell is indeed tastier than Jell-O.

But Jiffy-Jell hits a bump in the road in 1920. Prohibition takes effect, banning the manufacture and sale of any products containing alcohol—including Otis’s dessert. He finds an alternative solution for his flavoring, but it’s a volatile concoction that can explode under the right conditions. And soon, vials begin bursting on shelves across the country. As sticky liquid spills across shop floors and kitchen counters alike, demand for Jiffy-Jell plummets—and the Genesee Pure Food Company seizes the opportunity. It buys Jiffy-Jell and kills off the brand so it can no longer compete with Jell-O.

But Jell-O itself is soon up for sale too. In 1925, Orator Woodward’s children decide to cash out. They sell the business that their father founded to the Postum Cereal Company for the vast sum of $67 million.

And under this new management, Jell-O surges. Sales more than double in the first year, and continue growing even as the Great Depression takes hold in the 1930s. Jell-O’s low price makes it appealing to households under financial pressure, especially after Postum drops the price from 30 cents to 25.

But with growing sales come bigger ambitions. And in 1934, the company blows three-quarters of its annual marketing budget on sponsoring a radio show. Every Sunday evening at 7 PM, comedian Jack Benny takes to the airwaves for The Jell-O Program.

Jack Benny: “J-E-L-L-O. The Jell-O program starring Jack Benny with Mary Livingstone and Phil Harris and his orchestra.”

Each week, Jack introduces big band numbers, speaks directly to the audience, and shoehorns as many Jell-O references into the show as he can. It’s one of the most popular radio shows in America, and it sends Jell-O’s sales soaring even higher.

Even a world war can’t stop the brand’s rise. In May 1942, sugar becomes the first food to be rationed in the United States. But consumers don’t need ration stamps to buy Jell-O. Company bosses seize the moment, publishing a new book of recipes that are perfect for the wartime restrictions. It encourages housewives to disguise bruised fruit by serving it in Jell-O, and to revive stale bread by covering it with the Jell-O.

After the war, when rationing ends and the American economy starts to boom, Jell-O executives worry that sales may falter. So to keep the momentum going, they recruit another powerful voice. Jell-O partners with Lucille Ball to sponsor her radio show My Favorite Husband, the precursor to television smash hit I Love Lucy. Lucile Ball kicks off every episode with the cheerful greeting: “Jell-O everybody!”

And thanks to Jack Benny and Lucille Ball, by the start of the 1950s, Jell-O is one of the most recognizable brands in America. But soon, it will hit the headlines for a very different reason. Not for its celebrity endorsements, but for its connection to one of the most infamous criminal cases in American history.

Act Three

It’s March 1951, in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, 26 years after Jell-O was bought by the Postum Cereal Company.

The courtroom is silent as all eyes are fixed on the witness box, where 31-year-old David Greenglass stands with a Jell-O box and a pair of scissors. In a carefully staged moment, he begins slowly cutting a flap off the box.

Nine months ago, David was arrested and charged with espionage. Investigators suspected that he was part of a spy ring that supplied the Soviet Union with details of America’s atomic bomb technology. And under questioning, David confessed. But he also implicated his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, and her husband Julius. According to David, they led the conspiracy, not him. And now, David is on the stand, testifying against them as part of a plea deal.

With one final snip of the scissors, a flap falls from the Jell-O box. David holds it up, then presses it back in place, showing how it perfectly fits. Under gentle questioning, he explains that this was Julius Rosenberg’s method for verifying messages. Couriers would carry a torn piece of a Jell-O box. And only if it matched the original kept by Julius would they be trusted.

The evidence is striking. But the prosecutor doesn’t mention that David’s initial interrogation made no mention of this Jell-O box system. He also ignores the fact that no fragments of Jell-O boxes have ever been found in the possession of the accused. Nor has any other witness confirmed David’s story.

Even so, the Jell-O box theory is apparently convincing enough for the jury, and when the trial concludes, the Rosenbergs are found guilty. Two years later, after all their appeals are exhausted, they will be executed. For helping prosecutors, David will be spared the same fate. Instead, he’ll serve nine and a half years in prison.

But in 2001, David will admit that he lied on the stand to save his own life. Perhaps his story was so compelling to the jury in part because of the object at its center. It was not a secret codebook or complex cipher key the Rosenbergs allegedly used. It was a simple Jell-O box, found on store shelves across the country—an all-American product used to betray America, a product that had risen from humble beginnings to become one of the most recognizable brands in the country after it was trademarked on May 28th, 1897.

Outro

Next on History Daily. May 29th, 1945. A sophisticated forgery is unveiled when a Dutch art dealer is arrested for selling priceless paintings to the Nazis.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by William Simpson.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.