¹ E. W. Williams, “Frozen Foods 2000 A.D.: A Fantasy of the Future,” Quick Frozen Foods [hereafter referred to as QFF] (Feb. 1954): 101–8; Bellamy, Edward, Looking Backward: 2000–1887 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967 [1888])CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the context and significant impact of Bellamy's work, see Tichi, Cecilia, Shifting Gears: Technology, Literature, and Culture in Modernist America (Chapel Hill, 1987)Google Scholar, and Smith, Carl, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman (Chicago, 1995), 210–20Google Scholar.

² By “frozen food industry,” I am primarily referring to packers such as Birds Eye, Stokely-Van Camp, Libby, McNeill, and Libby, and Minute Maid, and to wholesale distributors, whose names are less familiar. Frozen-food packers processed frozen vegetables, fruit, concentrated juice, seafood, and meat and poultry. They generally maintained their own farms or contracted out to large commercial farmers (such as Seabrook Farms in New Jersey) to receive raw food materials. Consequently, in referring to packers as producers, I mean to indicate their involvement in producing raw materials as well as value-added, processed goods. As will be shown, retailers (supermarkets) and manufacturers of auxiliary goods, such as home freezers, were also significant players in the industry, but their interests did not always necessarily coincide with those of packers and distributors.

³ Tedlow, Richard S., New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America (New York, 1990)Google Scholar; and Tedlow, Richard and Jones, Geoffrey, eds., The Rise and Fall of Mass Marketing (London, 1993)Google Scholar; Strasser, Susan, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York, 1989)Google Scholar.

⁴ Strasser, Susan, McGovern, Charles, and Judt, Matthias, eds., Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohen, Lizabeth, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (Cambridge, U.K., 1990)Google Scholar; Jacobs, Meg, The Politics of Purchasing Power (Princeton, forthcoming)Google Scholar; Frank, Dana, Purchasing Power: Consumer Organizing, Gender, and the Seattle Labor Movement, 1919–1929 (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Weems, Robert E. Jr, Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.

⁵ Frank, Thomas, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ Although Birdseye often claimed that he had “invented” frozen foods after a eureka moment on an Arctic fishing trip, his main contribution to the industry was to gather capital and publicity for the burgeoning industry. See Wilde, Mark W., “Industrialization of Food Processing in the United States, 1860–1960” (Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 1988), 201–43Google Scholar.

⁷ “Frozen Food Merchandising in Resort Towns,” QFF (Sept. 1948): 44; “Frozen Food Enters Selling Era,” 28–9.

⁸ Wilde, “Industrialization of Food Processing”; Levenstein, Harvey, Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America (New York, 1993), 106–8Google Scholar; “Frozen Foods: Interim Report,” Fortune, Aug. 1946, 104–9, 178–82; “Frozen Food Enters Selling Era,” Business Week, 4 Jan. 1947, 28.

⁹ W. M. Walsh, “A Message from the President,” Annual Yearbook of Frozen Food Distribution (1949), 9.

¹⁰ Even more dramatic rates of growth can be seen for frozen peas and snap beans. Consumption of other frozen vegetables, such as broccoli, also increased, but not at the same rates. “Per Capita Consumption Comparison,” Frozen Food Factbook [hereafter referred to as FFF] (1957), 91; “Frozen Fruits, Vegetables Usage Continues Post-War Uptrend,” QFF (Sept. 1957): 107.

¹¹ “Frozen Concentrated Citrus Juice Process Covered by Public Service Patent,” Fruit Products Journal and American Food Manufacturer (Mar. 1949): 195, 219; J. L. Heid, “Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice,” Fruit Products Journal and American Food Manufacturer (Apr. 1949): 232–3; McPhee, John, Oranges (New York, 1966), 122–33Google Scholar; Gray Singleton, “Experiments with Citrus Juices,” Fruit Products Journal and American Food Manufacturer (Jul. 1948): 314–15, 331; E. W. Williams, “The Minute Maid Story,” QFF (Mar. 1955): 250–82.

¹² Compiled from Minute Maid, Annual Corporate Reports, 1946–1951. On Bing Crosby's relationship with Minute Maid, see McPhee, Oranges, 138; “Where Do Frozen Concentrates Go from Here?” QFF (Nov. 1948): 47–9, 92; “Bing Crosby Minute Maid Corp. to Handle Calif. Distribution,” QFF (Nov. 1949): 62.

¹³ George Haddock, “Frozen Foods: Billion Dollar Industry,” Nation's Business, Jun. 1954, 60–2; “Frozen Foods: Interim Report”; “Biggest Vegetable Factory on Earth,” Life, 3 Jan. 1953, 40–3; “Output Doubled in Frozen Foods,” New York Times, 15 Apr. 1963, 118.

¹⁴ Holroyd, William McGinnis, “Influences and Challenges of the Growing Frozen Food Industry on Refrigerated Transport Equipment” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1960)Google Scholar; “Technology in Food Marketing,” FFF (1953): 36–55; James A. Mixon and Harold D. Johnson, “Iceboxes on Wheels,” in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Yearbook of Agriculture, 1954: Marketing (Washington, D.C., 1954), 103–4Google Scholar; Alan F. Keenan, “Long Haul Refrigerated Motor Carrier Transportation,” QFF (Nov. 1948): 70.

¹⁵ “More Mechanical Reefers for Frozen Food Transportation,” FFF (1954): 97.

¹⁶ Van Arsdel, Wallace B., Copley, Michael Joseph, and Olson, Robert L., Quality and Stability of Frozen Foods: Time, Temperature Tolerance and Its Significance (New York, 1969), 288, 297Google Scholar; R. M. Conner, “Freezer Space in Nation's Warehouses Is Increasing at a Fast Pace,” FFF (1954): 25; “Birds Eye Opens New Warehouse,” Business Week, 26 June 1948, 78–81.

¹⁷ Lizabeth Cohen has documented the early impact of chains on urban neighborhoods in Making a New Deal, 99–158. On the postwar boom of supermarkets, see Applebaum, William, Super Marketing: The Past, the Present, a Projection (Chicago, 1969)Google Scholar; Zimmerman, Max Mandell, The Super Market: A Revolution in Distribution (New York, 1955)Google Scholar; Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, 113–14.

¹⁸ “Why Frozen Foods Are Climbing,” Chain Store Age [hereafter referred to as CSA] (Mar. 1956): 138.

¹⁹ “Frozen Food Sales Gaining in Chains and Supermarkets,” QFF (Nov. 1951): 43; Joseph J. Trout, “Get Ready for More Frozen Food Business,” Progressive Grocer (May 1951): 72; “Annual Frozen Foods Merchandising Section,” CSA (May 1954): 95; “Chain Store Meeting Focuses Spotlight of Enthusiasm on Frozen Foods,” QFF (Oct. 1953): 95.

²⁰ “What Chain Stores Think about Frozen Foods,” QFF (Mar. 1950): 35; “A. & P. Experiment,” Business Week, 24 Aug. 1946, 57–8, 62.

²¹ “Comeback for Frozen Foods,” Business Week, 19 Mar. 1949, 23.

²² “Safeway Stores to Expand Frozen Food Installations,” QFF (May 1949): 68; “Safeway Goes All out on Frozen Foods,” QFF (Mar. 1951): 90.

²³ Brand, Edward A., Modern Supermarket Operation (New York, 1963), 53, 54Google Scholar.

²⁴ Zimmerman, The Super Market; Brand, Modern Supermarket Operation, 53; “Packers, Chains—And Distributors,” QFF (Oct. 1950): 35; “Retail Frozen Food Prices Declined 3.9% in Past Year,” QFF (Dec. 1951): 37; “It Isn't Quite Fair, Is It?” QFF (Jun. 1958): 178. Chandler, Alfred D. Jr has explained the importance of “throughput” and the elimination of middlemen for the success of “modern, rationalized industrial enterprises” in Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass., 1990)Google Scholar and The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977)Google Scholar.

²⁵ “Annual Frozen Foods Merchandising Section,” CSA (May 1954): 96; “Reach-In Case Sells More Frozen Foods,” Progressive Grocer (Dec. 1957): 66; Zimmerman, The Super Market, 148.

²⁶ Wilde, “Industrialization of Food Processing,” 236. The importance of military purchases would become apparent again during the Korean War. See “Frozen Foods in Wartime,” QFF (Sept. 1950): 39; “Quartermaster Frozen Food Purchases Reach All-Time High,” FFF (1952): 98; “Military Buying of Frozen Foods Shows a Big Increase,” QFF (Mar. 1952): 99.

²⁷ On the connection between rising income levels and increased spending on processed foods in postwar America, see Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, 101–2. On the steady increase of women in the work force in the 1950s and 1960s, see Kessler-Harris, Alice, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (New York, 1982), 300–19Google Scholar.

²⁸ “Home Freezers Increase Frozen Food Consumption,” QFF (Sept. 1949): 39; “Home Freezer Sales Are Setting New Records,” QFF (Aug. 1950): 33; “Home Freezer Sales Break All Records,” FFF (1952): 111; “The Freezer—Rocking the Food Industry,” Business Week, 28 Mar. 1953, 64–74.

²⁹ “25% to 50 % More Space,” Life, 13 Nov. 1950, 69.

³⁰ See, for instance, “Home Freezer Sales Are Setting New Records.”

³¹ Roland Marchand has documented the tendency of 20th-century advertisers to depict products being used by consumers in a higher income bracket than the intended audience, in Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley, Calif. 1985)Google Scholar.

³² See particularly Minnesota Valley Canning Company [Green Giant], Annual Report, 1948, 5. The company did try a limited run of frozen green peas in 1953 but found “the lack of profit generally throughout the industry in frozen peas, has determined us not to expand this operation at the present time.” Green Giant Company, Annual Report, 1953, 3–4.

³³ Libby, McNeill, and Libby, Annual Report, 1946.

³⁴ “New Market for Frozen Food,” Business Week, 23 June 1951,134–5.

³⁵ “Frozen Food Squeeze,” Business Week, 22 Feb. 1947, 69–72; Williams, Edwin W., Frozen Foods: A Biography of an Industry (Boston, 1970), 65Google Scholar; “Comeback for Frozen Foods,” Business Week, 19 Mar. 1949, 23.

³⁶ “What Happened to B Grade?” QFF (Feb. 1953): 39; “Are B Grade Brands Coming Back?” QFF (Aug. 1958): 310.

³⁷ “Royal Variety for America's Queen,” FFF (1952): 116.

³⁸ “Adventures in Frozen Food Handling, ch. 8: Red Learns Why Frozen Vegetables Are Better,” QFF (Aug. 1958): 70. On the role of agricultural scientists in the development of processed foods, see Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, 109–10. For fascinating depictions of the technological complexity of a frozen-food farm and processing plant, see: “Biggest Vegetable Factory on Earth,” Life, 3 Jan. 1953, 40–3.

³⁹ E. W. Williams, “Frozen Foods Forum,” QFF (Sept. 1948): 41.

⁴⁰ The published study appeared in a refereed science journal: Burger, Marie et al. , “Nutrients in Frozen Foods, Vitamin, Mineral, and Proximate Composition of Frozen Fruits, Juices, and Vegetables,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 4 (May 1956): 418–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ “Scientific Proof of Nutritional Superiority to Multiply Demand for Frozen Foods,” QFF (Apr. 1956): 132.

⁴² “The Wisconsin Study of Frozen Food Nutritional Values,” FFF (1957): 66–71. By selling nutrition, packers were tapping into a relatively recent trend of Americans paying attention to the healthfulness of food. Levenstein, Harvey, Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet (New York, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁴³ Canned-food makers complained that the canned vegetables under study had already been cooked by the processors. Frozen foods, they argued, would lose vitamin content after consumers cooked them.

⁴⁴ For a detailed description of the inspection process, see Dennis T. Avery, “A Day with a Fruit & Vegetable Inspector,” QFF (Sept. 1964): 43.

⁴⁵ See, for instance, “The Frozen Food Critic,” QFF (Aug. 1948): 71.

⁴⁶ F. Gilbert Lamb, “Let's Stress Quality in Frozen Foods,” FFF (1957): 13, 51, 53; M. J. Copley, “Keeping Frozen Foods at Zero All the Time Best Assurance of Consumer Satisfaction,” QFF (Feb. 1957): 177; Albert I. Ris, “A Message from the President,” FFF (1957–58): 7.

⁴⁷ The task force's findings were published in a series of articles in the journal Food Technology, beginning with Van Arsdel, W. B., “The Time-Temperature Tolerance of Frozen Foods: I. Introduction—The Problem and the Attack,” Food Technology 11 (Jan. 1957): 28 33Google Scholar. The series was eventually collected, revised, and republished as Van Arsdel, Wallace B., Copley, Michael Joseph, and Olson, Robert L., Quality and Stability of Frozen Foods: Time, Temperature Tolerance and Its Significance (New York, 1969)Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Sterling P. Doughty, “Task Force 1957' Is Answer to Industry's Handling Problems,” FFF (1957–58): 13.

⁴⁹ See, for instance, Harry K. Schauffler, “Foreword,” FFF (1952): 9: “30% fewer household domestics than in 1940 … demands solution of kitchen chores through convenient frozen foods.” Also, “The Frozen Food Era Is Coming In!” QFF (Mar. 1949): 93; “The Fabulous Market for Food,” Fortune, Oct. 1953, 135–41, 271–6.

⁵⁰ Harry K. Schauffler, “Foreword,” FFF (1950): 5.

⁵¹ “Ways to Cut down Kitchen Work,” Life, 3 Jan. 1953, 16–20.

⁵² “Frozen Peas Today as Cheap—Often Cheaper than Canned,” QFF (Mar. 1953): 105.

⁵³ “155 Million Consumers—and More Food Than Ever Before!” QFF (Feb. 1952): 41; Harry K. Schauffler, “Foreword—and Forward!” FFF (1954): 5; Hubert F. Sandoz, “It Costs Less to Pack Frozen Foods than the Equivalent Canned Goods!” FFF (1954): 29–31; Richard M. Page, “A Message from the President,” FFF (1957): 7; Patsy D'Agostino, “The Frozen Food Industry Is Getting Streamlined!” Frozen Food Yearbook, (1950): 25.

⁵⁴ Charles W. Lubin, “It's Easy to Get Your Price for Quality,” FFF (1957–58): 27.

⁵⁵ Jacobs, Meg, “Inflation: The ‘Permanent Dilemma’ of the American Middle Classes,” in Social Contracts under Stress: The Middle Classes of America, Europe, and Japan at the Turn of the Century, eds. Zunz, Olivier, Schoppa, Leonard, and Hiwatari, Nobuhiro (New York, 2002), 130–53Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, 117.

⁵⁷ “NAFFP Consumer Education Program,” QFF (Nov. 1948): 84.

⁵⁸ General Foods Kitchens, General Foods Kitchens Frozen Foods Cookbook: Modern Living with Frozen Foods (New York, 1961), ix–xGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁹ Simpson, Jean I., The Frozen Food Cook Book and Guide to Home Freezing, 2nd ed. (New York, 1962), 29, 205Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Ibid., 331. Simpson also included mashed potatoes on the suggested menu, but felt that “frozen” and “mashed” were adjectives that could only be applied separately to “potatoes.”

⁶¹ Barber, Edith Michael, The Silver Jubilee Super Market Cook Book (New York, 1955), 438Google Scholar.

⁶² Carl Dipman, “Better Take a Good Look at the Freezer-Food Business,” Progressive Grocer (July 1952): 88; “‘Stock Your Freezer’ Month Launches Oct. 1 with Industry-Wide Support,” QFF (Oct. 1949): 42.

⁶³ “Trends in the Use of Frozen Foods by U.S. Housewives,” QFF (Mar. 1952): 105.

⁶⁴ The first study had shown that 30 percent of all nonusers (and 35 percent of those with yearly incomes under $2,000) claimed that frozen foods were “too expensive,” while the 1952 study showed a total of 36 percent of all nonusers (with no separate data on income groups) having the same concern. “What the American Housewife Thinks of Frozen Foods,” QFF (Apr. 1949): special insert section.

⁶⁵ This generalization is based on a systematic biannual (all odd years) sampling of Life and Ladies' Home Journal issues from 1945 to 1965, plus perusal of issues from the evennumbered years between 1950 and 1956.

⁶⁶ “Answers to a Quiz on Bigger Biz,” CSA (May 1954): 98.

⁶⁷ John Soluri has made a similar point in his study of the United Fruit Company's “Miss Chiquita” banana sales campaign of the 1940s and 1950s. According to Soluri, the company developed the “Miss Chiquita” campaign primarily as a means of encouraging supermarkets to adopt the practice of buying bananas by the (branded) box rather than by the (unbranded) bag. A graphic of Miss Chiquita was printed on the outside of the box, making for a free and attractive display case, with tie-ins to a national television and radio advertising campaign featuring a catchy jingle. Supermarkets thus received free national advertising in exchange for buying only Chiquita bananas. Soluri, John, “(Trans)Gendering the Banana: Monocultures, Supermarkets, and the Birth of Miss Chiquita, 1929–1972” (paper presented at Hagley Center Conference on Consumption and the Environment, Wilmington, Del., 9 Mar. 2001)Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ “Better Living for Everyone … from Kelvinator,” Ladies'Home Journal, June 1959, 102.

⁶⁹ “Who Uses Frozen Foods?” FFF (1952): 51.

⁷⁰ Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream.

⁷¹ William H. Kearns, “Why Women Buy Frozen Foods,” QFF (Nov. 1953): 51.

⁷² “National Frozen Food Week,” FFF (1950): 43.

⁷³ Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, 105.

⁷⁴ For an overview of the brief but intense recession of 1957–58, see Sloan, John, Eisenhower and the Management of Prosperity (Lawrence, Kans., 1991), 133–51Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ Ben B. Bliss, “Reach Home with Local Ads by Teaming up with Broker,” QFF (Mar. 1959): 146.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ “Motivation Research and Frozen Foods,” QFF (June 1960): 29.

⁷⁸ Fred R. Fleischman, “Breakfast Lines, Diet Foods, Teen-Age Market, Senior Citizens, All Beckon,” QFF (Apr. 1962): 184, 186. Emphasis in original. For more on the social and political history of segmented marketing, see Cohen, Lizabeth, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York, 2003)Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ “15 Million Negroes—Vast Market for Quality Frozen Foods,” QFF (Aug. 1954): 40.

⁸⁰ “The Negro Market for Frozen Foods,” QFF (Apr. 1960): 106.

⁸¹ Stokely-Van Camp, Annual Report, 1959; General Foods, Annual Report, 1962.

⁸² “The Negro Market”; “Supermarket in All-Negro Neighborhood Tops National Average for Frozen Food Sales,” QFF (June 1961): 94. Lizabeth Cohen has described a remarkably similar situation in 1920s Chicago, where blacks preferred chain stores and national brands for exactly these two reasons. Cohen, Making a New Deal, 147–56. Robert E. Weems, in Desegregating the Dollar, has argued that these status-seeking consumption patterns of African Americans have had contradictory effects for blacks' efforts to gain economic and civil justice.

⁸³ “The Negro Market,” 106–7.

⁸⁴ “Is the Frozen Food Retailer Freezing out the Negro Market?” QFF (June 1964): 106, 104. It is interesting to note that this author felt that supermarkets, by locating in suburban areas, were failing to serve this important market segment. The problem of urban black access to cheap, quality food would become even more pronounced after many chains fled inner cities following the 1967–68 riots. See Marion, Donald R., Supermarkets in the City (Amherst, 1977)Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ “Religious Market for FF: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish,” QFF (Dec. 1958): 40–2, 144–5.

⁸⁶ “Kosher Frozen Meals Form Basis of Successful Retail Business,” QFF (Aug. 1963): 93, 94. The article left it to the reader's imagination to figure out the toppings on the Noah Zark pizza.

⁸⁷ “Annual Frozen Food Merchandising Section,” CSA (Apr; 1959): 171–2. See also June Owen, “Frozen Products: New Dishes on Market Vary from New England to Oriental Specialties,” New York Times, 1 Apr. 1958, 37.

⁸⁸ “No End to Prepared Foods Climb as New Sales Patterns Emerge,” QFF (Oct. 1957): 35.

⁸⁹ “National FF Market Can Expand in U.S. Via Adaptation of Foreign Favorites,” QFF (Sept. 1962): 99–104.

⁹⁰ “Who Eats Frozen Dinners?” QFF (Mar. 1963): 86.

⁹¹ “Children's Preferences Determine Growth of Many Frozen Items,” QFF (June 1961): 40–2.

⁹² “The Teen-Age Market for Frozen Foods,” QFF (Mar. 1960): 141–2.

⁹³ Ibid., 144.

⁹⁴ “Acne?,” Seventeen (Mar. 1962): 158; “What Does Orange Juice Have to Do with You and Your Beautiful Skin?,” Seventeen (Feb. 1963): 153; “Cook for Fun … Eat for Beauty!,” Seventeen (Sep. 1963): 165; “Party Line-Up?,” Seventeen (May. 1963): 164–5.

⁹⁵ Bingham, John E., Kramlich, C. Richard, and Leland, John D. Jr, Are Frozen Foods Profitable for Supermarkets? (Boston, 1960)Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ “Just How Profitable Is the Frozen Food Department?” QFF (May 1962): 174.

⁹⁷ “No End to Prepared Foods Climb,” 35; “Consumer Attitudes towards Frozen Foods,” QFF (Oct. 1960): 86–96; “Frozen Fruits Widen Sales Base among Lower Income Groups,” QFF (Mar. 1957):44.

⁹⁸ E. W. Williams, “Frozen Foods Forum,” QFF (Nov. 1958): 27; “Future of Frozen Foods Is in Higher Quality, Higher Priced Products,” QFF (Sept. 1964): 186; quote is from “Retailers Advised to Get Set for Rise in Demand for Prepared Frozen Foods,” QFF (Aug. 1958): 67.

⁹⁹ “Sauce Varieties other than Butter Create Plus Sales for Prepared Vegetable Packer,” QFF (Nov. 1964): 81.

¹⁰⁰ “why Should Vegetables Be the ‘Quiet Corner’ of Your Plate?” Ladies' Home Journal, Sept. 1963, 38.

¹⁰¹ General Foods, Annual Report, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958.

¹⁰² Green Giant Co., Annual Report, 1962.

¹⁰³ “Quality Packer's Soaring Sales Prove that Upgrading Pays,” QFF (Feb. 1958): 33.

¹⁰⁴ “Annual Frozen Food Merchandising Section,” CSA (Apr. 1959): 160.