Jell-oIn 1897, Jell-o was introduced, 52 years after Peter Cooper (inventor of the Tom Thumb engine) held the first U.S. patent for a gelatine dessert. Pearl B. Wait, a carpenter and cough medicine manufacturer from LeRoy, N.Y., produced varieties in strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon fruit flavours, named Jell-O by his wife, May Davis Wait. Sales were poor; Wait sold the Jell-O business for $450 to his neighbor, Orator F.Woodward, who had founded the Genesee Pure Food Co. two years earlier. Success came slowly, but with Woodward's creative sales and sampling strategies, Jell-O began to catch on. In 1902, when he launched his first advertising campaign in Ladies' Home Journal, sales eventually reached $250,000. |
