Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2126
1894 advertisement for Mellins Food with illustration of Marian Louise Bowker, Neponset, Mass.
By the 1890s the most popular by far of the powders to be added to milk was Mellins Food, developed in England and manufactured in Boston, whose advertisements claimed that it was “the genuine Liebigs Food,” The best known of the dried-milk products was another European import, Nestles Milk Food, which was manufactured and distributed under license by a New York City firm. Advertisements for various proprietary infant foods because well-nigh ubiquitious by the 1890s….Nestles (“Best for Babies”) said it was better for babies than milk, for “impure milk in hot weather is one of the chief causes of sickness among babies.”…A favorite promotional technique was to offer free samples by mail to the readers of middle-class magazines. Perhaps the most effective with middle-class mothers…were the free handbooks on infant care feeding distributed by the companies. Mellins with its own press, was especially active in this field. The handbooks explained the chemistry of milk and feeding in clear but relatively sophisticated language, adding an aura of science to the food they were promoting.
see: http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodbaby.html
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