Inventing Baby Food:

1
Inventing Baby Food

• Gerber and the Discourse of Infancy in the United
  States

2
In the preindustrial Western World, 95 of
children were breast-fed either by their mothers
or wet nurses. Pap or panada-small of babies
brought up by hand, a mixture of boiled flour and
water or animal milk. Medical authorities took
charge by devising complicated formulas only they
could administer as breast milk replacements.
Rima Apple, Medicalization of motherhood. Medica
l advice recommended not only that an infants
mouth be swabbed and rinsed with fresh water
after every feeding, but the breast be cleansed
with Boric Acid before/after.
3
Mellins Food
Wells
Nestles Milk Food
Leibegs Food
Eskays Albumenized Food
Clapps- Heinz 1935 Beech-Nut Libbys S
tokeley
Bordens Eagle Brand
Gerber
Wagners Infant Food
Imperial Granum
Carnricks Soluble Food
Richardson
4
Fremont Canning Company changed to Gerber
Products Company, exclusive makers of baby foods
1930842,000 cans of baby food 19311,311,500
cans of baby food 19322,259,818 cans of baby food
Dorothy Hope Smith submitted her charcoal sketch,
it is Gerbers official trademark in 1931
5
Several advertisements One ad in 1938 for
Libbys baby food pictured a baby barely able to
hold up its head. Hurry, Mother, its Libby
time? Tiny babies love the vegetables that Libby
prepares so carefully. Suggestions that young
babies should be eating solid foods, especially
Gerber baby foods.