Mellin's Infant Food
Humphrey Bogart as a baby was "The Mellins Baby Food Baby".The picture was painted by Bogies Mother; Maude Humphrey Bogart. Evena tough guy; has a soft side and one does have to eat; just kidding Bogie.”
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Before Gerber Babies—those healthy infant faces peering at us from Gerber's Baby Food ads—there were Mellin's Babies. This ad at left from an early twentieth-century issue of Harper's shows us F. Sumner Warren of Somerville—an exemplar of the happy, healthy children fed on Mellin's baby food (or so the copywriters wished us to think). The food itself was an additive said to give cow's milk all the nutritional properties of breast milk. In reality, Mellin's Food was nothing more than malt extract. In spite of its nutritional limitations, by the 1890's Mellin's Food was the most popular of the infant foods sold in the United States. This success was due primarily to aggressive marketing—advertisements for Mellin's often included supposed testimonials from parents that Mellin's had brought their children back from the brink of death. But whether the food actually improved children's health or not, being the face of Mellin's often launched a baby on a career in modeling or show business. Humphrey Bogart was a Mellin's Baby. So was Ruth Gordon Jones of Harold and Maude.
http://www.somervillepubliclibrary.org/localhistory/Archive/index-Oct10-mellin.htm
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Before Gerber Babies—those healthy infant faces peering at us from Gerber's Baby Food ads—there were Mellin's Babies. This ad at left from an early twentieth-century issue of Harper's shows us F. Sumner Warren of Somerville—an exemplar of the happy, healthy children fed on Mellin's baby food (or so the copywriters wished us to think). The food itself was an additive said to give cow's milk all the nutritional properties of breast milk. In reality, Mellin's Food was nothing more than malt extract. In spite of its nutritional limitations, by the 1890's Mellin's Food was the most popular of the infant foods sold in the United States. This success was due primarily to aggressive marketing—advertisements for Mellin's often included supposed testimonials from parents that Mellin's had brought their children back from the brink of death. But whether the food actually improved children's health or not, being the face of Mellin's often launched a baby on a career in modeling or show business. Humphrey Bogart was a Mellin's Baby. So was Ruth Gordon Jones of Harold and Maude.
http://www.somervillepubliclibrary.org/localhistory/Archive/index-Oct10-mellin.htm
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