Force, first produced in 1901 by Force Food Company, one of three American companies owned by Edward Ellsworth and advertised using a popular cartoon figure called Sunny Jim, was the first commercially successful wheat flake cereal. Prior to this, the only successful wheat-based cereal products had been Shredded Wheat and the hot semolina cereal, Cream of Wheat. The product was cheap to produce and kept well on store shelves.
The first advertisin...
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Force, first produced in 1901 by Force Food Company, one of three American companies owned by Edward Ellsworth and advertised using a popular cartoon figure called Sunny Jim, was the first commercially successful wheat flake cereal. Prior to this, the only successful wheat-based cereal products had been Shredded Wheat and the hot semolina cereal, Cream of Wheat. The product was cheap to produce and kept well on store shelves.
The first advertising copy for the new product described the cereal as "The Food That is all Food", the advertising images showed rosy-cheeked children, and it was sold in a box decorated with images of muscular men wrestling with chains. Perhaps because it was not initially targeted at a well defined market, it did not sell well.
In late 1901 Minnie Maud Hanff, a freelance jingle writer, invented the character Jimmy Dumps, a morose character who on eating the cereal was transformed into Sunny Jim. Dorothy Ficken produced line drawings, and Hanff produced light...
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