Jell-O: America’s Most Famous Dessert: At Home Everywhere

Introduction

An exhibit highlighting materials from the University of Michigan Special Collections Library.

First trademarked in 1897, Jell-O began its rise in popularity with the introduction in 1904 of the prophetic slogan "America's Most Famous Dessert." Soon accompanying the slogan was the blonde Jell-O Girl, an icon of the product for almost half a century. As the slogan aspired, Jell-O became both famous and quintessentially American: it is sweet and processed, colorful and slightly fantastical. Advertising for the brand worked hard to appeal to the many Americas, negotiating class and race (with varying success) to suggest versatility. In the period 1904-1929, Jell-O advertising was distinctively characterized by luscious color illustrations of “molded jellies” (what we would know as “gelatin molds”) elaborately decorated and served in equally illustrative settings. Fantastical settings – fairy tales and Arabian nights, domestic settings real and imagined, foreign and American – positioned Jell-O as not only America’s most famous dessert but one that was “at home everywhere.”

Overview

Jell-O is an iconographic product, both famous and quintessentially American: it is sweet and processed, colorful and slightly fantastical. It..

Production Overview

Progressive Era food advertising often relied on ideas of food purity, hygiene, sanitation and scientific production. For Jell-O, this meant..

Exotic Tales Overview

Advertising that reproduced in collectable small pamphlets fairy tales, folk tales, and exotic stories provided Jell-O with an imagined genealogy...

Jell-O Girl Adventures Overview

The adventures of the Jell-O Girl appropriate imagined ethnic and national symbols for playful advertising. Just as a child can..

Imagining the Other Overview

In the aftermath of World War One, it is popularly imagined that a non-interventionist America turned away from the world;..

Imagining the Other at Home Overview

In the aftermath of World War One, it is popularly imagined that American turned away from the world; this inwards..