Vintage Advertisement of the Week – August 8, 2024
Absolutely adorable advertisement from 1955/1956. Widely circulated in baking and home and garden magazines.
History highlights: Baker’s Cocoa.
Baker’s Cocoa was started back in the 1760’s by two likeminded people named, John Hannon and Dr. James Baker in Dorchester, MA. Hannon was an Irish immigrant and businessman who sourced the cocoa, Baker was a Harvard graduate who used his money to back Hannon and his chocolate aspirations. It was originally called Hannon’s Best Chocolate. Hannon mysteriously disappeared while on a sourcing expedition in the West Indies in 1779. Sounds like the makings of a novel in the works. What really happened to Hannon? Did he die, did he disappear of his own volition? Maybe he was drawn to the West Indies and wanted to go off the 1770’s grid and live his life in the 18th Century tropic wilds. We shall never know. What we do know is his wife had no dreams of continuing the cocoa business. Washing her hands of the entire matter, his widow sold her stake in the company to Baker in 1780. Enter: the Baker Chocolate Company!1
Baker Chocolate Company is known for more products than the bitter baking chocolate bar you mistakingly took a big bite of out of your mom’s cupboard when you were 8 years old and thought all chocolate tasted like a Hershey’s bar. They carry a full line of chocolates, from semi-sweet, to white to 100 % cocoa to dipping chocolates (milk or dark).
Do you have any neat memories about baking with Baker’s Chocolate with your family? Feel free to share.
That cute ad art makes me want to whip up a cup of hot cocoa today!
- White, Anna. “Dorchester History Lesson: Baker Chocolate Factory.” Caught In Dot, 11 June 2022, caughtindot.com/dorchester-history-lesson-baker-chocolate-factory/. ↩︎
Tidbits and Timemachines 