White Bread

by Aaron Bobrow-Strain

  Shapiro, Laura, 11

  Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 154

  Sheraton, Mimi, 183–84

  Sherman, H. C., 99, 100

  Sherwood, R. C., 120

  Shiva, Vandana, 158–59

  Sickels, Emma, 32

  Siebel Institute of Technology, 61

  Siegmond, Warren E., 129

  Sienna, 4

  Silverton, Nancy, 53, 70

  Simmons, Patrick, 186

  Sinclair, Upton, 18, 38

  Sister Corita, 166, 168

  sixties counterculture. See counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s

  sliced bread: appeal of streamlined design in, 57–60; invention of, 55–57; need for bread uniformity and, 64; softness of bread and, 57

  Slim, Carlos, 160

  slow fermentation, 54, 70

  slow food, xi, 71

  small-bakery revival, 183–84

  social change: immigrants blamed for, 21; made by women in the kitchen, 174–76. See also social reform

  social Darwinism, 88

  social hierarchies. See class; racial hierarchies; social status

  socialism, utopian, 59

  social reform: counterculture movement of 1960s and 1970s, 167, 168; on dangers of poor hygiene and germs, 33–34; for healthy eating habits and hygienic eating, 36–37; in Progressive Era, 21–23

  social status: bread choices and, 37, 46, 186–87; bread consumption and, 7; healthy eating and elite, 187. See also class

  soft/softness of bread, 57, 72, 129, 160

  Sokolsky, George, 147

  sourdough bread/starters, 23, 53, 70, 184

  South America, Grupo Bimbo in, 160–61

  South Park (TV program), 165

  Soviet Union, 127, 139, 141–42

  Spencer, Herbert, 59

  “staff of death,” 92, 117

  Standard Brands, 116, 119

  status. See social status sterilization, forced, 93, 94. See also eugenics

  Stern, Alexandra Minna, 35

  Stiebeling, Hazel K., 120

  St. Louis Bread Company, 183

  Stolzenbach’s bakery, 41

  Stone, Lucy, 84

  store-bought bread: bought in the 1940s and 1950s, 122–23; convenience and, 30; late nineteenth century, 23; shift from homemade bread to, 29–30. See also industrial bread

  Stowe, Catherine, 31–32, 60

  Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 31–32, 60

  streamlined aesthetic, 57–60

  strength and defense, dreams of, 8; and association between individual/national strength and enriched bread, 121, 123, 125–30; and bread consumption during 1940s and 1950s, 121–23; and Canadian Bread, 113; and civilian diet during wartime, 108–9; and Cornell Bread, 113; and impact of enriched bread, 130–31; and national education campaign for enriched bread, 118–20; national security and food, 105–9; and nutritional preparedness for World War II, 110–12; and reasons for eating industrial white bread, 123–25; and success of enriched bread, 120–21; and synthetic enrichment, 112, 113–14; and War Bread, 112–13. See also alternative food movement

  strikes, bakery, 35, 36

  Stude, Henry, 100

  suffrage activists, 84

  sugar, 2, 6, 15, 43, 85, 89, 90, 179, 182

  Sullivan, Steve, 184, 185, 186

  Sullivan Street Bakery, 184

  Sun-Made bread, 161

  supermarkets, bakeries in, 183

  Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), 144, 145, 147

  Swenerton, Hilda, 179

  “swill dairies,” 18

  Switzerland, 113

  synthetic enrichment. See enriched bread

  Syria, 3

  Tassajara Bread Book (Brown), 169, 181

  technological progress: and Progressivism, 22; utopian thought and, 59–60. See also industrial bread

  technology, Green Revolution, 153–55, 157–59

  techno-scientific baking, 60. See also industrial bread; scientific baking and eating

  temperance movement, 22, 80, 85

  tenements, 35, 36–37, 82

  thiamin, 90, 115; thiamin deficiency, 111–12

  Tip-Top bread, 29, 41

  toaster, first pop-up, 58

  Toastmaster toaster, 58

  Tom Cat Bakery (New York), 184

  Tompkins, Kyla, 87

  tortillas, 6, 134, 149

  Tour de France, 74

  Truman, Harry S., 125, 136–37, 140

  Tryon, Thomas, 78

  Turkey, 3, 139

  typhoid, 34

  typhus, 46

  unbleached flour, 68, 180

  United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 159

  United States: Cold War industrial food production and, 134–36; El Trigo de Rockefeller, 152–53; eugenics movement in, 93–94; famine relief from, 135, 136–37; Grupo Bimbo in, 161; history of bread consumption in, 4; history of eating and defense connection in, 108–9; humanitarian aid during World War II by, 136–40; pushing white bread in Japan, 144–48; social order of bread in, 7; superiority of consumerism and bread in, 140–44; wheat shipments to Mexico from, 150–51

  “United States of Arugula” (Kamp) 12, 185

  unpasteurized milk, 17–18, 47–48

  upper class: Progressive Era social reform and, 23

  U.S. Bureau of Chemistry, 66, 67

  U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 69, 99–100, 114, 122, 123, 128, 148

  U.S. Department of Commerce, 120

  U.S. Supreme Court, 67, 68

  utopian thinking, 58–59

  Vande Velde, Christian, 73–74

  Van Nuys industrial park (La Brea Bakery), 52–54, 70

  vegetables, 4, 15, 16, 58, 81, 83, 84, 96, 100, 107, 145, 146, 152, 179

  Vegetarian Gothic (Willet), 169–70

  Vegetarian Settlement Company, 86

  Veracruz, Mexico, 150

  Victory Gardens, 107

  Villa, Francisco, 148

  vitamins: American knowledge of, 117–18; B1, 115; B2, 110; deficiencies in, 110–11; enriched bread helping Americans become conscious of, 120; in whole wheat bread, 96, 97. See also thiamin

  Vogue (magazine), 182

  Vreeland, Diana, ix

  Wahl Efficiency Institute, 61

  Wahl-Heinus Institute of Fermentology, 61

  Wallace, Henry, 151

  Walla Walla, Washington, 15–16; artisan bread in, 52; Brasserie Four in, 51; knowing where your food comes from in, 48; liberal stereotypes in, 105–6; wine tourism in, 10

  walnut levain, at Acme Bakery, 185–86

  “War Bread,” 112–13

  Ward Bakery, 20–21, 24, 28

  Ward Baking Company, 45–46; advances made by, 24–25; automatic baking by, 20–21; clean bread advertising by, 40–41, 44; history of, 25; monopolies and mergers, 27–29; in New York, 26–27; in Pittsburgh, 25–26; whole wheat bread sold by, 111; workers’ conditions under, 35–36

  Ward Food Products Corporation (WFPC), 27–28

  Ward, George, 26, 30, 37

  Ward, Hugh, 25, 26

  Ward, James, 25

  Ward, Robert, 26

  Ward, William, 27–29, 35, 44, 178

  War Food Order Number 1, 117

  Warren, Mary D., 60

  wartime: bread rationing during, 136; campaign for enrichment during, 109, 117–21, 123, 130; civilian diet and, 108–9. See also World War II

  Washington Post, 186

  Weis, Robert, 150

  Weston Foods, 133, 161

  West Waterloo, Iowa, 110

  wheat: American conservation of, 137; gluten-free diet and, 74–75; grown in Mexico, 150, 152–53; history of anxieties about, 78; local, 83, 87; preferred over corn in Mexico, 149–50; refined, 78, 83. See also flour

  wheat bread. See whole wheat bread

  wheat harvest (1946), 136

  white bread: as an adjective, 164–65, 173; “Americanizing” immigrants, 7; American superiority and, 95–96; associated with status in Mexico, 149; associations wi
th whiteness of, 64–66; attacks against, 88–90, 97–98; compared with Russian bread during Cold War, 141–42; consumed during 1930s and 1940s, and counterculture of 1960s and 1970s, 165, 178–79; current consumer profile for, 187; decrease in consumption (1967–1982), 180; eaten in moderation, 99–100; vs. European bread, 142–44; in Japan, 144–48; made in Mexico, 153–55; Mexican Bimbo bread, 133–34; Mexican consumption of, 148–50; nutritional superiority of, 96–97; racial fitness and, 95–96; sixties counterculture’s criticism of, 166–67, 170; USDA endorsement of, 99, 100. See also enriched bread; industrial bread

  white flour, 66–68, 78, 83, 89, 98, 99

  whiteness of bread, 64–66

  white supremacy, 21. See also racial eugenics; racial purity

  white trash, 163–65, 187–88

  White Trash Cookbook (Mickler), 187

  White Trash Cooking, 163

  White Trash Etiquette, 163

  “White Trash Manifesto” (Crimson Spectre), 188

  white wheat bread, 65–66

  Whitman College, 16

  Whitmer bakeries, 96

  whole wheat berry, 112

  whole wheat bread: associated with status, 186–87; consumed in the late 1970s, 172; consumed in 1920s and 1930s, 98–99; consumed in 1930s and 1940s, 111; counterculture of 1960s and 1970s and, 173–74; criticism of, 96–97; Graham on, 15, 83, 84; health benefits of, 95; large-scale production of, 88–89; made at home in 1970s, 181–82; made by industrial bakers, 98–99; nutritional value of, 97; outselling white bread, 14; postwar consumption of, 123; USDA statement on, 99, 100

  Wiggam, Albert Edward, 93

  Wiley, Harvey W., 19, 66–68

  Willet, Mo, 169–70

  Williams, Michael, 36

  Williams, Robert M., 114–15, 116–17

  window bakeries, 41

  Wisconsin Herald and Grant County Advertiser, 86

  Woman’s Home Companion, 141

  women: competing with industrial bread makers, 61–63; cooking as an expressive art and, 170; domestic expertise and, 31–33; “femivore’s dilemma,” 175–76; homemade bread and, 29–30; industrial bakers on homemade bread and, 62; making social change in the kitchen, 174–76; Mexican Agricultural Program and, 157–58; preferring store-bought bread, 30; and Progressive Era, 22. See also housewives

  Wonder Bakeries, 29

  Wonder bread, 29, 109, 126; advertisements, 70, 126, 127, 178; Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for boycott of, 168; misleading health claims by, 178; Sister Corita prints, 166, 168; in soul food, 187; white trash and, 165

  Woodbury, Clarence, 124

  Woodowson, E. M., 124

  wood pulp fiber breads, 180–81

  Woods, A. F., 99, 100

  working conditions, in bakeries, 36, 38, 39

  Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers, 110

  world bread history, 3–6, 7

  World War I, 109

  World War II, 14; alternative food movement using rhetoric of, 107; bread consumption during, 123; bread made during, 112–13; civilians unfit to fight in, 110–11; famine relief after, 136–37; publicity on enriched bread during, 118–20

  wrapped bread, 43–44

  xenophobia, 49, 108

  yeasts, 42, 192–93

  Young, James Harvey, 34–35

  yuppie bread, rise of, 181–85

  Zanesville, Ohio, 58

  Zapata, Emiliano, 148

  Beacon Press

  25 Beacon Street

  Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892

  www.beacon.org

  Beacon Press books

  are published under the auspices of

  the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

  © 2012

  by Aaron Bobrow-Strain

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  15 14 13 12 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.

  Text design by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services

  Portions of chapter 5 originally appeared as “Making White Bread by the Bomb’s Early Light: Anxiety, Abundance, and Industrial Food Power in the Early Cold War,” Food and Foodways 19, nos. 1-2 (February 2011): 74–97 (a Taylor & Francis publication).

  Lyrics from “White Trash Manifesto” by Crimson Spectre reprinted courtesy of Magic Bullet Records.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bobrow-Strain, Aaron.

  White bread: a social history of the store-bought loaf / Aaron Bobrow-Strain. p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8070-4467-4 (hardcover: alk. paper) E-ISBN 978-0-8070-4468-1

  1. Bread—Social aspects 2. Bread—United States—History. 3. Bread industry—United States—History. I. Title.

  GT2868.2.B63 2012

  641.81’509—dc23 2011032529