Duncan Hines

by Louis Hatchett

  170 Hines incorporated Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. in May 1936.

  171 Hueser was probably one of Wright’s employees.

  172 Adventures In Good Eating, Inc. v. Best Places To Eat, Inc., 23-24.

  173 Interview with Edward Beebe, 7 March 1995. Months earlier, Harold Beebe had suggested to Hines that he put his restaurant knowledge in a book.

  174 Invoice # 5897.

  175 Milton MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” The Saturday Evening Post 211 (3 December 1938): 16.

  176 Duncan Hines, Adventures in Good Eating (Chicago: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., 1936) 9-10.

  177 Ibid., 11.

  178 Ibid., 30. A typical dinner at the Beaumont Inn in 1936 cost about $1.25.

  179 David Schwartz, “Duncan Hines: He Made Gastronomes Out of Motorists,” Smithsonian 15 (November 1984): 94.

  180 The restaurant was Kleeman’s, located at 212 Sixth Avenue, North.

  181 Undated Chicago newspaper clipping.

  182 Another fact about himself that Hines revealed in this article was that he would drive “to Chicago Avenue to buy the household coffee” and then drive clear over “to No-Man’s Land on the north shore for milk and cream.”

  183 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating.

  184 Hines never referred to this group as “dinner detectives.” That term was first used two years later by Milton MacKaye in his widely read 1938 Saturday Evening Post article on Hines.

  185 “Meet Duncan Hines,” Moonbeams (November 1958): 5.

  186 Interview with Cora Jane Spiller, 10 May 1994.

  187 Milton MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” The Saturday Evening Post 211 (3 December 1938): 16.

  188 Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. v. Best Places To Eat, Inc. and Carl A. Barrett, civil action no. 1844 (1940) 26.

  189 Interview with Edward Beebe, 7 March 1995.

  190 “Meet Duncan Hines,” 5.

  191 Interview with Robert Wright, 25 May 1994.

  192 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 16.

  193 Invoice #9080.

  194 Invoice #9226. This particular order was processed more quickly than others. It was placed by Hines on 11 August 1937 and was ready for delivery on 27 September 1937. In addition, surviving invoices reveal that it took the Wright Company—from the date of order to the date of delivery—approximately 45 to 60 days to produce one of Hines’s books. Hines once stated that he made seven cents on each book. If this was the case, however, his business was definitely dropping into a bottomless pit of debt, because at that rate he was only earning $350.63 for 5,009 units—not enough to even pay his printing bill. Moreover, it is unlikely that taxes and operating costs subtracted $1.43 from each manufactured unit. Hines usually sold all his books, and 5,009 copies at $1.50 per copy gave him, theoretically, $7,513.50. With 40% of the profit on each book going to his distributors, a more realistic figure is that Hines was left with $4,508—still a substantial amount in 1937.

  195 Invoice #9558.

  196 Duncan Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., 1937) 198.

  197 Adventures In Good Eating, Inc. v. Best Places To Eat, Inc., 23.

  198 This was an interesting, indeed, amusing act for a man who just two years earlier was tired of being pestered with telephone calls.

  199 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 2.

  200 Ibid., 11.

  201 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 16-17.

  202 John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) 440-41. McBride’s radio show was heard on WOR, New York (1934-1940); CBS (1937-1941); NBC (1941-1950); and ABC (1950-1954).

  203 Joseph Gustaitis, “Prototypical Talk Show Host,” American History 28/6 (Jan/Feb. 1994): 48-49.

  204 Spiller, 10 May 1994.

  205 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 12.

  206 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 17.

  207 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating (Bowling Green KY: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., 1941) xv.

  208 Ibid., xiii-xv.

  209 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 17.

  210 Interview with Maj. Gen. Richard Groves, 10 August 1994.

  211 What follows is a seven-month record of the Hines’s vehicular peregrinations across the North American continent. The purpose of what follows is to give the reader an idea of what the Hines’s recreational life was like during this time. It is also as complete a record as is available of their final year together. This information comes from a 1937 expense sheet and travel log, among other sources.

  212 Duncan Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 17th ed. (Bowling Green KY: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., 1941) 295.

  213 Duncan Hines, Duncan Hines’ Food Odyssey (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1955) 136. Mader’s is still the same Old World Bavarian restaurant it was when Charles Mader first opened for business in 1902. It was located at 1041 North 3rd Street; the address is now 1037 North 3rd Street.

  214 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 109.

  215 Ibid., 97.

  216 Ibid., 234.

  217 Ibid., 172.

  218 Ibid., 107. This establishment was located at 1132 Auburn Street.

  219 This restaurant was located at 619 North Michigan Avenue.

  220 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 105.

  221 Ibid., 104.

  222 The Lowell Inn is still in existence and is operated by the Palmers’ son, Arthur.

  223 Hines, Food Odyssey, 138.

  224 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 168.

  225 Hines, Food Odyssey, 139.

  226 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 168.

  227 Milton MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” The Saturday Evening Post 211 (3 December 1938): 82.

  228 This was most probably Gordon McCormick.

  229 Hines, Food Odyssey, 248.

  230 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 106.

  231 This restaurant was located at 128 East Main Street.

  232 This restaurant was located at 137 East Broad Street.

  233 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 229.

  234 Groves, 10 August 1994.

  235 Donnelley’s offices were in Chicago at 350 East 22nd Street; the books were manufactured in their printing plant in Crawfordsville, Indiana, at 1301 East Wabash Avenue.

  236 Contract with Duncan Hines and R. R. Donnelley and Sons Company, March 1938.

  237 Hotel receipt, St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans, 18 March 1938.

  238 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 175.

  239 Documents, R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company with Duncan Hines and Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., 14 February 1938-2 May 1938.

  240 Hotel receipt, Walnut Park Plaza, Philadelphia, 21 May 1938.

  241 Hines, Food Odyssey, 32. The hotel is located at 2 East 55th Street.

  242 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 209.

  243 Hines, Food Odyssey, 32-34.

  244 Receipt from R. R. Donnelley to Duncan Hines, 1 July 1938.

  245 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 17.

  246 “From Hobby to Publishing,” Publisher’s Weekly 134 (6 August 1938): 354-55.

  247 Hotel receipts, Deshler-Wallick Hotel, Columbus OH, 11 August 1938.

  248 Hines, Food Odyssey, 150.

  249 Hotel receipts, Commodore Perry Hotel, Toledo OH, 22-23 August 1938.

  250 This restaurant was located at 436 Huron Street.

  251 This restaurant was located at the intersection of Madison and Erie Street.

  252 Park City Daily News, 1 September 1938.

  253 Chicago Daily Tribune, 7 September 1938. The funeral was held in the chapel at 4227 Cottage Grove Avenue. The author has not yet located the grave site.

  254 I. A. Bench (secretary to Duncan Hines) to Franklin M. Watts, 9 September 1938.

  255 Ernie Pyle, Scripps-Howard news service, 10 September 1938.

  256 Tra
deMark certificate, United States Patent Office, 28 February 1939. On 19 September 1938, Hines filed an application with the United States Patent Office to have Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. registered as an official trademark under the protection of the laws of the United States. On 28 February 1939, Hines was awarded TradeMark No. 365,202, and it remained in force for twenty years.

  257 Horace Sutton, “Wayfarer’s Guardian Angel,” Saturday Review of Literature 31 (27 November 1948): 38.

  258 Duncan Hines to I. A. Bench, 27 November 1938.

  259 Interview with Cora Jane Spiller, 16 August 1993.

  260 M. Lincoln Schuster to Duncan Hines, 30 November 1938.

  261 Duncan Hines to Frank M. Watts, 9 June 1939.

  262 Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. v. Best Places To Eat, Inc. and Carl A. Barrett, civil action no. 1844 (1940), 31.

  263 Milton MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” The Saturday Evening Post 211 (3 December 1938): 17.

  264 Phyllis Larsh, “Duncan Hines,” Life 21/2 (8 July 1946): 16.

  265 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 80.

  266 Anna Rothe, ed., Current Biography (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1946) 261.

  267 Interview with Mary Herndon Cohron, 29 August 1994.

  268 Clementine Paddleford, “60,000 Miles of Eating,” This Week Magazine (12 January 1947): 12.

  269 David M. Schwartz, “Duncan Hines: He Made Gastronomes Out of Motorists,” Smithsonian 15 (November 1984): 92.

  270 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 80.

  271 Ibid.

  272 Schwartz, “Duncan Hines,” 92.

  273 Milton MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” The Saturday Evening Post 211 (3 December 1938): 82.

  274 Ibid., 80.

  275 Duncan Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, (Bowling Green KY: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., 1941) 26.

  276 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 80.

  277 Their guest told the Wakefields, as she made her exit, that she would send them a check.

  278 Duncan Hines, Duncan Hines’ Food Odyssey (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1955) 72.

  279 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 81-82.

  280 Hines, Food Odyssey, 72-73.

  281 Clementine Paddleford, “60,000 Miles of Eating,” This Week Magazine (12 January 1947): 12.

  282 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 148.

  283 Hines, Food Odyssey, 73. After 37 years of feeding the public, the Wakefields retired from the Toll House in 1967. It folded as an institution about 1970. Frank Saccone purchased the building in September of 1972 and reopened it in June 1973. Ruth Wakefield died at age 73 in 1977. At 11:30 P.M. on 31 December 1984, fire swept through the historic structure, demolishing it completely. Kenneth Wakefield, then 87 years old, said he would miss it. Brockton [Mass.] Enterprise, 2 January 1985.

  284 Paddleford, “60,000 Miles of Eating,” 12.

  285 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 117.

  286 Hines, Food Odyssey, 169-71.

  287 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 81.

  288 Hines, Food Odyssey, 115-17.

  289 Ibid., 123.

  290 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 81.

  291 Hines, Food Odyssey, 123-24.

  292 Ibid., 124.

  293 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 82.

  294 Fort Lauderdale [Florida] News and Sun-Sentinel, n.d.

  295 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 82.

  296 Hines, Food Odyssey, 125.

  297 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 82.

  298 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 225.

  299 Phyllis Larsh, “Duncan Hines,” Life 21/2 (8 July 1946): 17.

  300 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 135.

  301 MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?,” 82.

  302 Hines, Adventures in Good Eating, 215.

  303 Duncan Hines to I. A. Bench, 11 December 1938.

  304 Interview with Cora Jane Spiller, 16 August 1993.

  305 Proposal for Directories, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company to Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., 1 February 1939.

  306 Milton MacKaye, “Where Shall We Stop for Dinner?” The Saturday Evening Post 211 (3 December 1938): 82.

  307 Proposal for Directories.

  308 Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. v. Best Places To Eat, Inc. and Carl A. Barrett, civil action no. 1844 (1940) 36.

  309 Boston Herald, 23 June 1939.

  310 Spiller, 16 August 1993.

  311 The Morrison Hotel was located in Chicago at the corner of Madison and Clark Streets and was popular with businessmen because of its central location.

  312 Interview with Elizabeth Duncan Hines, 30 August 1993. She should have been scared, as this was one of the few known instances where Duncan Hines drove at night.

  313 Duncan Hines, Adventures in Good Cooking (Bowling Green KY: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., 1939) ii.

  314 Interview with Caroline Hines Tyson, 27 July 1994.

  315 Elizabeth Duncan Hines, 30 August 1993.

  316 Spiller, 16 August 1993.

  317 Interview with Sara Jane Meeks, 7 June 1994.

  318 Spiller, 16 August 1993.

  319 The Bowling Green bank that held his office was on State Street between Main and 10th Streets.

  320 Spiller, 16 August 1993 and 10 May 1994.

  321 Ibid.

  322 Ibid., 10 May 1994.

  323 Meeks, 7 June 1994.

  324 Spiller, 10 May 1994.

  325 Meeks, 7 June 1994. In the 1950s, long after Hines had moved his office and home outside of town, when a secretary took dictation from him, it was usually done in his living quarters. The office was one large room and giving dictation was not only distracting to the other employees, it was also annoying to Hines; listening to his secretaries bang away on their typewriters without losing his train of thought was no environment in which to give dictation. Therefore, Hines had a small office in his living quarters for this purpose, which he called “the library.” When Meeks first saw it, she wondered if Hines belonged to a book club. The sight of so much reading material led her to believe him to be a voracious reader. She said that “when he would come back from a trip not only would there be a pile of letters on his desk waiting for him to answer, but there would also be on the floor an enormous pile of magazines, newspapers and especially books that had accumulated in his absence…. He had a lot of books.” The library was “right by the window, and I would sit there and take dictation, and then, when I would finish, I would go back to the office to type the letter, and then he would come out there and sign it.” Hines needed the library so he could concentrate as he composed material for both magazine articles and the material in his books, activities he could not accomplish if he had the constant clatter of the office about him. But in mid-1939 the “library” was just a thought and months away from realization. In the meantime Hines had to contend with the cramped office space and its physical limitations.

  326 Spiller, 16 August 1993.

  327 Interview with Thomas C. Dedman, 19 May 1994.

  328 Duncan Hines, Lodging for a Night, (Bowling Green KY: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. 1939) vi-vii.

  329 Ibid., viii-ix.

  330 Ibid., 250.

  331 Jack Bruce to Duncan Hines, 25 April 1939.

  332 Duncan Hines Cave City Rotary Club speech, 18 August 1943.

  333 Duncan Hines to F. H. Marquis, 1 June 1939.

  334 R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company to Duncan Hines, 1 September 1939.

  335 Interview with Cora Jane Spiller, 10 May 1994.

  336 Interview with Cora Jane Spiller, 16 August 1993.

  337 Interview with Duncan Welch, 7 March 1995.

  338 Emelie E. Hines death certificate.

  339 Marriage certificate for Duncan Hines and Emelie E. Tolman, Aransas County, Rockport TX, issued 9 December 1939; returned and filed by W. R. Ellis, Justice of the Peace, 11 Decemb
er 1939, no. 224.

  340 Spiller, 16 August 1993.

  341 In 1994 the author visited this still standing structure at 1032 College Street, between 10th and 11th Streets. Most of its interior was exactly as Hines and Emelie left it. All the bathroom arrangements were still intact—the floor tiles, the sink, the toilet, even the old-fashioned bathtub; none had been replaced.

  342 Spiller, 10 May 1994.

  343 Ibid., 16 August 1993 and 10 May 1994.

  344 Warren County Deed Book, # 186, 11 October 1939.

  345 Oklahoma City Times, 4 December 1939.

  346 E. Eastman Irvine, ed. The World Almanac and Book of Facts for 1939 (New York NY: World-Telegram, 1939). Some of that year’s top ten non-fiction best sellers included Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler; Listen to the Wind by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, which had sold 200,000 copies by 1 March; A Peculiar Treasure by Edna Ferber; Alone by Richard E. Byrd; and Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren, which had sold 187,000 copies by 1 June.

  347 Duncan Hines to Frank M. Watts, 28 December 1939. One should note that Adventures in Good Cooking had sold reasonably well in three months, considering that it was given almost no publicity.

  348 Interview with Larry Williams, 31 March 1995.

  349 Interview with Paul W. Moore, 31 August 1994; interview with Larry Williams, 31 March 1995. The original name of the Williams Printing Company was the Folk-Keeling Company, which was purchased by brothers Roy and Fletcher Williams on 8 August 1911 and thus acquired its new name. The business did relatively well for a number of years; when the Depression began, the Williams brothers saved their company from bankruptcy by making their relatives and a friend co-owners. The owners of the firm were Roy and Fletcher Williams, their brother, Tom Williams, their brother-in-law E. A. Burgstrom, and James Overall; each invested $1,000. When they needed more cash, the Williams brothers’ two sisters, Clara and Ruth, collectively put up another $1,000. The $6,000 they pooled together enabled the firm to keep the bank from closing its doors. During the Depression, when most Nashville printers were permanently closing their doors for lack of business, the Williams firm was kept alive mostly by their largest customer, the Life and Casualty Insurance Company. The Williams Printing Company’s first address in Nashville was 161 4th Avenue North; the company moved in 1933 to 417 Commerce Street, next door to the Ryman Auditorium. In 1983 the firm moved to another Nashville address. The Commerce Street location was the only one of which Duncan Hines was familiar; it is now a parking lot.