Jello Museum
By LISA HALVORSEN AND SAMANTHA CHAPNICK
There's always room for Jell-O, and the kitschy advertising that's promoted the product since it was patented in the1800s.You can find it all at a small, decade-old museum in LeRoy,
New York where Jell-O was manufactured from 1900 until 1964 when the company moved its operation to Delaware.
The Jell-O Gallery Museum is located at the end of the Jell-O Brick Road, right behind the Historic LeRoy House, a limestone mansion built by Jacob LeRoy in 1822 that now serves as the town's historical society. It opened in 1997 just in time for the 100th anniversary of the creation of fruit-flavored gelatin. The historical society's curator does double duty as the director of the Jell-O Museum.
As the story goes, a local man, Pearle Bixby Wait, was experimenting at home with gelatin to make laxative teas and cough syrups. He added flavorings and before you could say J-E-L-L-O, his wife May was serving it as a dinner dessert. She's also the one responsible for coming up with the name.
Unfortunately, Wait's forte was not marketing, and two years later he sold his formula for $450 to his neighbor, Orator Francis Woodward, who owned the Genesee Pure Food Company. Jell-O didn't really take off until 1904 when the company sent out legions of nattily dressed salesmen to hand out sample packages of Jell-O to housewives along with a Jell-O recipe booklet. They also supplied free Jell-O at all sorts of events, and before long, it became "America's Most Famous Dessert."
This brings us full circle as to why there's a Jell-O Museum in a renovated 1898 schoolhouse in this small town, an hour east of Buffalo. What better place to showcase the mind-boggling number of advertising products, gimmicks, and memorabilia associated with this flavored gelatin product, and the Jell-O products that came after it, than where it was invented?
Jell-O aficionados will delight in this nostalgic journey through Jell-O's history as shown through early advertisements, radio and TV commercials, promotional products such as toys and baseball cards, cookbooks, and celebrity pitches. Comedian Lucille Ball plugged Jell-O. So did television personalities Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) and Andy Griffith.
Entertainer Jack Benny was the first pitchman, initially on radio in the 1930s, then later television. He praised this "red letter" product--supposedly why the lettering on Jell-O boxes is red--and appealed to homemakers to buy it for their families.
Although obviously not the first celebrity to promote the product, Bill Cosby is undisputedly the king of all Jell-O spokespeople. One of the newest galleries features Cosby and his three decades-long influence on our love affair with this versatile flavored gelatin and other Jell-O products. America's. favorite funnyman even visited LeRoy back in 2004, a red letter day to be sure for this town of fewer than 8,000 people.
You will see many of the original 1920s oil paintings commissioned for magazine ads; early recipe books, some illustrated by such notable artists as Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish; and memorabilia from the early 1900s, which featured the Jell-O Girl, through the present decade. The museum also has some of the 3,000 spoons used on a New York Times Square billboard promoting Jell-O.
The Jell-O Gallery Museum is located at the end of the Jell-O Brick Road, right behind the Historic LeRoy House, a limestone mansion built by Jacob LeRoy in 1822 that now serves as the town's historical society. It opened in 1997 just in time for the 100th anniversary of the creation of fruit-flavored gelatin. The historical society's curator does double duty as the director of the Jell-O Museum.
As the story goes, a local man, Pearle Bixby Wait, was experimenting at home with gelatin to make laxative teas and cough syrups. He added flavorings and before you could say J-E-L-L-O, his wife May was serving it as a dinner dessert. She's also the one responsible for coming up with the name.
Unfortunately, Wait's forte was not marketing, and two years later he sold his formula for $450 to his neighbor, Orator Francis Woodward, who owned the Genesee Pure Food Company. Jell-O didn't really take off until 1904 when the company sent out legions of nattily dressed salesmen to hand out sample packages of Jell-O to housewives along with a Jell-O recipe booklet. They also supplied free Jell-O at all sorts of events, and before long, it became "America's Most Famous Dessert."
This brings us full circle as to why there's a Jell-O Museum in a renovated 1898 schoolhouse in this small town, an hour east of Buffalo. What better place to showcase the mind-boggling number of advertising products, gimmicks, and memorabilia associated with this flavored gelatin product, and the Jell-O products that came after it, than where it was invented?
Jell-O aficionados will delight in this nostalgic journey through Jell-O's history as shown through early advertisements, radio and TV commercials, promotional products such as toys and baseball cards, cookbooks, and celebrity pitches. Comedian Lucille Ball plugged Jell-O. So did television personalities Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) and Andy Griffith.
Entertainer Jack Benny was the first pitchman, initially on radio in the 1930s, then later television. He praised this "red letter" product--supposedly why the lettering on Jell-O boxes is red--and appealed to homemakers to buy it for their families.
Although obviously not the first celebrity to promote the product, Bill Cosby is undisputedly the king of all Jell-O spokespeople. One of the newest galleries features Cosby and his three decades-long influence on our love affair with this versatile flavored gelatin and other Jell-O products. America's. favorite funnyman even visited LeRoy back in 2004, a red letter day to be sure for this town of fewer than 8,000 people.
You will see many of the original 1920s oil paintings commissioned for magazine ads; early recipe books, some illustrated by such notable artists as Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish; and memorabilia from the early 1900s, which featured the Jell-O Girl, through the present decade. The museum also has some of the 3,000 spoons used on a New York Times Square billboard promoting Jell-O.
By the time you finish the short tour, you'll be able to spout off insignificant bits of Jell-O trivia. Strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon were the first four flavors, and the people of
Salt Lake City consume more lime Jell-O (introduced in 1930) than any other city. You'll know that this powdered gelatin was sponged on the horse of a different color in "The Wizard of Oz" to change its color.
You'll also learn that Jell-O gelatin and the human brain exhibit similar brainwave patterns, which may explain why the Jell-O Gallery Gift Shop sells brain-shaped Jell-O molds along with every Jell-O-themed item you can imagine from T-shirts and Jell-O boxer shorts to cookbooks, Christmas ornaments, Jell-O colored shot glasses, and refrigerator magnets...but surprisingly, no Jell-O.
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The Jell-O Museum is located at 23 East Main Street in LeRoy, New York. It's open year-round, seven days a week from April through December, weekdays only the rest of the year. It's closed New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Admission is $4 (adults), $1.50 (children 6 to 11). For more information, call (716) 768-7433 or visit www.jellomuseum.com.
You'll also learn that Jell-O gelatin and the human brain exhibit similar brainwave patterns, which may explain why the Jell-O Gallery Gift Shop sells brain-shaped Jell-O molds along with every Jell-O-themed item you can imagine from T-shirts and Jell-O boxer shorts to cookbooks, Christmas ornaments, Jell-O colored shot glasses, and refrigerator magnets...but surprisingly, no Jell-O.
--
The Jell-O Museum is located at 23 East Main Street in LeRoy, New York. It's open year-round, seven days a week from April through December, weekdays only the rest of the year. It's closed New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Admission is $4 (adults), $1.50 (children 6 to 11). For more information, call (716) 768-7433 or visit www.jellomuseum.com.
