One of America's Best-Selling Authors Has Turned 100 Years Old
- by Michael Stillman
The first portrait of Betty Crocker, created when she was 15 years old (1936).
This year we are celebrating the 100th birthday of one of America's most popular authors. Her first book has sold over 75 million copies, but she has written about 250 in total. We don't have counts for the other 249, but it must be a lot. Everyone knows her name, and if you haven't purchased one of her books, you undoubtedly have purchased something else she makes.
Not too many people hang around long enough to celebrate their 100th birthday, and that is true of our author. Sadly, she is no longer with us. Actually, she never was. She was a fiction from the day she was “born” 100 years ago. Many people realize this, but many others do not and are shocked to learn there is no real Betty Crocker and never was. However, she is no more real than her brother at General Mills, the Pillsbury Doughboy. No one ever thought he was real.
Betty Crocker was born in the Washburn-Crosby flour mill of Minneapolis in 1921. The firm had run a contest in the Saturday Evening Post for their Gold Medal Flour. Along with contest entries, many people wrote letters to the firm, primarily looking for cooking tips. The firm's Advertising Director, Sam Gale, decided to answer all of those letters. However, he thought the women who wrote most of them would not take kindly to a man telling them how to run their kitchen. He decided to create a woman to answer the letters, choosing the name Betty Crocker since Crocker was the last name of a retired company director, and the name sounded wholesome and reassuring, a good name for a friend to the homemaker.
The letters kept coming, and “Betty” and her large staff of assistants kept answering them all. While cooking was the primary focus, Betty's friendly and helpful image led to people asking advice on all types of issues. In 1928, Washburn-Crosby combined with some other mills to form General Mills, now a massive conglomerate producing all sorts of foodstuffs, with Betty's friendly face appearing on many. Her image has changed with the times, to a more contemporary look, but she has stayed forever young, or more accurately, forever middle-aged.
As if she weren't already busy enough, Betty turned her hand to writing in 1950. That is when she published the Betty Crocker Cookbook. That is the one that has sold 75 million copies and counting. As with the letters, she had her staff lend a hand with the book writing. Recipes have changed over the years, and while some are daring, it maintains a staple of “meat-and-potatoes” type dishes, things with which people can feel comfortable, comfort food if you will. One that has remained since the beginning is banana bread, evidently a timeless favorite.
One other thing has changed since Ms. Crocker started writing as a lady of merely 29 years of age. Not so many recipes are based on starting from scratch. In those days, most women were expected to be homemakers, preparing dinner for when her man came home from “work.” Back then, men incorrectly believed they were the partner who worked hardest. Today's recipes feature more prepackaged foods and mixes as women do both the traditional jobs of their own and their husband's. For some reason, this is considered as emancipation from traditional roles. Betty isn't fooled. She keeps Mr. Crocker in the kitchen baking banana bread.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.