The Advertising War Begins

In the 1870s, with scores of companies jumping on the baking powder band wagon and using newspapers, magazines, and trade cards to advertise, Royal pioneered ideological warfare that claimed its competitors’ products were adulterated or poisonous. Royal also published The Royal Baker and Pastry Chef, a corporate cookbook that glorified its products and educated female consumers about them. In the West, baking powder was adopted readily by Scandinavian immigrants but was given to Native Americans on reservations to make wheat-based instead of corn-based breadstuffs as part of forced assimilation.