In 1845, New York City industrialist Peter Cooper took advantage of that need when he took out the first U.S. patent for a granulated gelatin dessert. Cooper made the bulk of his money from his successful Gowanda glue factory, but he also founded Cooper Union and built the first American steam-powered locomotive (Tom Thumb), among many other accomplishments. He described his gelatin product as a “transparent concentrated or solidified jelly containing all the ingredients fitting it for table use…and requiring only the addition of a prescribed quantity of hot water to dissolve it.” Although ads for Cooper’s gelatin boasted that it was “cheapest and best,” it didn’t live up to the success of his other business ventures. 

In fact, in 1893 Sarah Tyson Rorer of the Philadelphia Cooking School wrote to the Knox Company of Johnstown, NY, to ask them to invent the very same product Peter Cooper was trying to sell. Evidently, his marketing efforts didn’t reach that far south. By the end of the 1800s, the Knox Company was only one of the many companies producing convenience gelatin products. The year after receiving Rorer’s letter, Knox introduced “Sparkling Granulated Calves Foot Gelatin.” Depending on how it was prepared, it could be used for either eating or carpentry and the package came with a recipe booklet to distinguish the difference between the two. “Gelatine should dissolve quickly; two to five minutes’ soaking in cold water is long enough. Where it takes longer, it is more of a gluey nature, and should be used in cabinetwork only.”

On the other side of the state in LeRoy, carpenter Pearle Bixby Wait dabbled in making medicines in his free time. With the Knox gelatin, Wait realized that although it was good, it still required additional ingredients for flavor after it was prepared. So in 1897, Pearle Wait and his wife, May, discovered a way to add flavor to powdered gelatin. The first flavors were strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon. May named their new product Jell-O, combining the words “gelatin” and “jelly,” while maintaining the “O” ending that was popular for product names at the time. 

Despite their love for making food, the Waits struggled to market their product with limited funds and little experience with advertising. Wait went door-to-door trying to sell Jell-O, but failed to spur any sort of significant sales outside of LeRoy. The couple also tried an advertising pamphlet, which featured a group of kids above a message that read: “We don’t get any more whippings! Our mama makes Jell-O for us and we don’t have to get into her jelly jars any more.” The ad – and its message – was quite different than what would later be featured in successful Jell-O ads and again didn’t bring in very many sales. On September 9, 1899, after two years of trying to market the dessert, the Waits sold the Jell-O formula and name to another LeRoyan for $450.

When Orator Frank Woodward’s Genesee Pure Food Company purchased Jell-O, he had already experienced some success in manufacturing and selling. Born in North Bergen in 1856, his family moved to LeRoy in 1860. His father made carriages and also went door-to-door selling books for extra money. When his father died in combat during the Civil War, Orator quit school at 12 years old to work as a stable boy and a footman for an attorney. Eventually, he began inventing things to sell, first seeing success in 1879 with a medicated nest egg that helped kill lice on hens as they laid and hatched eggs. The nest egg became a widely-known and used product throughout the U.S. and Canada. With the success of the nest eggs, Woodward was able to expand into other patent medicines including Sherman’s Headache Remedy and Raccoon Corn Plasters. Besides medicine patents, Woodward also branched out into food patents, of which his most successful product prior to Jell-O was a roasted cereal substitute for coffee and tea called Grain-O, marketed as a health drink in 1896. 

The following year, Woodward founded the Genesee Pure Food Company, which produced his successful Grain-O drink. When he purchased Jell-O from the Waits in 1899, the Genesee Pure Food Company distributed the new product as well. Like the Waits before him, Jell-O was not initially a runaway success for Woodward. In fact, the sales were so bad during the first year that on one occasion, while touring the Jell-O plant with his superintendent, A.S. Nico, Woodward offered the whole Jell-O business to him for only $35. Lucky for Woodward, the superintendent declined the offer.

While initial sales for Jell-O struggled to hit outside of LeRoy, the Genesee Pure Food Company eventually flexed its financial muscle by taking out ads in national publications including Everybody’s Magazine, Boston Cooking School Magazine and Ladies’ Home Journal. The June 1902 ad in the Ladies’ Home Journal cost the company $336, nearly as much as Woodward paid for Jell-O in 1899. Along with the ads, the Genesee Pure Food Company published booklets that included Jell-O recipes for frappés and whips as well as new innovations such as Shredded Wheat Jell-O Apple Sandwiches and Jell-O Marshmallow. 

Similar to Wait’s method of selling door-to-door, the Genesee Pure Food Company instead relied on a team of salesmen to help spread the word about Jell-O beyond LeRoy. These salesmen were well-dressed and visited towns throughout the Unites States to distribute the recipe booklets to households. Early salesmen also posted canvas Jell-O signs in each town and visited local grocers, who would then stock their shelves with cases of Jell-O for the impending demand. Another part of a salesman’s job was setting up store displays, which reacquainted customers with the Jell-O name beyond the recipe booklets.

To save money, the Genesee Pure Food Company advised its salesmen to deliver recipe books for free and referred customers to their local grocers to make the purchases, thus avoiding paying for traveling salesmen licenses in each town. Still, the workers faced arrests, threats and were even shot at in some towns. In response, the Genesee Pure Food Company published The Rights of Traveling Salesmen and Distributors for its workers, outlining the legal rights each salesman had. The major advertising push proved successful and by the end of 1902, annual Jell-O sales reached $250,000.

Two years later, the Dauchy Company in New York City – the Genesee Pure Food Company’s advertising agency – believed that the best way to not only showcase how easy Jell-O was to make, but also to show just how much kids loved it, was to include a child in the advertisements. Artist Franklin King was assigned to the task and he considered hundreds of children until he decided just to use his own four-year-old daughter Elizabeth. For the next four years, creating ads that included the “Jell-O girl” was a family affair for the Kings. Franklin’s wife, Florence, dressed Elizabeth and found props for her to use and Franklin photographed his daughter playing with empty Jell-O boxes, eating Jell-O or preparing it, which he then used to base his drawings off of. 

When Elizabeth grew older, the Dauchy Company hired illustrator Rose O’Neill to take over the advertisements and maintain the Jell-O girl’s youth in her drawings. The Jell-O girl became an icon across the country. Little girls read of her adventures around the world in each new recipe book, Jell-O girl dolls were available and even her haircut became a favorite. Even though Elizabeth King became a grown woman with no association with Jell-O, the ads featuring her childhood likeness were used until 1949, when the Jell-O girl was finally removed from its boxes. 

Not only was Jell-O marketed to kids and for kids, housewives were also a major target of ads. In the early 1900s, as the trend of the American table shifted from heavy foods that required hours to prepare to meals of convenience and efficiency, products with quick prep times began to rise. Jell-O’s slogan of being “Delicate—Delightful—Dainty” resonated well with the new mindset of saving time, money and energy. Culinary experts and authors of cookbooks soon began recommending Jell-O and other convenience products as a way to cut back on the time spent in the kitchen. 

During World War I, the Genesee Pure Food Company took advantage of the sugar shortages due to the war by advertising Jell-O as a dessert that did “not require [additional] sugar, cream or fats of any kind…” Consequently, due to the same shortage, the price of Jell-O increased for the first time, but it was still the cheaper alternative to fruits and other desserts. The 1920 recipe book For Economy Use claimed that whipped Jell-O could serve more people. 

The Genesee Pure Food Company experienced several changes in the 1920s thanks to booming Jell-O sales. Having long since discontinued Grain-O, the company sought to focus more on its money-making Jell-O brand by selling off its patent medicine business to Orator Woodward’s son Donald. On November 5, 1923, in an effort to protect Jell-O as a trade name by closely identifying it with the business in order to prevent it from becoming a common noun, the Genesee Pure Food Company became simply the Jell-O Company. 

The name change didn’t last long, however. Orator Woodward’s widow, Cora died in 1923, leaving Ernest, the oldest Woodward child, solely responsible for the future of the Jell-O Company. He had been managing the business since his father’s death in 1906 and eventually succeeded his mother as president. On December 31, 1925, Ernest helped negotiate the sale of the company for over $65 million to Postum Cereal Company, Inc. by an exchange of stock. The Jell-O Company became the first subsidiary of a large merger that included the purchase of Minute Tapioca, Log Cabin Syrup, Maxwell House Coffee and other similar companies over the next several years. Together, these companies were under the umbrella of the General Foods Corporation. 

The Jell-O factory in LeRoy originally covered 12 acres and employed 200 people. Eventually, the plant was expanded and at times there were up to 350 employees, many of which were women. Those who worked at Jell-O formed a sense of community, with workers helping new hires learn the ropes and the company even offered work to those in the community who were down on their luck. Likewise, the plant was open to the public for tours, where people could see the large barrels of sugar or the concentrated oil essences that gave Jell-O its fruit flavor. Prior to environmental laws, the flavor production of the day could be determined by the color of Oatka Creek, which ran right behind the North Street factory. 

When the Genesee Pure Food Company began production in 1900, each package was prepared by hand. Glassine bags were shaped by gluing them over wooden blocks and dried on a U-shape wire mold. The bags sometimes cracked, causing moisture to clump the Jell-O powder, however, it was still the best way to package the product at the time. The bags were filled with a measuring cup, leveled with a stick and inserted into the cardboard boxes by hand. 

As sales increased, the demand for additional workers grew and the New York Central Railroad added extra train cars to certain lines to bring in additional workers from Batavia to work at the LeRoy factory. On June 23, 1914, the Jell-O-making process was partially automated when A.S. Nico (who had turned down Orator Woodward’s offer to purchase Jell-O for $35) and Otis E. Glidden’s “Safety Bag” invention was patented. The seamless, sealed waxed-paper bag allowed powdered Jell-O to be sealed with a pressure crimp that promised to keep Jell-O “as pure and sweet as on the day it was made.”

The Safety Bag design not only helped maintain Jell-O’s freshness, but also gave it the shelf-life required for national distribution. Equally as impressive, the Anderson packaging machine produced 30 boxes a minute and relieved the need for some of the workers at the LeRoy factory. The company was so proud of the new technology that it displayed one of the machines at the 1915 Panama Exposition in San Francisco, as well as in its print advertising through the 1920s, proclaiming that, “This machine does everything but talk!” 

As technology continued to advance over the next 40 years, the production of Jell-O required fewer and fewer workers at the LeRoy factory. The focus of LeRoy being the center of Jell-O faded over time with its parent company, General Foods, and on March 8, 1962, it was announced that production of all General Food products would be consolidated into one central location. Two years later, Jell-O production officially moved from LeRoy to Dover, Delaware. 

After the Jell-O Company became a part of General Foods in 1925, the product soon faced setbacks in the face of the Depression and the value-centered mindset of the American economy. Forced to lower the price to compete with competitors, by 1933 Jell-O earned a fraction of what it had nearly ten years previously. However, the increasing popularity of radio provided a new media outlet to focus advertisement efforts, most notably the 15-minute show based on L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz books and more importantly, the Jack Benny show. 

Wanting a bigger piece of the radio advertising pie, in the early 1930s General Foods sought out a radio show to sponsor to help promote Jell-O sales. At the time, the Jack Benny show was once again without a sponsorship. Benny had gained a reputation for making fun of the products that sponsored the show. Without any other options, General Foods took a chance with Jack Benny. 

The partnership officially began airing in October 1934 and although sales were slow to pick up, Jell-O began seeing positive results from the investment in the new year. For the next eight years, the partnership continued and helped turn around the Jell-O sales decline. The show became so popular that Jack and his wife, Mary, were later featured in print Jell-O ads and a 1937 recipe book. However, the partnership between Jack Benny and General Foods came to an end when sugar shortages during World War II – and electric refrigerators appearing in most households – meant that sales of Jell-O naturally increased on its own since it didn’t require the use of any rationing coupons. In turn, the need for such expensive advertisements ended. 

The 1950s saw Jell-O ads transition to TV as well, echoing the postwar optimism of the country and targeting adults with ad spots during primetime television, as well as children with ads featuring rewritten nursery rhymes. Jell-O also succeeded during the 50s during the rise of convenience foods, of which Jell-O had already been a staple. In the 1960s, General Foods decided to further advertise to housewives by publishing the Joys of Jell-O cookbook, which featured 250 recipes with photographs of Jell-O salad, Jell-O popcorn balls, Jell-O glaze for roast duck, among many other unique concoctions. More than two million consumers sent in for the book, which went on to have 11 editions. 

After reaching a sales peak in the late 60s with the successful slogan, “There’s always room for Jell-O,” sales took a turn for the worse in the next two decades due to more women working out of the home and the competition of other convenience foods – that didn’t require prep time. By 1987, Jell-O sales were half of what they were in 1968. However, by then there were already changes in motion that would see sales rebound.

General Foods was purchased in 1985 by Philip Morris and several years later, he merged General Foods with another food company that he had recently acquired, Kraft. With the merger came a new marketing manager who noticed the difference between younger and older women and began marketing to each of them separately. Notably, the marketing team began to explore how to simplify the Jell-O recipes so that meals could be prepared in a shorter amount of time. 

In 1990, Kraft General Foods debuted Jell-O Jigglers, handheld squares of Jell-O that could be cut into any shape and eaten with your hands. The launch included a significant advertising push, including the first Bill Cosby TV ad for Jell-O gelatin. Cosby had been the spokesperson for Jell-O pudding since the early 70s, but it wasn’t until the introduction of the Jigglers that his TV ads promoted gelatin as well. The Jigglers helped increase Jell-O sales by 47 percent and helped carry sales through the 90s. 

Today, Jell-O’s Western New York roots are celebrated each day at the Jell-O Gallery in LeRoy, which first opened in the former LeRoy High School in 1997 during Jell-O’s 100-year anniversary. The Gallery tells the story of Jell-O from the Waits’ initial invention in their kitchen, to the major national campaigns for Jell-O Jigglers and everything in between. It’s a permanent reminder that a part of Western New York’s history is pretty sweet. 

With the initial success of Jell-O at the start of the 20th century, most of the Woodward family enjoyed the financial benefits of that success. Their philanthropic contributions throughout Western New York can still be seen today. 

Orator married Cora Talmage in 1882 and together they had six children: three boys and two girls. After enjoying some success with the O.F. Woodward Medicine Company, he famously purchased the rights to Jell-O from Pearle Wait for $450. Although Jell-O eventually took off, Orator was only able to enjoy its success for a few years. He suffered a stroke in 1905, followed by more health problems that resulted in his death in January 1906 at only 49 years old.

After her husband’s passing, Cora Woodward became president of the Genesee Pure Food Company before the oldest of the Woodward children, Ernest, took over as president. In 1925, Ernest was responsible for negotiating the $65 million sale of the Jell-O Company. With the sale, each remaining member of the Woodward family earned a significant amount of money that shaped their lives and the future of the communities they called home.

Cora purchased most of the land for an athletic field behind the LeRoy High School (now the Jell-O Gallery) and she also paid for the land and the architect for the municipal building at the corner of West Main and Clay streets in the village. Upon her death in 1923, Cora possessed one of the most impressive private libraries in the country. In tribute to their parents, Ernest and his siblings built the Woodward Memorial Library, likely because of their mother’s love of books. 

The youngest two Woodward children were perhaps the most generous with their money. After taking over the family’s patent medicine business, Donald Woodward built the golf course that would become the LeRoy Country Club and in 1917 he partnered with J. Leonard Heimlich to form the LeRoy Lime and Crushed Stone Corporation. Perhaps his most prideful achievement was the opening of the Donald Woodward Airport on October 12, 1928. The three-day celebration drew nearly 60,000 people to witness several air stunts. Later airshows even included a stunt that involved landing to eat a bowl of Jell-O.

Helen Woodward Rivas was the baby of the family and spent much of her life traveling the world. However, she still found causes to donate some of her immense fortune to, often anonymously. She helped fund an adoption center in Manhattan as well as a research laboratory in 1956 called the Medical Foundation of Buffalo, which was renamed the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in 1994. Similar to her brother Ernest, who donated to the Strong Memorial Hospital of Rochester to research epilepsy, one of Helen’s biggest contributions was $2.1 million for the “R” Wing in the Psychiatric Department at Strong. 

Today, descendants of the Woodward family continue to be a vital part of the Western New York community through further contributions and a presence in the region. It serves as proof that the lasting impact of the success of Jell-O and the company that made it a household name is not to be understated.