Archway Cookies was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 cookie

Cookie

In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a small, flat, baked treat, usually containing fat, flour, eggs and sugar. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have...

 manufacturer

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...

, founded in 1936 in Battle Creek

Battle Creek, Michigan

Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek Rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area , which encompasses all of Calhoun county...

, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. Since December 2008, it has been a subsidiary of Lance Inc.

Lance Inc.

Lance, Inc. is an American snack food company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.They manufacture snacks such as:*Captain's Wafers*Toastchee Crackers*Nekot cookies*Gold-N-Chees crackers*Cape Cod Potato Chips*Tom's Potato Chips*Archway Cookies...

, a snack-food

Snack food

A snack is a portion of food oftentimes smaller than that of a regular meal, that is generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged and processed foods and items made from fresh ingredients at home....

 company. Archway is best known for its variations of oatmeal

Oatmeal

Oatmeal is ground oat groats , or a porridge made from oats . Oatmeal can also be ground oat, steel-cut oats, crushed oats, or rolled oats....

 cookies.
In 1936, Harold and Ruth Swanson began baking soft oatmeal cookies and doughnut

Doughnut

A doughnut or donut is a fried dough food and is popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty outlets...

s out of their home's garage

Garage (house)

A residential garage is part of a home, or an associated building, designed or used for storing a vehicle or vehicles. In some places the term is used synonymously with "carport", though that term normally describes a structure that is not completely enclosed.- British residential garages:Those...

 in Battle Creek. By the late 1940s, they had discontinued baking donuts and just concentrated on cookies.