Whitman's
Encyclopedia
Russell Stover Candies
Russell Stover Candies, Inc. is a supplier of candy, chocolate, and confections in the United States. They are headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.- Ice cream years :...
. The Whitman's Sampler, an assortment of boxed chocolates, is still popular.
History
Whitman's confections have been produced for over 160 years.Originally a "confectionery and fruiterer shoppe" set up in 1842 by 19 year old Stephen F. Whitman on the Philadelphia waterfront, Whitman's first became popular with travelling sailors and their wives. They would often bring imported fruits, nut
Nut (fruit)
A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...
s and cocoa from their trips back to Mr. Whitman so that he could make the popular European confections people craved in that era. Before long Whitman's chocolates were popular all along the north-eastern section of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The first prepackaged Whitman's candy was produced in 1854. It was a box of sugar plum
Sugar plum
A sugar plum is a piece of dragée candy that is made of dried fruits and shaped in a small round or oval shape."Plum" in the name of this confection does not mean plum in the sense of the fruit of the same name. At one time, "plum" was used to denote any dried fruit...
s adorned with curlicues and rosebuds. Whitman began advertising in newspapers shortly before the beginning of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The business thrived and in 1866 an entire building at 12th and Market Streets in Philadelphia was taken over by the company. In 1877, Instantaneous Chocolates were introduced in tin boxes that became much admired.
Whitman's introduced the perennially popular and still best selling Whitman's Sampler in 1912. This marked the first use of cellophane
Cellophane
Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. Its low permeability to air, oils, greases, bacteria and water makes it useful for food packaging...
by the candy industry.
In 1946 Whitman's helped General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
to develop a refrigerated display case to prevent melting of the product and extend the selling season through the summer months.
In the early 1960s, Whitman's was purchased by Pet, Inc.
Pet, Inc.
Pet, Inc., was an American company that was the first to commercially produce evaporated milk as a shelf-stable consumer product and later became a multi-brand food products conglomerate. Its signature product, PET Evaporated Milk, is now a product of The J.M. Smucker Co...
, an evaporated milk
Evaporated milk
Evaporated milk, also known as dehydrated milk, is a shelf-stable canned milk product with about 60% of the water removed from fresh milk. It differs from sweetened condensed milk, which contains added sugar. Sweetened condensed milk requires less processing since the added sugar inhibits ...
company that was in the process of becoming a food products conglomerate. In 1993, the Whitman's brand was sold to Russell Stover Candies
Russell Stover Candies
Russell Stover Candies, Inc. is a supplier of candy, chocolate, and confections in the United States. They are headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.- Ice cream years :...
, the major supplier of boxed candy in the United States.
In popular culture
- In the early 20th century, Pickaninny Peppermints were a popular Whitman confection. However, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood MarshallThurgood MarshallThurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...
and, at the time, NAACP lawyer took issue with the name. In a 1941 article directed at Whitman's published in the Afro-American, Marshall urged Whitman's Candies to realize its racial insensitivity. Whitman's denied that the term "pickaninnyPickaninnyPickaninny is a term in English which refers to children of black descent or a racial caricature thereof. It is a pidgin word form, which may be derived from the Portuguese pequenino . In the Creole English of Surinam the word for a child is pikin ningre...
" was racist and responded to Marshall by saying that it meant "cute colored kid." Despite this, the product was soon dropped. - The company has maintained a longstanding tradition of supporting American servicemen and servicewomenMilitary of the United StatesThe United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
during wartime. During World War I millions of tins were shipped to American soldiers throughout the world. During World War II, women at the Whitman's production line secretly slipped handwritten notes of encouragement into candy boxes to help soothe soldiers' homesickness. - The G4G4 (TV channel)G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...
spinoff of The SoupThe SoupThe Soup is an E! Entertainment Television weekly series; it is a revamped version of Talk Soup that focuses on recaps of various pop culture and television show moments of the week...
called Web SoupWeb SoupWeb Soup is a weekly series airing in the U.S. on G4. The show , hosted by Chris Hardwick, comments on the latest in viral videos...
spoofs the Whitman's Sampler package with a segment called Mixed Nuts Sampler. - Wacky PackagesWacky PackagesWacky Packages are a series of trading cards and stickers featuring parodies of North American consumer products. The cards were produced by the Topps Company beginning in 1967, usually in a sticker format. The original series sold for two years, and the concept proved popular enough that it has...
parodied the Whitman's Sampler brand as "What Man's Simple Candy."