Animal Crackers (Pittsburgh, 1895)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Something for the ADS-Lers from Pittsburgh.  The Oxford Symposium this year deals with children's food, so I've got to get "cracking."
   ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES has this LADIES' HOME JOURNAL, October 1895, pg. 24 ad:

_MARVIN'S_
_Noah's Ark_
"Filled with animals, tame and wild,
A tasteful luncheon for a child."
_The Animal Crackers_
put up as above are light and appetizing and just the thing to please the children; grown folks likethem, too.
   If your grocer does not sell our biscuits, write to:
   _MARVIN--Pittsburg_


   For more on "animal crackers," including the National Biscuit Company's 1902 product (which stole the term), see this from www.foodreference.com:


ANIMAL CRACKERS
The product we know today as Animal Crackers came into being in 1902, but it they had existed in similar forms for generations. In the late 1800s, ‘Animals’ (animal shaped fancy cookies) were imported from England. Many of the small, local bakeries in America made different versions called 'Animals' or 'Circus Crackers'. Bakeries began to unite into larger companies with regional and eventual national distribution at the end of the 19th century. One of these was the National Biscuit Company. Packaging became an important factor in marketing on a national scale. Their ‘Animal Biscuits’ were officially renamed 'Barnum's Animals' in 1902. During the Christmas season, the package was redesigned as a circus wagon with a string attached to it, so it could be hung as a Christmas tree ornament. They sold for 5 cents, and they were an immediate hit.

In total there have been 37 different varieties of animal crackers since 1902.  The current 17 varieties of crackers are  tigers, cougars, camels, rhinoceros, kangaroos, hippopotami, bison, lions, hyenas, zebras, elephants, sheep, bears, gorillas, monkeys, seals, and giraffes. There are 22 crackers per box.

More than 40 million packages of these are sold each year, and they are exported to 17 countries. They are turned out at the rate of 12,000 per minute, and nearly 6,000 miles of string are used on the packages. Christopher Morley wrote a poem named for them.

"Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers, I think.
When I’m grown up and can have what I please,
I think I shall always insist upon these."
By Christopher Morley.

But the most famous reference to Animal Crackers is most likely in the Shirley Temple film 'Curleytop', in which she sang "Animal crackers in my soup, Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop, Gosh, oh, gee, but I have fun! "