"Sinkers" and "Dunking Doughnuts"

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

What does HDAS have for "sinker"? I searched for this, with the keyword  
"coffee." (HDAS has 1900, from New York.)
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Are they any other early cites for "dunking doughnuts"?
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_http://www.barrypopik.com/article/1627/dunking-doughnuts-and-sinkers_ 
(http://www.barrypopik.com/article/1627/dunking-doughnuts-and-sinkers) 
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Dunking Doughnuts (and "Sinkers")
“Dunking” doughnuts became popular when New York City’s own Eddie Cantor  
promoted the practice in his 1931 movie Palmy Days. 
The practice of dunking doughnuts in coffee was popular in New York City a  
many years before that (see “sinkers” below). The Dunkin’ Donuts company was  
founded in Massachusetts in  1950.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022246/plotsummary
Plot  Summary for 
Palmy Days (1931) 
Musical comedy antics in an art deco  bakery (motto: “Glorifying the American 
Doughnut”) with Eddie Cantor as an  assistant to a phoney psychic, who is 
mistaken for an efficiency expert and  placed in charge. Complications ensue when 
the psychic and his gang attempt to  rub the  payroll.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279784/plotsummary
Plot  Summary for 
Dora’s Dunking Doughnuts (1933) 
Schoolteacher Andy Wilson  makes his usual morning stop for coffee and donuts 
at Dora’s Home Bakery. Today  he enjoys talking to Dora so much that he is 
late to school for the first time.  Later that day, Dora tells him about some 
wonderful new donuts that she has  made. Andy is so impressed with them that he 
decides to have his students help  him make a radio commercial, in order to 
help Dora sell her new  product.
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https://www.dunkindonuts.com/aboutus/company/History.aspx
Dunkin’  Donuts was founded in 1950. Today, loyal customers like you can be 
found in 30  countries and territories, stopping off for a cup of our 
world-famous coffee and  a fresh, delicious donut, bagel, muffin, or other baked good. 
It all started in 1946 when Mr. William Rosenberg founded Industrial Luncheon 
 Services, a company that delivered meals and coffee break snacks to 
customers in  the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts. The success of Industrial 
Luncheon  Services led Rosenberg to open his first coffee and donut shop, the “Open  
Kettle”. Then, in 1950, Rosenberg opened the first store known as Dunkin’ 
Donuts  in Quincy, Massachusetts. 
With more than 6,000 Dunkin’ Donuts shops worldwide, the company is the  
largest chain of coffee, donut, and bagel shops.
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3  February 1888, Chicago Daily Tribune, pg. 1:
The beauty of the thing  so fascinated “Coffee and Sinkers” that his 
habitual discretion forsook  him,...
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1 April 1888, New York Herald, pg. 9, col.  6:
Or they can get a cup of coffee and some cakes for ten cents. The  facetious 
patrons of the restaurant call these cakes “sinkers,” because if they  were 
thrown overboard they wouldn’t float.
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January 1892,  Brooklyn Daily Eagle, pg. 4:
...men who have succeeded in their  calling have not disdained “coffee and 
sinkers” or beef and beans—that was all  that he had to offer, except doughnuts 
and pie—...
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27 July  1902, New York Tribune, section II, pg. 2, col. 6:
“A little on the  cow” is milk. “Draw one—black” is coffee, without milk. “
One up” is not golf,  but a symbol, meaning that the waiter who calls has 
another cup of coffee coming  to him. “Off the griddle” means butter cakes, 
those deadly bullets of, rather,  small cannon balls of dough, which are commonly 
known to the hardy eaters  thereof as “sinkers,” but which it is high treason 
to call by that name within  the lunch room.
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14 October 1928, Chicago Daily Tribune,  pg. H5:
Ronald Colman and Herbert Brenon, the director, were dunking their  morning 
doughnuts when the party arrived, and soon started off in their cars to  the 
scene of the day’s work.
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5 June 1929, Atlanta  Constitution, “The Way of the World” by Grove 
Patterson, pg.  6:
DUNKING.
The editor of a well-known western paper not long ago  gave an address, 
repeated in movietone theaters, on the subject of “Dunking.”  Folks who dip their 
doughnuts in the coffee are dunkers. But dunking has a long  and not 
dishonorable history. It goes back into the far reaches of tradition.  Our good 
old-fashioned word “supper” was derived from the practice of sopping  bread and 
gravy.
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24 January 1930, Life, pg. 16:
In  less than a week her husband’s doughnut-dunking habit had been stamped 
out  forever!
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17 October 1930, Kingston (Jamaica) Daily  Gleaner, pg. 8:
Ohio Penitentiary prisoners are dunking doughnuts  again.
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21 December 1930, New York Times, pg.  48:
DOUGHNUT HOLES
ENGAGE EXPERTS 
Small-Hole Cake Is by Far
the Best for Dunking,
One  Declares
(...)
Did either Mr. Holbrook or Mr. Brown try to dunk  doughnuts? The doughnut 
with the big hole wobbles uncertainly and in some cases  has even been known to 
sink! (Sinker (Coll. Amer. slang): a doughnut which goes  under.) But the 
small-hole doughnut remains on the surface proudly, temptingly.  Its buoyancy is 
never threatened by a superfluity of hole.
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5  March 1931, Olean (NY) Herald, pg. 3:
In the meantime, Olean  restaurant proprietors will continue to permit the 
graceful practice of  “dunking” doughnuts in coffee.
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15 July 1931, Charleston (WV)  Gazette, pg. 1:
Doughnut Shop Invades
Sacred Gotham  Precincts 
Largest Shop in World Makes Its Appearance on One
of Most  Prominent Corners of Famous
Times Square; Dunking Allowed 
NEW YORK, July 14.—(UP) Broadway, where you can’t walk ten steps without  
encountering a yokel, has been captivated by the doughnut people who are waging  
a determined campaign to make America cruller conscious. 
The world’s largest doughnut shop has opened on one of the most prominent  
corners of Times Square—immediately adjacent to the Astor—and today it required 
 the expenditure of great effort and will power for a person to jam his way 
in  close enough to get a glimpse of a glorified doughnut. 
A press agent, hired by the doughnut people to attract attention to the  
place, sent out word that the shop is becoming the hangout of philosophers. But  
the only person remotely resembling a philosopher found at the shop today was  
Will H. Hays, the movie man. 
A brass rail runs along the windows to keep people from glueing their noses  
to the glass while contemplating the manufacture of doughnuts. It was to this  
rail that Hays, dressed in an immaculate white suit with black stripes, 
pushed  his way. 
“What’s this?” he demanded of a reporter, who was momentarily absorbed in  
thoughts of the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant. 
“Doughnuts,” answered the reporter. 
“Doughnut? Where?” the motion picture man asked. 
“Right there,” he was told, “right there on that tray. Lots of ‘em.” 
Hays gazed at the fluffy crullers a bit and a far-away look came into his  
eyes. He was musing, no doubt, on a Hoosier childhood—on the doughnuts of old  
Indiana, when life was young, the frost was on the punkin and doughnuts were  
cooked in a pot. 
Hays gave way to two young things in taffeta, who giggled and gushed as they  
watched the doughnuts coming down the revolving tray. Their conversation is  
scarcely worth reporting, save for a single line. 
“I wonder,” said one of them to her companion, “how they’d taste with  gin?”
 
Inside it was learned that the management neither encourages nor discourages  
dunking. “If you want to dunk,” said one of the half dozen young ladies who 
wait  on the counter, “go ahead and dunk. Personally I’d as leave dunk as  
not.”
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9 September 1931, Olean (NY) Evening Times, “New  York Day By Day” by O. O. 
McIntyre, pg. 10:
Broadway now has a Java and  sinker salon for dunking de luxe on the corner 
north of the Astor, where  glittering machines once cascaded cigarettes. Today 
drooling peepers through the  oval window see machines minting luscious brown 
doughnuts.
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5  November 1931, Helena (Montana) Daily Independent, pg. 3 ad:
In line  with Eddie Cantor’s NATIONAL “DUNKING” Contest, every patron will 
be given a  luscious Eddy Bakery doughnut.
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11 November 1931, Newark (Ohio)  Advocate, pg.9 ad:
Eddie Cantor 
Announces 
That He Dunks His Doughnuts
Both In and Out of “Palmy Days” 
You, Too, Will Enjoy Dunking
When You Once Taste 
Huber’s Doughnuts
(...)
HUBER’S BAKERY
61 South Second  Street
Newark, O.
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16 December 1931, Frederick (MD)  News, pg. 9 ad:
GLORIFYING
THE AMERICAN DOUGHNUT 
LEARN THE ART OF
“Dunking”
Garber’s Preferred  Doughnuts
FROM
EDDIE CANTOR
IN
“PALMY DAYS”
AT  THE
TIVOLI THEATER
WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY, DEC. 16-17 
The Garber Baking Co.
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30 April 1934, New York  Times, pg. 15:
ADAM BREDE DEAD;
NOTED FOR  BEEF-AN’ 
His Cuisine at Dolan’s in Park
Row Delighted  Celebrated
Patrons for 40 Years. 
NAMED “SINKERS” BY DINERS. 
Adam Brede, one of the famous characters of the old days on Park Row, who  
worked in Dolan’s restaurant for forty years, 1877-1917, and cooked the beef-an’
  which made Dolan’s popular, died yesterday at his home, 32-28 Decatur 
Avenue,  the Bronx, at the age of 78 (...) 
For nearly two generations Adam Brede knew nearly everybody of importance who 
 worked in downtown New York, and many who journeyed to Park Row for some of 
the  plain, well-cooked fare always obtainable in the little “beanery” 
opposite the  post office. 
Sinkers, as the customers called the chef, loved his work and cherished a  
store of recollections of his meeting with celebrities.
(...)
He cooked in  various places…before Pat Dolan engaged him for his “beanery” 
at 3 Park  Row.
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(Trademark)
Word Mark DUNKIN’ DONUTS 
Goods  and Services (CANCELLED) IC 029 030. US 046. G & S: DOUGHNUTS AND 
DOUGHNUT  FLOUR, FRUIT FILLINGS FOR DOUGHNUTS, COOKIES, CAKES AND PIES, VEGETABLE 
OIL  SHORTENING AND COFFEE. FIRST USE: 19520500. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 
19520500  
Mark Drawing Code (5) WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM  
Design Search Code 
Serial Number 71684644 
Filing Date March 31, 1955  
Current Filing Basis 1A 
Original Filing Basis 1A 
Registration Number  0692491 
Registration Date February 2, 1960 
Owner (REGISTRANT) DUNKIN’  DONUTS OF AMERICA, INC. DOING BUSINESS AS DUNKIN’
 DONUTS CORPORATION  MASSACHUSETTS 25 HUNTINGTON AVE. BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS 
(LAST LISTED OWNER)  UNKNOWN RANDOLPH MASS.
Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED 
Type of  Mark TRADEMARK 
Register PRINCIPAL 
Affidavit Text SECT 15. 
Renewal  1ST RENEWAL 19800202 
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD 
Cancellation Date February  17, 2001 

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