Gabriel takes us on a sweet journey through some of Ohio's tastiest inventions, including Life Savers, Klondikes and Good Humor Bars. Yum!
Class Discussion Questions:
1) What factors led to the invention of Lifesavers?
2) What flavor Klondike bar would you like to see return?
3) What advantages does selling ice cream from a truck have compared to a store front?
Read the Script:
You may have heard that Ohio is the birthplace of aviation or rock 'n' roll or of seven different presidents. But did you know that Ohio is also the birthplace of some pretty sweet inventions? And I mean literally sweet inventions, like these, for example. In fact, there are at least three famous brands of sweet treats that were born in Ohio in the early-1900s.
Lifesavers were actually invented by Clarence Crane, the owner of a chocolate company. But before Lifesavers or even chocolate, he was in the maple sugar business. Clearly, this guy liked his sweets. Clarence owned his maple sugar business in Warren, Ohio, until 1909.
After that, he started a chocolate company in Cleveland, but he ran into a problem. Hot summer weather made it tough to sell melting chocolate. Now, this was back in 1911, two years before home refrigerators were invented and at least 10 years before the first home air conditioners would appear, so keeping things cool was not easy.
Clarence's solution: Invent a hard candy that would keep business booming in the summertime. That new candy turned out to be, you guessed it, Lifesavers. He made the round candies in a machine used by pharmacists for making pills. By punching a hole in the middle of their candies, they took on their unique life preserver shape. Clarence's first flavor was called Pep-O-Mint, and it's still sold today.
Another sweet treat you may have heard of with an origin in Ohio is the Klondike Bar. Klondike Bars were invented by the Isaly's Dairy Company, a successful family business that started in Mansfield, Ohio.
The company was founded by William Isaly as a dairy and milk delivery company. Remember, people didn't have refrigerators yet, so fresh milk was home-delivered every day. Eventually, Isaly's established shops that sold deli meat, cheese, and their famous Skyscraper ice cream cone. This concoction required a customized scooper and specialized training to make it, and customers loved it.
But it was a Skyscraper successor, the Klondike Bar, that really made it big-time. Klondike Bars were first mentioned in the Youngstown newspaper in 1922, when Isaly's offered the chocolate-covered ice cream bars in strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, grape, maple, and cherry flavors. By the late 1940s, Isaly's had hundreds of shops throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania, and Klondike Bars were sold in all of them.
In fact, you could only find Klondike Bars in Ohio and Pennsylvania until the 1980s. Today, the Klondike Bar is available all over the world.
The third sweet invention from that time period is actually kinda similar to the Klondike Bar. Ever heard of Good Humor ice cream? The Good Humor company was started by Harry Burt, who owned an ice cream parlor in Youngstown, Ohio.
The legend goes that Burt concocted a chocolate coating for his ice cream, but that his daughter thought it was too messy to eat. So, his son suggested freezing a stick inside the ice cream to use as a handle. And voila, the Good Humor ice cream bar was born.
But it was the method of selling them out of vending trucks outfitted with bells and later with music that really set Good Humor apart from the crowd. Yep, Burt invented the ice cream truck. Today, there are many more Good Humor products to choose from, and you can still buy them from mobile vendors like these solar-powered ones in Washington, DC.
Nowadays, there are even more local Ohio ice cream companies. But, boy, the early-1900s must've been a pretty sweet time to live in Ohio.