Our Trip to a Western New York Museum with Strong Ties to Utah Culture

A gelometer, from the factory in Le Roy.

I bet you thought this would have something to do with Mormonism, didn't you? (In fact I'm going to make sure the first photo is ambiguous for when this shows up on Facebook.) But it doesn't, it's about something much better.

I got a rare Friday off work because of Easter, so Les and I decided to do something fun. We were going to go to the zoo, but the weather was not zoo friendly. So instead, we went to Le Roy. Le Roy, New York is a small village of less than 5,000 people as of the 2000 census. And most people have never even heard of it. But it is the birthplace of an American classic and they have a museum and gallery devoted to it.

Arch from the 2002 Winter Olympics.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, it's Jell-O, but I didn't want that to show up in the blurb. It was a nice trip, and didn't cost a lot. We had fun and didn't get wet. By the way the device in the first picture is a device used to measure the texture of Jell-O, before the era of computerized manufacturing.

The museum was very interesting, if poorly lit. (So excuse the poor quality of the photos, it was really bad lighting.) The entrance to the gallery is an arch that was used in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

Banner flapping in the wind

We learned about the history of Jell-o and some interesting trivia. Pearle B. Wait was a carpenter from LeRoy, New York, he also liked to play around in the kitchen, he was known for making cough syrup. In 1897 he developed a fruit-flavored version of gelatin, which was around as a dessert, but a very complicated process to make. His wife, May Davis Wait, named it Jell-O after a seeing the success of a coffee replacement drink of the time, called Grain-O.

Jell-O girl stone from the factory in Le Roy.

The first flavors of Jell-O were strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon. In 1899 Wait sold his business to a neighbor, Orator Francis Woodward, owner of the Genesee Pure Food Company, for $450. Woodward originally had little success with Jell-O, and at one point he offered the entire Jell-O business to his associate Sam Nico for $35. Nico turned him down.

In 1902 the first Jell-O ad appeared in Ladies Home Journal. Combined with a strategy of handing out samples and recipe books. Within two years Jell-O had made more than a million dollars. 

Several famous artists created Jell-O ads. Those ads have appeared all over the world.

The Jello-O girl made her debut in 1904. She was Elizabeth King, the daughter of Franklin King, an artist for Genesee’s ad agency. She was shown playing in her nursery, not with toys but with JELL-O gelatin packages. Jell-O was know as the dainty dessert and King felt his daughter illustrated daintiness. She became one of the most recognizable advertising figures of the first half of the twentieth century.

Jell-O girl display.

Isn't he just so dainty?

 By 1923 Genesee Pure Foods Company had been renamed Jell-O company. And on December 31, 1925 the company was sold to the Postum Cereal Company, becoming the first subsidiary of a large merger that would eventually become General Foods Corporation.

 So that's enough of a history lesson. Les and I enjoyed learning about the history of Jell-O though, I had no idea it was a local product until we nearly rented a house in Le Roy and I Googled how to pronounce Le Roy (there are two ways, neither right or wrong, apparently).

The caption in the display doesn't quite match the photo.

We also learned some trivia about Jell-O. A surprising amount of that trivia was about Utah. Of course we learned that Utahns eat the most Jell-O, the tour guide seemed surprised that we knew that. He mentioned the green Jello-O pins from the Olympics when he talked about the arch.

One thing I didn't know, but that didn't surprise me is that Jell-O is the official state snack of Utah. They had a display showing the govenor presenting Bill Cosby with a plaque when Jell-O was officially named the state snack. Notice the display names Governor Michael O. Leavitt. But if you look closely you'll notice that isn't him. Les and I spent probably ten minutes trying to remember her name. I kept telling him I was pretty sure it started with a W. He eventually came up with the last name Oneal. I told him that wasn't it and after a few minutes Oneal triggered the name Olene in my brain. Once we had that Les came up with Walker. It was rather amusing.

Information about Bill Cosby's relationship with Jell-O

Every visitor to the gallery votes for their favorite flavor.

Speaking of Bill Cosby, he became the company's spokesperson in 1974 and remained so for nearly 30 years and he recently reunited with Jell-O. According to our tour guide this is the longest celebrity/product spokesperson relationship in history, but I could not verify that anywhere online.

Jell-O molds through the ages.

Another interesting fact I had never heard of, in 1993 Dr. Adrian Upton was trying to prove you cannot use an EEG detecting brain waves as proof someone was alive. To prove this technicians in Batavia, New York hooked up a bowl of lime Jell-O to an EEG machine and found it had the same brain waves as a live adult. To commemorate this the Jell-O gallery has a green brain on display.

Timeline of Jell-O flavors.