Thanksgiving Feed - Brown Derby Pie (1953)

This is one I've got to try. I have to note that it's the generic "movie stars", no specifics...so I'm guessing these are theoretical movie stars.

Extra Helping - Nestles Fighting Chocolate

An extra helping of chocolate on this Veteran's Day. Nestles ad from the mid-forties promoting the caloric content of chocolate. There's something you won't see today! Now we have to invent flavonoids to justify wolfing down a candy bar, but back in the 1940's they were good with "it's got lots of calories!"

Halloween Candy - The Wilbur Sweet Chocolate Bar

Sometimes all the hours of combing old periodicals pays off in an unexpected way. I present to you, the Wilbur sweet milk chocolate bar. Ah, language, you are a fickle and changeable lady!

In 1927, five years after this ad aired in Confectioner's Journal, the H. O. Wilbur company merged with Suchard Candy to become the Wilbur-Suchard Chocolate Company Inc. Nope, not making it up, I swear.

Though eventually gobbled up by the faceless Cargill conglomeration, Wilbur still is in operation today.

Halloween Candy - Hershey Kisses

1922 ad for Hershey's Kisses, a candy that's come to be more associated with Christmas than the Halloween season. Still, they're always one of my favorites, who wouldn't love something from a place called Chocolate Town?

Nylo Chocolate Easter?

I wasn't able to find any information about Nylo Chocolates. There are a few other ads online, but not much, and all of them are from around 1914. This means that Nylo Chocolates probably tasted a lot like they sounded...a little like an old sock.

The Nyal Company of Detroit, MI made all sorts of products from alum to bath salts (no, not that kind) and laxatives. Chocolates don't seem like a good fit for the company, which probably is the most likely reason the line never took off. To be honest, a lot of pharma companies of this era had odd, tangential product lines. For a while Eli Lilly of Indianapolis owned Elizabeth Arden cosmetics and workers received a "goodie bag" of cosmetics every holiday season. Eventually the era of "smart-sizing" and market segments came and the time of corporate brickabrack and vanity brands ended.

I do like the artwork, though. It reminds me of the Arrow Shirt ads done by J. C. Leyendecker, images that make me think of The Great Gatsby.

Maillard's Chocolates!

Henri Maillard arrived from France in New York in the 1840's and shortly thereafter began operating a confectionary at Broadway and Houston. Malliard's fame spread and he catered Lincoln the inaugural ball and other grand dinners in the Lincoln White House. When he died in 1900, his son Henry Maillard Jr., continued the business. The candy store from the lower level of the Fifth Avenue Hotel to Fifth Avenue and 35th Street.

In 1922 Maillard's moved again, relocating to Madison Avenue and 47th Street and added a men's dining room with a separate entrance (can't have the fellows mingling with the ladies, after all). It was this location that attracted the patronage and praise of restaurateur James Beard. It was also in the 1920's that Maillard's opened a Chicago location on Michigan Avenue.

Like so many venerable American institutions, Maillard's went under during the Great Depression, a victim of belt tightening in hard times. Fred Harvey took over the Chicago location, making it the first non-railroad based Harvey House. Candy's were produced under the Maillard's name until the 1960's but the glitz of the old days had long one.