By Maureen Timm

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, June 2007

"The people must live on canned fruits and vegetables," Samuel Bowles, Author wrote in 1865 while visiting Virginia Dale, Colorado. "Corn, tomatoes, beans, pineapples, strawberry, cherry and peach, oysters, and lobsters are the most common... They range from fifty cents to one dollar a can of about two quarts. Families buy them in cases of two dozen at twelve to fifteen dollars a case."

Food has been canned in America since about 1820 when reports of French and British research on airtight preservation reached this country. It was in 1847 that a stamping process was invented that allowed tin cans to be made cheaply.

In the service of man, the metal can has safely preserved food rations of explorers in the Artic Sea. It has carried blood plasma to wounded soldiers, has provided the housewife the perfect container and dispenser for waxes, polishes and insecticides. It has been directly responsible for the growth of the vast food processing industry and has been a strongly influential force in the development of a host of other industries.

The number of factory processed food products was limited initially. Manufacturers quickly realized that packaging was the key to sales and the development of brand loyalty. The evolution of processed food also corresponded to the golden age of American lithography. The country store's shelves were lined with brightly colored lithographed paper and tin packages.

Gail Borden's condensed milk and the Civil War (1861-1865) helped advance the canned food industry. Borden visited the religious society of Shakers in New Lebanon, New York in 1853 and found that they used a globe-shaped copper vacuum pan for preparing medicinal herbs. He used the copper vacuum pot of Shaker origin and perfected and patented his formula for condensed milk in 1856. It included a process for evaporating some of the liquid content and adding sugar.

It was not until the Civil War that Borden's idea received wide acceptance. The United States government purchased large quantities of the canned milk for military purposes. It was especially helpful in field hospitals to nourish the wounded. When the soldiers found that it was good, people at home became convinced that it and other canned articles the troops used were safe. The canned foods industry expanded after that initial acceptance. More than one hundred years later, the Borden name still appears on this product. The words "Eagle Brand" were added in 1866.

In 1765 Dr. James Baker established a chocolate factory in Massachusetts. The £inn descended through his family for more than one hundred years. His grandson adopted the trademark La Belle Chocolatiere.

It is said that an Austrian prince visited a Vienna chocolate shop where he fell in love with a young waitress. His royal gift to her on their wedding day was a portrait of herself. Baker used this painting to advertise his wares. As the years progressed she shrank to a tiny silhouette in the comer of the can.

In 1849 Domingo Ghiradelli made a fortune selling supplies to the gold seekers in California. He established a chocolate and cocoa factory in San Francisco with his profits and his trademark eagle grasped a wreath in its claws. The entwined letters D and G created the central motif.

Many varieties of coffee tins were manufactured. Chase & Sanborn became the first company to pack and seal roasted coffee in one and two pound cans in 1878.

In 1889, C.F. Blanke Tea and Coffee Company opened a factory in St. Louis, Missouri. The company promoted local history when it issued a Grant's Cabin tin. Before the Civil War began in 1861m General Ulysses S. Grant lived in a cabin with his family on a farm near St. Louis. Cyrus Blank bought the Grant home in 1902 and gave it to St. Louis before the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition of 1904. A Blanke's 1903 Saint Louis World's Fair Roasted Coffee Tin commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase from France.

 Patriotic motifs are found on tins. Several different coffee tins eulogized the various leaders of the Spanish -American War. One six-sided container held Hero Coffee and pictured five American leaders including Admiral George Dewey, Admiral William T. Sampson, General William R. Shafter, Winfield S. Schley and General Nelson A. Miles.

Coffee tins were made that could be utilized after the coffee was enjoyed. Coffee tin banks were popular with housewives and children. Some tins had handles so they could be used for berry picking or other uses.

Limited Brand created a multicolored train for children to play with. The wheels and parts were packed right in the coffee can.

Many containers were so attractive that they were used to hold sewing supplies, jewelry and other miscellaneous items.

Montgomery Ward had a mail-order business and their name can be found on coffee cans. Triangle Club was one of their most popular brands.

Sears, Roebuck and Company opened a grocery department from 1901 to 1929 until it became unprofitable. Roasted Coffee, Special Combination and Garland Brand Milk Pail were three brands that can be recognized by the striped design on the cans.

In 1920 peanut butter was packed in toy pails that would appeal to children. Bright colors and clever graphics were an instant success. Sales fell in 1923 after it was discovered the pails leaked and a new container was produced called the New Leaktite Peanut Butter Pail.

Rabbit pails marked Tindeco were made by the Tin Decorating Company of Baltimore and decorated by the artist, Walter Harrison Cady. The one-pound Bunny Brand Peanut Butter is also attributed to Harrison Cady.

Other peanut butter cans are marked with nursery rhymes and Jackie Coogan, a child movie star in the 1920s, can be found on peanut butter pails.

Some of the more valuable and collectible peanut tins, Luncheon Brand, Bayle, Hoppingtot, Jackie Coogan and Pickanniny were also made as peanut abutter pails.

In 1859 the Great American Tea Company was established. The company name was changed to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in 1870. Horses and wagons took the products to the people, and mail orders were filled. Eventually, the firm opened thousands of grocery stores, and the company is now more easily recognized by its initials rather than by its name. A & P Grandmother Tea was packed in a vertical container with a small top and is highly regarded by collectors.

Lipton Tea manufactured large tins decorated with London traffic scenes and a smaller size that commemorates the one hundredth anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Some of the companies that produced tea also packaged coffee as evidenced by Montgomery, Ward and Company, Blanke's, Chase & Sanborn, Monarch and Lipton.

Cigars were usually packed in wooden boxes, but many were marketed in tins that were light in weight and prevented drying out of the contents. "Flat Tens" measured 3-1/4 inches wide, 3 inches deep and from 3/8 inches to 1 inch in height.

From about 1910 through the 1940s, small pocket tins with five or ten cigars were sold. A full tin cost twenty four cents, fifty cents, or one dollar.

There were also upright cigar boxes that were called "tin cans." The cigars were packed to stand upright rather than flat and they have hinged lids.

Cigarette tins were small, thin cases that sat flat. They had hinged lids and held fifty cigarettes. Therefore, the name "flat fifties." For special occasions they could be purchased with a decorative cardboard sleeve.

Cigar humidors are usually round with lift lids. They are designed to keep tobacco moist. The underside of the lid usually has a cavity where a piece of damp cloth can be stored. Humidors were manufactured y Cameron & Cameron, the Falk Tobacco Company, Surbrug Company and Ehruch & Kope.

Today, the can plays a vital role in our way of life. We enjoy a high standard of living long life expectancy based on good nutrition, and increased leisure through convenience packaging.

For both necessities and comforts of life, Americans use more than 200 million cans each day. To satisfy individual whims such as grooming aids and chilled soft drinks and to provide for needs of national military preparedness. Americans depend upon this container so much that we have been called a "tin can civilization."