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Somerville and New England History Collection
 
Before Gerber Babies—those healthy infant faces peering
at us from Gerber's Baby Food ads—there were Mellin's Babies.
This ad at left from an early twentieth-century issue of Harper's
shows us F. Sumner Warren of Somerville—an exemplar of
the happy, healthy children fed on Mellin's baby food (or so
the copywriters wished us to think). The food itself was an
additive said to give cow's milk all the nutritional properties
of breast milk. In reality, Mellin's Food was nothing more than
malt extract. In spite of its nutritional limitations, by the
1890's Mellin's Food was the most popular of the infant foods
sold in the United States. This success was due primarily to
aggressive marketing—advertisements for Mellin's often
included supposed testimonials from parents that Mellin's had
brought their children back from the brink of death. But whether
the food actually improved children's health or not, being the
face of Mellin's often launched a baby on a career in modeling
or show business. Humphrey Bogart was a Mellin's Baby. So was
Ruth Gordon Jones of Harold and Maude.
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