The Baby Ruth is Named for Babe Ruth, Right? Not So Fast. Maybe Not

The candy bar that would become Baby Ruth got it's start in 1916 when Otto Y

. Schnering founded a bakery in Chicago. Inside the bakery he set aside a small area for a candy department. His candy proved so popular that in no time the bakery was discontinued.

Schnering changed the name of the company to the Curtiss Candy Company.

Early Success

One of Curtiss' early successes was a product called the Kandy Kate. It was a candy bar with a pastry center topped with nuts and coated with chocolate. Sound familiar?

In 1920, Curtiss fiddled with the formula -- the mixed nuts became peanuts, the pasty became nougat and chocolate...well, it stayed chocolate. He then changed the name to Baby Ruth.

Within just two years of its creation, the Baby Ruth was sold nationwide -- a remarkable feat for the day.

Was It Named For Babe Ruth?

Well...no. According to Schnering.

Lawyers for Curtiss maintained, in a lawsuit with Babe Ruth, that the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after President Grover Cleveland's daughter, Ruth. This seems unlikely since Ruth Cleveland was born on October 3, 1891 and died of diphtheria 13 years later. Cleveland himself died in 1908. When the Baby Ruth bar was introduced 16 years after Ruth Cleveland's death, few people would have even remembered her -- especially kids.

But everyone knew Babe Ruth. He was the most popular sports figure of the day. A towering god of a man known, loved and admired worldwide.

You decide.

Very Popular -- By Any Name

Baby Ruth was extremely successful, due to or inspite of the name. This was mainly due

to Schnering's uncanny promotional abilities.

One time he chartered an airplane and dropped the bars by with miniature parachutes over the city of Pittsburgh. This boosted sales so much he did drops in cities in more than 40 states.

The company also began to promote with four-color advertisements in national magazines (one of the first candies to do so.)

Together these promotions were so successful Schnering had to build another factory, then another, to keep up with demand. By 1927, the Curtiss facilities were the largest candy factories in the world.

The Curtiss Candy Company sold out to Standard Brands in 1930, which promptly decreased advertising. The same year Mars, Inc., began manufacturing Snickers and sales of Baby Ruths fell and never recovered to their high mark even though it remains among America's most consumed and favorite candies.

The Baby Ruth is Named for Babe Ruth, Right? Not So Fast. Maybe Not

By: Mark Hester

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