Weekend event -- yellow, but only where law permits

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

In many states, the dairy lobby pushed through legislation prohibiting the sale of yellow margarine.  These laws were repealed one by one, right up through the 1960s, with margarine manufacturers putting great emphasis in advertising on how wonderfully yellow margarine could be if the law would only allow it.  And boy, was it yellow:


(Woman's Day, December 1949)





(Ladies' Home Journal, July 1949)




(Woman's Day, January 1947)




(Woman's Day, February 1949)




(Woman's Day, August 1949)

Comments

[arylkin.livejournal.com]

It's amazing the power the dairy industry had. I remember my mom telling me about how they had to mix the dye into their margarine.

[shortsweetcynic.livejournal.com]

i had no idea that was a thing people worried about.

really digging the color combinations they picked to set off the yellow in these ads; that first one, in particular, is lovely.

[glowing-dragon.livejournal.com]

I was just reading about the dairy industry and the butter vs. margarine war in one of my Bathroom Readers!

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

In Collins v. New Hampshire (1898), the SCOTUS ruled that it was unreasonable to demand that manufacturers had to color margarine pink.

[glowing-dragon.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know that.

[beetle-breath.livejournal.com]

Margarine in a bag??? *gag*

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

Yep -- soften it in the bag, squish the little yellow color-packet inside, knead until the color is evenly distributed or you get bored. Stuff it back into the box, chill, unwrap it and cut it up into nice quarter-pound blocks that will fit in your butter dish.

[sid]

The Wisconsin law against yellow margarine wasn't repealed until 1967. In the southeastern part of the state where I grew up, people used to drive down to Illinois and bring back colored margarine!

It was actually part of the plot of one of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. tie-in novels, that took place in the Milwaukee area. Napoleon and Illya were tied up with rope and thrown in the trunk of their rental car, which was filled with margarine they were bringing back at a Wisconsin sheriff's request. They used the margarine to grease up their hands and slip off the ropes and escape! :-D