Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

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Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

Abstract

The Arm & Hammer Brand Baking Soda has been a staple of American life since 1846. The brand once only used for baking enjoyed a resurgence of interest in the 1970's by reinventing itself and its usefulness without changing a single ingredient. The new marketing campaign would eventually expand the Arm & Hammer brand to include deodorants, laundry detergents, cleaning supplies, and even toothpaste. An interesting history with many interesting uses in such an uninteresting little yellow box we are all familiar with, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda has become as Americana as apple pie and baseball. In fact, you probably can't even name one other brand of baking soda, can you?

The Little Yellow Box

Though we are all familiar with the little yellow box in our refrigerators or in our mothers pantries many of us would be amazed at what can be done with the contents of that little yellow box. Arm & Hammer Baking Soda has been used as a toothpaste, a remedy for bee stings, a fire extinguisher, a pot-scrubber, a facial scrub, a battery acid neutralizer, a laundry additive, a carpet freshener, a way to test the pH in your gardening soil, a litter box freshener, a remedy for fleas, it even removes tea stains from old plastic drinking cups (Thomlison, n.d.). These are just a few of the consumer uses for Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, not to mention the commercial and industrial uses such as an abrasive blast for removal of surface coatings, in water treatment facilities, air pollution control, as an additive in oil well drilling fluids, and even as an alternative to CFC's in the electronics industry (Thomlison, n.d.).

Started in 1846 by Dr. Austin Church in Rochester, New York was the first American factory for the production of saleratus or sodium bicarbonate. Dr. Church felt he had a better and cheaper way to manufacture this popular additive in American rather than to continue importing it from Europe. His brother-in-law, John Dwight, an ambitious gentleman and convincing salesman traveled from grocer to market promoting the American made substance creating a substantial customer base. The company was re-named John Dwight & Company and they called their baking soda product, Cow Brand Baking Soda (Wikipedia, 2005). Soon after Dr. Church retired in 1867, his two sons began their own firm called Church & Co.

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