january 5: how the wiener won its way

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 Harper's, July 1954.

If you believe this fun 1950s ad, the story of the wiener fits the classic tale of the immigrant who made good in America. From the arrival of the first two wieners at Ellis Island, this story demonstrates how combining the right cuts of meat and spices into a pleasing taste combination hooked generations of Americans. It is a lesson that is sadly lost on many people today. 

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the wiener industry stressed the easy digestibility of its products, as it does in section 6 of this ad. One of the funniest examples of this I've encountered is an ad for Kahn's Wieners ("The Wiener the World Awaited") presented on Cruisin' 1964, one in a series of albums recreating the golden age of AM rock radio. Here's a link to the Kahn's ad whose tagline is...well...a tagline (you'll want to start at the 14:07 mark). 

Founded in 1906 as the meat industry's lobby group as the American Meat Packers Association, the American Meat Institute existed until it merged with the North American Meat Institute in 2015, becoming the plain old Meat Institute. 



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