Laura Clough Scudder (July 19, 1881 – March 13, 1959) was an entrepreneur in
Monterey Park, California
Monterey Park is a city located in the western San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the Downtown Los Angeles civic center. The city's motto is "Pride in the past, Faith in the future". Mo ...
,
who made and sold
potato chips
A potato chip (North American English; often just chip) or crisp (British and Irish English) is a thin slice of potato that has been either deep fried, baked, or air fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appe ...
and pioneered their packaging in sealed bags to extend freshness.
Biography
Born in 1881, in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, as Laura Clough, she was a nursing student in Trenton, New Jersey. She worked as a nurse before moving to
Ukiah in Northern California, after marrying Charles Scudder on July 4, 1908. She opened a restaurant across from the
Mendocino County
Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish language, Spanish for "of Antonio de Mendoza, Mendoza) is a County (United States), county located on the North Coast (California), North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United Sta ...
Courthouse, where lawyers encouraged her to study law.
While there she became the first female attorney in Ukiah (but she never practiced law) before moving south in 1920, to
Monterey Park, California
Monterey Park is a city located in the western San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the Downtown Los Angeles civic center. The city's motto is "Pride in the past, Faith in the future". Mo ...
, where Charles ran a gas station (a garage and attached brick building at the northeast corner of Atlantic and Garvey)
until he was disabled repairing a car.
They rented the brick building to a barber who turned out to be a bootlegger, and Laura, who was a Republican and Episcopalian, kicked out the bootlegger.
[ She took over the gas station and branched out into potato chips in 1926 and peanut butter in 1931.][ The Scudders lived in ]La Habra Heights
La Habra Heights is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 5,325 at the 2010 census, down from 5,712 at the 2000 census. La Habra Heights is a suburban canyon community located on the border of Orange and Lo ...
She tended a victory garden
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I ...
and wrote a newspaper column. They had four children.
Potato chips
In the early days, potato chips were distributed in bulk from barrels or glass display cases, or tins, which left chips at the bottom stale and crumbled. Laura Scudder started paying her workers to take home sheets of wax paper
Waxed paper (also wax paper, waxpaper, or paraffin paper) is paper that has been made moisture-proof and grease-proof through the application of wax.
The practice of oiling parchment or paper in order to make it semi-translucent or moisture-proo ...
and iron them into the form of bags, which were filled with chips at her factory the next day. This innovation kept the chips fresh and crisp longer and, along with the invention of cellophane
Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. Its low permeability to air, oils, greases, bacteria, and liquid water makes it useful for food packaging. Cellophane is highly permeable to water vapour, but may be coated w ...
, allowed potato chips to become a mass market product. Other potato chip makers soon began to package their chips in bags.
Scudder also began putting dates on the bags, becoming the first company to show a freshness date on its food products and sold in twin packs to further reduce staleness and crumbling. This new standard of freshness was reflected in the marketing slogan, "Laura Scudder's Potato Chips, the Noisiest Chips in the World". The Laura Scudder Potato Chip Factory was at Garvey Avenue east of Atlantic Boulevard, Monterey Park, in the 1920s.
She expanded into peanut butter and mayonnaise in order to keep her workforce employed year round since potato chips tended to sell best during summertime. She published recipes to raise interest in her products and was noted for a chocolate cake recipe that used mayonnaise instead of eggs and butter. Ingredients like butter and fresh eggs were scarce during World War II due to rationing for civilians because of the effort to supply the needs of military personnel.
Laura Scudder Inc.
At one point, Scudder turned down a $9 million offer for the company because the buyer would not guarantee her employees' jobs. In 1957, she sold her firm to Signal Oil & Gas
AlliedSignal was an American aerospace, automotive and engineering company created through the 1985 merger of Allied Corp. and Signal Companies. It subsequently purchased Honeywell for $14.8 billion in 1999, and thereafter adopted the Honeywell n ...
of Signal Hill, with a $6 million offer from a buyer who guaranteed job security for her workforce. The new company was called Laura Scudder Inc. At the time of the sale, the company had expanded into mayonnaise
Mayonnaise (; ), colloquially referred to as "mayo" , is a thick, cold, and creamy sauce or dressing commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, composed salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various other sauces, such as tartar ...
, and Laura Scudder brand potato chips held a greater than 50% share of the Californian market. She continued to run the company until her death in 1959.
Post-Laura
In 1987, Laura Scudder Inc. was sold to Borden, Inc.
Borden, Inc., was an American producer of food and beverage products, consumer products, and industrial products. At one time, the company was the largest U.S. producer of dairy and pasta products. Its food division, Borden Foods, was based in ...
for $100 million. Annual sales for the chipmaker were $126 million in 1986. To avoid union issues, Borden closed all California plants of Laura Scudder Inc. only a year later. Borden's overall culture of mismanagement, incurrence of excessive debt to finance numerous acquisitions, and several restructurings in 1993, led Borden to sell what remained of Laura Scudder for less than $16.7 million. The buyer, G.F. Industries, Inc.'s Granny Goose
Granny Goose is an American brand of potato chips and other snack foods.
History
Granny Goose Foods, Inc. was founded in Oakland, California, Oakland, California, by Matthew Barr in 1946. In 1993, the company acquired the Laura Scudder brand fro ...
subsidiary, was already in trouble, and was put up for sale in January 1995. In 2009, Snack Alliance, Inc. licensed from The Laura Scudder's Company, LLC the rights to produce and market potato chips under the Laura Scudder's brand.
According to The J.M. Smucker Company
The J.M. Smucker Company, also known as Smuckers, is an American manufacturer of food and beverage products. Headquartered in Orrville, Ohio, the company was founded in 1897 as a maker of apple butter. J.M. Smucker currently has three major bus ...
website, the Laura Scudder's Natural Peanut Butter business was acquired by Smucker's from BAMA Foods Inc. in December 1994. In 2009, Smucker's marketed the Laura Scudder's brand of natural peanut butter on the west coast. According to a March 31, 2010, announcement, Snack Alliance, Inc. was acquired by Shearers Foods Inc., a manufacturer of competing salty snacks in different regions of North America. At the same time (2010), it appeared the original Laura Scudder's brand was being actively marketed by a Californian company. These two companies have different packaging for their different Laura Scudder's products, and the Californian company appears to be marketing its products nationwide.
Legacy
John Scudder, Laura Scudder's grandson, created a television documentary called ''Laura'' to honor his grandmother. It was completed in 1989 but only broadcast in 2007, because one of her daughters did not want anything made about her. After she died, the documentary was shown on the southern California public television station KOCE.
Laura Scudder's Papers and the Women's Studies Scholarship is at Chapman University
Chapman University is a private research university in Orange, California. It encompasses ten schools and colleges, including Fowler School of Engineering, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Fowler School of Law, and Schmid College of Scie ...
. Laura Scudder Program Series is at the Bruggemeyer Library, in Monterey Park. with donations from the Laura Scudder Foundation.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Scudder, Laura
1881 births
1959 deaths
American women in business
American women lawyers