Joseph Campbell, fruit merchant who had been born in Bridgeton, and Abraham Anderson and icebox manufacturer, from Mount Holly, joined as a partners in a Camden tomato canning and preserving firm in 1869.
The company name Joseph Campbell Preserve Company to produce canned tomatoes, vegetables, jellies, soups, condiments and mincemeat.
They publicized their Beefsteak Tomatoes widely, using the trademark image so a gigantic tomato hoisted upon two men’s shoulders.
By 1894, Campbell and Anderson had both retired, leaving the company in the hands of new partner Arthur Dorrance.
Later in 1897, Dr. John T. Dorrance, Arthur’s nephew a chemist joined a company. In the same year, Dorrance invented condensed soup, a process that eliminated the water in canned soup. The process lowered the costs for packaging, shipping, and storage.
The popularity of condensed canned soup prompted the company to add the word soup to its name in 1922.
By 1911, Campbell was one of the first companies with national distribution and in 1915 it established its industry dominance by buying Franco-American , another soup maker.
The transformation of Campbell’s Soup into an icon of American culture was carefully guided by company publicists through the use do streetcar signs at the beginning of the twentieth century, and then with advertisements in magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and sponsorship of the popular program on radio and television.
Campbell Soup Company
