Adulteration: Forces of Change

Just after the turn of the twentieth century, however, three significant events ultimately resulted in the enactment of a pure food law. First, adulteration of food became a hot topic at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. Although this seven-month event, which drew 20 million visitors, is important in American food history for the introduction and popularization of ice cream cones, iced tea, peanut butter, and cotton candy, there was an important pure food presentation at the fair as well.

In one of the exhibit halls, food companies set up impressive displays of their canned and bottled foods—but many of these foods were artificially colored. Chemists from the National Association of State Dairy and Food Departments opened a booth nearby with their own exhibit. They had extracted the dyes from many of the artificially colored foods on display and used those dyes to color pieces of wool and silk. They attached a certificate to each piece of cloth, documenting the properties of the dye and naming the food that contained the dye. The brightly colored cloths were disturbing to most visitors and became a vehicle for the chemists manning the booth to educate people about the need for a national pure food law.