Baby Ruth

In 1916, Otto Y. Schnering of Chicago founded a bakery, food, and wholesale candy business in Chicago. The candy products soon outstripped the bakery items in popularity, and Schnering changed the company’s name to reflect this, calling it the Curtiss Candy Company (Curtiss was his mother’s maiden name). One of his products was the Kandy Kate bar—a pastry center topped with nuts and coated with chocolate. In 1920, Schnering changed the formula, devising a filling of peanuts covered with nougat, and he changed the name to “Baby Ruth.” Within two years of its creation, the “Baby Ruth” bar was sold nationwide. The candy bar’s popularity convinced Babe Ruth, the baseball star, to form his own company, called the George H. Ruth Candy Co.; his plan was to market the “Babe Ruth Home Run Bar.” Curtiss sued for breach of copyright infringement. Babe Ruth claimed that Curtiss was using his name without permission. Curtiss maintained that their candy bar was named after President Grover Cleveland’s daughter, Ruth, and had nothing to do with the Babe. But Ruth Cleveland was born in 1891 and died (of diphtheria) in 1904. Cleveland himself died in 1908. Putting aside the questionable taste of naming a candy bar after a president’s child who had died in childhood, few young candy buyers would have recognized Ruth’s name, but everybody knew Babe Ruth, the nation’s most popular baseball player. Still, the Curtiss Candy Company won their suit. When Babe Ruth was informed, he reportedly retorted, “Well, I ain’t eatin’ your damned candy bar anymore!”