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From: moe@Radix.Net (Ted Frank)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Smithsonian on Baby Ruth
Date: 10 Mar 1996 14:06:38 -0500

From the Smithsonian's exhibit on First Ladies, in the context of a display of the use of First Ladies' likenesses and fame to advertise products: 

!'Baby Ruth' Cleveland, the first child of Frances and Grover Cleveland,
!was born in 1891 just before her father's second term as president.  
!Depsite her tragic death in 1904, her name remained so well known that
!in 1921 Otto Schnering, owner of Curtiss Candiess, named his product
!Baby Ruth in her honor.  Many people still believe the candy bar was 
!named for basbeall player Babe Ruth, who had just signed with the New
!York Yankees in 1921.  But when Babe Ruth tried to endorse his own candy
!bar Babe Ruth's Home Run Candy, Curtiss Candies appealed (sic) to the 
!United States Patent Office.  The Patent Office ruled that the basbeall
!player's product infringed on the copyright (sic) of the original Baby
!Ruth candy bar named for Ruth Cleveland.

The exhibit featured a late 19th century illustration of Frances and Baby Ruth Cleveland attached to a 1970s or 1980s box of Baby Ruth bars -- an additional dishonesty, given that I am unaware of either Curtiss or Nabisco *ever* using a picture of any of the Clevelands to advertise their candy bar.

The text is wrong, too: while the Patent Office ruled that the Babe Ruth bar infringed the trademark of the Baby Ruth bar, they took no position on Curtiss's claim that the bar was named for Baby Ruth Cleveland, because the issue was entirely irrelevant. -- 

moe@radix.net     "I never sought perfection, I loved her for her flaws 
                   So I'm left here to wonder how the spell I was under
                   Is effect without the cause"  -- Jules Shear/Moe Berg



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