Maxwell House (1950)

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Maxwell House advertisement, 1950

Maxwell House is an American brand of coffee produced by the Kraft Heinz Division. Introduced by wholesale grocer Joel Owsley Cheek in 1892, it was named in honour of the now-defunct Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, which was its first major customer. [1]

This brand is still operating up until now and is listed as a brand under Kraft Heinz. The company recently unveiled a new slogan, "Good Just Got Great," visible on their website. However, it is best known for its longtime slogan, "Good to the last drop," and is still running ads featuring the line. [2]

Controversy

Another problematic ad from Maxwell House

This advertisement, which was estimated to be created in 1950, portrayed Black men as extremely ugly servants pouring coffee into a white woman's cup. Looking closely, the Black men figures don’t have the face structure of Black people. It resembles white males, with their faces being turned to black.

In this ad, the text is also written in broken English, which presented Black men as uneducated. Not only that this advertisement placed Black figures in a lower economic status than the white female figure, but the additional caption also leads the audiences to be familiar with the idea that Black men (portrayed as servants) were not able to speak English normally, seeing from how the words are written broken on purpose.

Another old ad from Maxwell Coffee also looks pretty problematic. It featured a white couple, having cups of coffee on their holiday, and there is a black man standing as a waiter behind the couple. It emphasizes on racism as at that time, the position as a waiter was commonly viewed as a Black person’s job. [3]


Reference