The last time I posted about President Grover Cleveland, it was the little-known story about his bout with cancer, but today I want to share with you the kerfuffle surrounding the origin of the name of the Baby Ruth candy bar. Suzy Evans, who writes the “History Chef” blog recently covered this: as she explains it, the candy bar was re-named from “Kandy Kake” to “Baby Ruth” in 1920, which, not coincidentally, was at the height of Babe Ruth’s career. In those days, there was no such thing as official licensing or merchandising of a public figure’s name and likeness, so there were a lot of products named after the Babe, who in turn fought back with lawyers. So the company that then made the candy bar came up with a more-or-less plausible counter-claim, namely, that the candy was not named after the baseball hero, but after the daughter of Grover Cleveland, Ruth, who died as a child.
Cleveland’s marriage to his wife, Frances, was somewhat scandalous because she was significantly younger than he was, but their first child, Ruth, was born in between his non-consecutive presidential administrations, and her death occurred in 1904, after the end of his presidency and even long before the creation of the candy bar itself in 1916. In other words, by 1920, nobody really gave a damn about Ruth Cleveland, but everybody DID love Babe Ruth. But the Curtiss Candy Company stuck with the story, and it still remains the official story today, even though the candy bar is now made by Nestle and Babe Ruth has been gone for decades.
