Marjorie Husted

Marjorie Husted (née Child; April 2, 1892 – December 23, 1986) was an American home economist and businesswoman who worked for General Mills and was responsible for the success and fame of the brand character Betty Crocker. Husted wrote Betty Crocker's radio scripts and was her radio voice for a time.

Several different women are believed by different audiences to be the woman behind Betty Crocker. Until the company admitted she was not a real person,

Husted's original ideas and hard work transformed Betty Crocker, in the words of author Laura Shapiro, into "the most successful culinary authority ever invented."

Education and early career Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of Sampson Child and his wife, Alice, she studied home economics and German at the University of Minnesota where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta.

She graduated in 1913 and returned to the university for a degree in education.

She first worked as a secretary at the Infant Welfare Society of Minneapolis, and then at the Red Cross during World War I. After the war she belonged to the Women's Cooperative Alliance. In 1923 she became supervisor of promotional advertising and merchandising for the Creamette Company.

General Mills

In 1924, she went to work as a field representative in home economics for the Washburn–Crosby Company which four years later became General Mills. whom General Mills had invented in 1921. The department was renamed the Betty Crocker Homemaking Service in 1929, with forty staff members and Husted as director. After some time, at the General Mills president's directive, when visitors to General Mills met Husted, she was introduced as Betty Crocker.

Radio, retirement By 1945, Betty Crocker received 4,000 letters a day asking for homemaking help. Each week, Crocker received an average of four to five marriage proposals. From its debut in 1924, with Home Service's Blanche Ingersoll as Betty, until 1953, Gold Medal Flour Home Service Talks, (Crocker's voice was initially Blanche Ingersoll who worked for General Mills Home Service.) After two years, Husted took over. Then until 1936, she was voiced by different women in different cities. but she played a larger role in expanding Betty Crocker's character.

She interviewed "eligible bachelors" and visited movie stars like Joan Crawford, Dolores del Río, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable and Cary Grant to ask them about their life at home. Shapiro says, "Under her direction, Betty Crocker became a figure of dignity who treated homemakers with respect." Husted strove to make Crocker appear to be a home economist with professional experience, not a home cook.

In 1946, Husted was named a consultant to the officers and executives of General Mills. In 1948 she was made consultant in advertising, public relations, and home service. Husted researched and published Betty Crocker's Good and Easy Cookbook in 1950, which sold 18 million copies, and ultimately the Betty Crocker cookbooks numbered about 50 titles that sold 45 million copies. She retired from the company in 1950 when she formed the consultancy Marjorie Child Husted and Associates.

Also in 1948, Husted was a consultant for the national food conservation program of the United States Department of Agriculture. Husted was named Advertising Woman of the Year in 1949 by the Advertising Federation of America. That year she served on the AAUW Committee on the Status of Women and helped research and edit selected AAUW publications until about 1955.