Campbell's Kids

Drawn by Grace Drayton in 1904, the characters became popular almost immediately, leading to the production of dolls, cookbooks, cards, plates, T-shirts, and many other items fashioned in their likeness.

Grace Drayton, a freelance illustrator of children’s book and comic strips, was known for her chubby figures with round faces, wide-set eyes, and a pug nose.

The Campbell Kid imagery became so popular that they animated postcards, bridge tallies, place cards, and lapel pins.

Children across the country announced, “I am a Campbell Kid.”[3] The use of jingles and familiar characters were common in the early twentieth century.

The Kids were attractive to children, but they also promoted prevailing societal ideologies as well, mirroring what adult consumers wanted to see in themselves.

In Campbell’s early advertising campaigns, the company addressed women consumers and attempted to create insecurities about their roles as mothers and homemakers within a changing modern America.

[8] The soups are “healthful, wholesome, and absolutely dependable” and “are the result of combining goodness and quality in materials, with conscience in the making,” an ad from 1906 explains (Fig 9).

Previously women relied on local grocers to ensure the nutrition and safety of the food they fed their children, but in the modern age, advertising acquired the role.

Chubby, happy, healthy children were used to advertise the health benefits of a product to mothers, as the woman would imagine her own child among the cheerful figures.

Improvements in technology and medicine helped reduce this possibility, but during the warm summer months and in close quarters with urban neighbors, mothers were aware of the prospect.

[9] Within a competitive economic environment, even greater significance was given to making wise decisions when children were young in order to place them on a path to success.

The healthy, happy Campbell Kids that promoted the purity and nutritional value of their product took the form of doll, and parents gave them to their children.

Other Campbell Kids were depicted talking on the telephone, flying airplanes, riding construction cranes, and visiting Egypt.

These images reflected the increasingly ubiquitous telephone, Lindbergh’s famous transatlantic journey, the rise of skyscraper, and the discovery of King Tut’s tomb.

In advertisements, the Kids were dressed as policemen, utility workers, circus trainers, drummer boys, and other roles in service and entertainment.

[2] In the 1940s, during World War II, newsprint and tin rationing resulted in cuts in both advertising and soup production, so the Campbell Kids were not as visible as in past years.

Campbell merchandise did make sporadic comebacks, and the Kids commemorated the United States’ bicentennial event in colonial clothing.

The Campbell Kids enjoyed modern conveniences such as boom boxes and skateboards, but they were sometimes illustrated in their traditional early twentieth-century dress.

The Campbell Soup Company’s creative team have begun to consider separating the Kids into three age groups ranging from toddlers to preteens.