Elmer Cline, the Taggart Baking Company vice president appointed to merchandise a new one-and-a-half pound loaf bread, was awed by the sight of the sky filled with hundreds of colorful hot-air balloons at the International Balloon Race at the Indianapolis Speedway. The wonder of that sight prompted Cline to name the new bread Wonder Bread, and colorful balloons have been featured on the Wonder Bread wrappers ever since.
In 1921, Taggart Baking Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, decided to go along with a postwar trend to bring out a one-and-a-half pound loaf of bread. To promote the new bread's debut, company trucks delivered helium-filled balloons to children in Indianapolis neighborhoods. Messages attached to the balloons urged mothers to try new Wonder Bread. Continental Baking Company bought Taggart in 1925, and Wonder Bread soon became a national brand.
Continental Baking Company was not the only producer of Wonder Bread. The Seven Baker Brothers Co. of Pittsburgh also produced a bread named Wonder, and there was some dispute as to which company used the brand name first. When the Pittsburgh company went out of business around 1930, Continental bought the trademark rights.
In 1941, Continental Baking Company joined in the government-supported bread enrichment program, adding vitamins and minerals to Wonder Bread. Known as the "quiet miracle," bread enrichment nearly eliminated beriberi and pellagra and brought essential nutrients to people who previously could not afford nutritious foods.
Wonder Bread does not contain any cholesterol or saturated fat.
Wonder Bread has been endorsed on television by Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob, and was praised in song by the Happy Wonder Bakers quartet.
In the 1970s, Continental Baking Company became the first national wholesale baking company to print freshness dates and nutritional information on bread product wrappers. The move came at a time when the whole-grain bread revolution threatened to erode white bread's market share.
In 1986, Continental Baking Company introduced Wonder Light with only 40 calories per slice, compared with approximately 75 calories per slice of regular bread.
In 1996, artist Michael Gonzalez's show at the Huntington Beach Art Center featured paintings incorporating Wonder Bread wrappers.
In his book, The Total Package, design critic Thomas Hine compares the Wonder Bread wrapper with the monstrance, the ornate container that holds the bread used in Roman Catholic liturgy. According to Hine, the monstrance calls attention to the invisible presence of Christ within the bread; the Wonder Bread wrapper calls attention to the invisible nutritional additives advertised to build strong bodies twelve ways.
Wonder Bread is the best-selling bread in the United States.
Thousands of loaves of fresh Wonder Bread are distributed to store shelves on more than 7,000 delivery routes from Continental's 40 bakeries across the country.
