The One-Hundred-Year-ish Rise and Fall of E. C. Rich, Inc
The story of the company behind one of the first commercial gelatin dessert products, with some intriguing tie-ins to World War I, Prohibition, and New York City history.
I have what feels like a surprisingly large collection of items for a fairly ungoogleable World War I era company called E. C. Rich, Inc. Their offerings of various gelatin desserts were diverse: coffee jelly, wine jelly, and something regal-looking called Imperial Table Jelly.
But their star, it seemed, was Rich's Tryphosa, a direct competitor to Jell-O, which was only just beginning to surge in popularity. In pamphlet after pamphlet, all regarded Rich's Tryphosa with pure adoration: children, parents, citizens of the world—and even Uncle Sam. "Perfect in every respect," so they claimed. A quick search of newspaper mentions of the product indicated that it sold steadily throughout the 1910s and 1920s—and then suddenly it seemed to disappear.
So what's the deal? Stick with me as we unwind the story of E. C. Rich, Inc., whose products may have been lost to history (until now!) but were surprisingly at the cutting edge for their time. We'll start at the Gilded Age and meander through World War I, Prohibition, and World War II, with a dash of New York City history along the way.
Company beginnings: a shuffle of people and places
E. C. Rich, Inc. claims to have been founded in 1860 as an importer of crystallized ginger from China, footnote which may or may not have been true; I couldn't find any records of the company peddling ginger until after the turn of the century. In fact, the company had its start as a (mostly) Boston-based importer and distributor of various apothecary items, and operated under a series of partnerships, changing the company name as its numerous owners came and went (which made this an interesting research exercise to say the least). The earliest records I could find were those of Holway, Wright & Miner in 1881, footnote whose wares included Jasper's Fine Table Syrup, Gibson's Imported Lime Fruit Tablets, Montserrat Pure Lime Fruit Juice (marketed as a wholesome alternative to alcohol as part of the burgeoning temperance movement), and Excelsior Metal Polish.
Trade cards for Excelsior Metal Polish. Trade cards such of these were popular advertising tools during the turn of the century, distributed in product packaging or directly by salesmen.
Somewhere in between 1881-1885, Eleazer C. Rich replaced Miner, and the company was renamed to Holway, Wright & Rich. Holway left the partnership in 1885 and the company became Wright & Rich. footnote Then in 1887, Wright retired, and the company reincorporated as E. C. Rich, Inc., footnote which would be its name for the remainder of its existence. (Researcher's note: thank goodness, sheesh.)
There are few records of Eleazer Rich's personal life, but here's what I know: he was born in 1851 in Cape Cod, and in 1881 settled in East Orange, New Jersey, where he and his wife Helen would have four sons, and lived there until his death in 1918. footnote The one detail I was able to find—in droves, in fact—was that he owned a couple of prize-winning show horses, Queen Vera and Amanda Baron, though it was noted that he was "seldom at track," footnote which might be expected when you have a company to run. That lime juice won't import itself!
E. C. Rich and Amanda Baron. Source: Library of Congress.
Under Rich's leadership, the company began manufacturing fruit lozenges, gum drops, licorice, crystallized ginger, and other candies, partly as a private label manufacturer for other companies, though they would increasingly put out products under their own name in the years ahead. footnote This approach seemed profitable; in 1890, in search of "more spacious quarters...[to] better accommodate their increasing business," footnote Rich moved the business's New York location from 167 Chambers Street to 160 Franklin Street, both in the current neighborhood of Tribeca. By 1901, they had moved again, this time uptown to 342 West 14th Street.
The company employed women as factory workers and forewomen, paying $10-12 per week and promising "light, pleasant work" in "ideal and congenial surroundings" to pack the company's candy and conserves:
First forays into gelatin
The late 19th century was a good time for food manufacturers to get in on the ground floor of the gelatin scene, and the E. C. Rich Company was among the first.
At this time there was a growing national interest in gelatin products, boosted by technological advancements, an emerging domestic science movement that favored purity and efficiency, and gelatin's high society associations. Gelatin had a hundreds-year-long history as cuisine of the wealthy, given the complexity and time required to extract gelatin from animal parts and transform it into a fancy, jiggly molded dish (read: servants). American inventor Peter Cooper found a way to produce powdered gelatin in 1845, but it wouldn't catch on until the end of the century, when all at once it seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the action. In 1889, Plymouth Rock patented their phosphated gelatin. In 1894, Knox introduced the first prepackaged, easy-to-use unflavored gelatin mix. In 1895 came Bromangelon, the first commercially successful gelatin dessert powder. That same year, Cooper sold his patent to Pearl Wait, a cough syrup manufacturer looking to branch out to desserts. (His wife May would name their product Jell-O.)
In 1891—beating many of their competitors to the punch—the E. C. Rich Company exhibited their Imperial Table Jelly at a New York City food exhibition to positive reviews. Unlike the gelatin powders that would come later, this was a stiff cake of sweetened, concentrated jelly, coated in sugar and wrapped in waxed pasteboard. It was intended to be dissolved in hot water before pouring into a mold and chilling until firm.
...the Imperial Table Jelly, or prepared gelatine, was the chief attraction, and was sampled by thousands and bought by everyone who sampled it. It is a package of the finest imported gelatine, so skillfully prepared with sugar and other pure ingredients that by simply dissolving the package in hot water and setting it in a cool place a mould of pure, delicious jelly, clear as crystal, is at once in readiness for use.
1892 Ladies' Home Journal advertisement for Imperial Table Jelly and Imperial Cream Dessert. The latter was an instant pudding-like dessert prepared with boiling milk or water.
Over the next two decades, the E. C. Rich Company would continue to expand its product lines in both candied fruits and gelatin desserts. They put out new flavors of Imperial Table Jelly: red currant, coffee, and wine. Rich's Imperial Wine Jellies came in Sherry, Port, Madeira, and English Punch varieties; the New York Times noted it was "unusually delicious." footnote
Besides these, E. C. Rich also produced a flavored dessert powder called Rich's Tryphosa. Let's talk about it.
Introduced in 1896, footnote Tryphosa was a direct competitor to the likes of Jell-O and Bromangelon. It was available in a variety of flavors: lemon, orange, raspberry, strawberry, peach, vanilla, pineapple, wild cherry, and plain; chocolate, mint, grape, and lime flavors would later be added. The product was named after the biblical Tryphosa, a "lovely woman of St. Paul's day" footnote whose name "stands for daintiness, purity and excellence." footnote Purity would be given a heavy emphasis; this was inspired by the passing of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, which aimed to put a stop to the adulteration, mislabeling, and unsanitary preparation of food products.
The secret of the superiority of Rich's Tryphosa is found in its absolute purity. Only the purest of fruit juices are used in its flavoring, and its beautiful clearness makes it wonderfully attractive in appearance [...] The product is so pure and so uniform in quality that mistakes are practically impossible.
(In fact, Tryphosa was 90% sugar, included natural and artificial flavors, footnote and was colored with coal tar dye, footnote a synthetic pigment derived as a by-product of coal processing. Coal tar dyes were partially banned for food use starting in the 1950s.)
Jell-O was quickly becoming a household name at the start of the 20th century, and likely motivated by their success, E. C. Rich centered its marketing efforts around Rich's Tryphosa. The company's other products were mentioned in their assorted promotional materials, but Tryphosa was always the focus. "The most delicious dessert made," crows one pamphlet. "This tempting delicacy is perfect in every respect," reads the box itself.
I'm totally fascinated by these. Beyond the spiffy illustrations, I love how so many of these materials speak to the circumstances of their time.
"In these days of High Cost of Living, it is indeed a boon to the housekeeper, to be able to make so fitting a finish to the meal at such a small expense," reads a pamphlet titled "A Dainty Dessert", an acknowledgement of the recessions the country experienced in the years leading up to World War I. Speaking of which: Uncle Sam graces the cover of two separate brochures, "This Dessert Just Suits Me" and "A Message of Peace," which both express the hopeful notion of world peace, and that just maybe Rich's Tryphosa could be the thing to make it happen. (Alas, it did not.) Separately, "The Universal Dessert Feature" emulates the silent films of the era: on its cover, a family observes a box of Tryphosa on a cinema screen, set against the silhouette of an accompanying orchestra; inside are stills from imaginary Tryphosa-themed films, complete with intertitles.
Do you want to see some Tryphosa newspaper advertisements? Of course you do!
A period of change and uncertainty
The post-WWI years were marked with change and some struggle for the company. E. C. Rich passed away in 1918. Two years later, the company leased 29-35 Ninth Avenue, a six-story warehouse in the modern-day Meatpacking District owned by the prominent Astor family. footnote (For those unfamiliar, the Astors were known as socialites and "the landlords of New York." Their New York City namesakes include the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Astor Place in the East Village, Astor Avenue in the Bronx, and the neighborhood of Astoria in Queens.) The warehouse would be come to known as "the Rich Building," and is currently home to Soho House New York, a very fancy members-only hotel and social club.
The Rich Building in the 1940s. Source: NYC Municipal Archives.
The Rich building in 2023.
It may have been that moving to a six-story warehouse in Manhattan was an overly ambitious move; almost immediately, the company exhibited signs of financial struggle. They placed ads in the paper looking to sublease the space and to sell candy-making equipment, footnote footnote and filed for bankruptcy in 1921. footnote
At the same time, they were revamping and reinvesting in their gelatin lineup. Tryphosa was rebranded as Presto! Jell, which pushed them closer in line with competitors like Enzo Jel, Advo Jell, Jell-X-Cell, Jiffy-Jell, and so on. Rich's Wine Jelly received a packaging update, described as "the picture of a jolly old Spaniard holding up a glass of wine his hand, one eye closed as he looked at the beaded bubbles in his favorite drink," footnote though I'll admit he looks less charming and slightly more nefarious to my cynical millennial eye.
E. C. Rich, Inc. shifted their marketing efforts towards their wine jellies, which now held a special appeal as the nation entered the Prohibition era. "An oasis in a dry land is the new wine jelly," wistfully sighed one review. footnote Indeed, Rich's Wine Jelly was made of real wine, although all traces of alcohol were cooked off in the manufacturing process. "No one could say that wine jelly had ever filled the jails or caused a man to beat his wife and children," observed a 1922 article. footnote
Newspaper advertisements for Presto! Jell disappeared a few short years after it was introduced, but Rich's Wine Jellies stuck around long past Prohibition—as did Rich's Crystallized Canton Ginger, which was one of the company's mainstays and whose production occupied an entire floor of the company's factory. footnote
The final years
By the time of Pearl Harbor, E. C. Rich, Inc. was manufacturing and distributing 80% of the crystallized ginger consumed in the United States. This turned into a challenge as the country entered World War II and imports were suspended. The company pivoted, expanding their glaceéd fruit business, named Fruits of Victory. They shipped in prunes, figs, cherries, tangerines, and kumquats from Florida and California, candied them, and sent them back. "Proof of their excellence is the fact that about 50,000 pounds travel weekly throughout the year to distributors in that State, who go to the trouble of ordering New York products that originated in their own backyard," observed The New York Times. In New York City, E. C. Rich's wine jellies and glaceéd fruits were sold at department stores including Bloomingdale's and Macy's, as well as a specialty fruit store inside Penn Station footnote.
The company was able to return to crystallized ginger after the war, when restrictions on imports were lifted, but financial struggles remained. In 1951, E. C. Rich, Inc. declared bankruptcy again and was purchased by British conglomerate J. Lyons & Co., who experienced their own decline starting in the 1960s. footnote footnote They moved out of the Rich building on Ninth Avenue, but records are scarce on what they did next. The latest mention of E. C. Rich, Inc. that I could find was a 1955 New Yorker ad for Rich's Ginger, manufactured by "E. C. Rich, Division of J. Lyons & Co. Inc.," based in Jersey City, New Jersey.
And so ends the hundred-year-ish story of E. C. Rich, Inc. If you made it this far, I hope you've enjoyed the ride. I'd love to hear your reactions, and learn what parts most resonated with you. Leave a comment below or shoot me a DM on Instagram at @museumofmostlypudding.