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By Garland Pollard
We were curious about Old Dutch Cleanser; it was one of the most recognizable trademarks of the early 20th century consumer product era.
Old Dutch, along with Comet and Bon Ami, was one of the big brands of pumice-based kitchen cleaners; its railcars were even featured on Tyco and Lionel trains as late as the 1970s.
But the product is nowhere to be found on the web. And the empty can we threw away after we took the picture of it last week was NO help, though we THINK we got it at a dollar store.
A bit of Old Dutch history. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a trademark for Old Dutch was filed September 15, 1905 and registered March 27, 1906. The whole trademark is “Old Dutch Cleanser chases dirt, makes everything spick and span.”
The most recent trademark renewal was in2006, by Dial, though the product is not shown on their website (they are now part of Henkel).
What the hell happened to the Old Dutch Girl? We’d love some help. Meanwhile, a bit of history from the web:
- It was first registered as a trademark and made by the Cudahy Packing Co., which apparently had a mine in Meade County, Kansas and had roots in a company that used pumice to clean up the floors of the slaughterhouses of Chicago.
- It was sold by Cudahy to Purex on April 24, 1955.
- Later, the ingredients were apparently taken from a pumicite mine “hidden underground in the remote Mojave desert, produced 120,000 tons of cleansing powder for the company. The mine, along the Garlock Fault, closed in 1947. “
Help us find some Old Dutch.
26 responses so far ↓
1 Dooney Tickner // Dec 24, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Old Dutch is still readily available around my area (Destin, FL) in most of the dollar stores and Big Lots. It is made by Fitzpatrick Brothers of Chicago. They also make Bab-O Cleanser of a similar vintage. Both these trademarks were licensed to them by Dial who received them with their purchase of Purex. At some point a couple of years back, the license notice disappeared from the cans and only the Fitzpatrick name appears. At one time, Purex (and predecessor companies) produced other Old Dutch cleaning products.
2 Tim Sheridan // Jan 21, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Mr. Tickner is correct. I am the Sales Director at Fitzpatrick Bros. We continue to produce Old Dutch, Bab-O and the “original scouring powder,” Kitchen Klenzer.
Kitchen Klenzer was first introduced in 1894 followed the next year by Old Dutch. And while Kitchen Klenzer is not as widely recognized, Old Dutch’s little old Dutch lady chasing dirt away is still a familiar icon to many.
We produce Bab-O and Old Dutch under license for the retail market from Dial Corp, while Disco Corp. has the license to market the product to the janitorial/sanitation (industrial) sector.
Both labels were successful in the 40′s where they advertised heavily on daily serial radio programs, which we now call “soap operas.”
While new cleaning products seem to come out regularly, you still cannot beat the cleaning power of these powder cleansers with bleach.
3 Marshall Pettit // Jan 26, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Dear Sirs:
I am President of Langley-Pacific Resources, LLC.
We own the Old Dutch Cleanser Mine in California. Your articles are very interesting.
Keep it up!
Marshall Pettit
4 moira harris // Feb 8, 2009 at 10:55 am
Does anyone know who designed the Old Dutch logo? There are at least 4 suggestions that I have found, including Georgia O’Keeffe when she worked for an agency in Chicago.
5 Cyn // Mar 16, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Family lore has it that my grandmother was the original girl who modeled for the dutch cleanser label. I assume it was when photo ads appeared in the late 40′s-mid 50′s. I’ve never found a photo of those old ads to compare, but would be interesting.
6 Cyn // Mar 17, 2009 at 12:17 am
found this at pictou county facts:
1905 – Maude E. Sutherland of Cowan Street, Westville designed the cleaning lady for the “Old Dutch Cleanser” container.
7 Guy W. Johnsen // Mar 23, 2009 at 10:46 am
I am currently researching history concerning veterinary medicine in the El Paso, Texas area and we came upon an individual by the name of Horst Schreck who we believe was the originator of the “Little Dutch Girl.” Legend has it that he entered a national brand logo contest, and his logo was selected and bought for a fee of $2.00. His family also claims he was the originator of the Arm & Hammer logo. Does anyone have information that would qualify or disqualify this information? Please email @ gkjohnsen@aol.com.
8 Anonymous // Mar 25, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Check it out ” http://www.olddutch.ca “
9 Devin // May 21, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I found this at the above website:
Noted personalities who are buried here [Waynesville, Ohio] are…Maurice Collett, who originated the Old Dutch Cleanser logo; and Rachel Ward, an African-American woman who was Collett’s model for the Old Dutch woman.
10 Devin // May 21, 2009 at 5:02 pm
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohwarren/Bogan/bogan230.htm
I found this at the above website:
Noted personalities who are buried here [Waynesville, Ohio] are…Maurice Collett, who originated the Old Dutch Cleanser logo; and Rachel Ward, an African-American woman who was Collett’s model for the Old Dutch woman.
11 lynn lambing // Jun 5, 2009 at 6:37 am
Thank you for tellin’ it like it is about who designed the artwork…. I did the original artwork for Trojan prophylactics in 1975
12 Mark Shainblum // Aug 3, 2009 at 2:57 pm
As Anonymous above notes, the Old Dutch brand also still exists in Canada, where it is owned by Lavo Inc. of Montreal. They still market the powdered cleanser, creme cleanser, liquid bleach and laundry detergent under the Old Dutch name.
It’s largely a discount brand, but you see it everywhere in chain stores, drug stores and dollar stores. It’s not a legacy brand to me, since I buy these products all the time.
http://www.olddutch.ca
Oddly, one of Canada’s largest potato chip companies is also called Old Dutch, but there’s no corporate relationship bewtween them. Thank God, I’d hate to think they shared ingredients!
They’re at http://www.olddutchfoods.com/
13 Caitlin // Aug 17, 2009 at 10:48 am
I keep getting my Old Dutch Cleanser from a chain of discount stores called Dollar General.
14 24 oranges » Chips, Halloween, pumpkins and oranges // Oct 30, 2009 at 7:50 am
[...] used to associate Old Dutch with a cleanser and now I discover that my childhood brand of chips (not crisps, eh) went from [...]
15 Raindog // Jan 29, 2010 at 2:08 am
“Old Dutch Cleanser, famous for chasing dirt, presents…Nick Carter, famous for chasing crime!” A staple in the 30s/40s radio world.
16 Suze // Feb 6, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Growing up in Kansas, my mother always referred to the kitchen cleanser as “Bab-O” even if it was Comet. I had occasion today to try to find the name for Comet in my brain when telling my husband what we needed to clean up a spill and the name “Bab-O” came out, though I hadn’t uttered it in 25 years. Thanks for all the information about Bab-O. I live in Chicago now so will look for it at the store!
17 dezi // Feb 7, 2010 at 7:19 pm
were can you buy old dutch cleanser
18 dezi // Feb 8, 2010 at 10:59 pm
dial sold old dutch cleanser to church and dewight co is the makers of arm and hammer. this is what the lady told me at dial co. 1800-524-1328 if anyone has more info about old dutch cleanser plese let me know thanks
19 Ed Ryan // Apr 12, 2010 at 12:43 am
Soap opera ads and radio, oh my!
Bab-O, back in the day produced by the B. T. Babbitt Company.
Also, I think, came in a green can like Comet.
And wahtever soap opera was sponsored by Old Dutch used the “Hungarian Dance #5″ as a theme. But I forget what i had for Breakfast!!
20 Geo // Apr 13, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Related to this discussion and what Ed Ryan mentioned about the radio show sponsored by Old Dutch, this is really interesting, since recently my wife has remembered a certain part of a classical piece that she heard on a radio show in the late 1930′s-early 1940s, more than one time.
She also connects this with that Old Dutch was the sponsor of the show, but she does not remember the name of the show since was very young at the time. She does noto know if the music was incidental music of the show or part of the Old Dutch ad, though what she heard was instrumental, not just piano and not organ.
Now this could be coincidental – but after she hummed the music to me, I hummed it into a file and posted to some classical music sites wherein folks help others identify pieces -
and the answer was that it was Grieg’s Norwegian Dances #2.
Now the search is on for what the radio show might have been, which has led to my coming to this site in researching what shows Old Dutch sponsored ! (I was also going to try to contact Fitzgerald Brothers, Cudahy, Dial and now from this site I see Church and Dwight – to find out who might be able to tell what shows Old Dutch sponsored, radio-wise.
From basic browsing have seen so far it was
Bachelor’s Children ( a soap), Nick Carter, private detective, a show called Helpmates
and a show hosted by someone called the Old Dutch girl, who was a well known singer in those days.
I’ve listened to two episodes of Bachelor’s Children and one of Nick Carter; the Bachelor’s Children one did have some musical interlude that seemed sort of classical but did not sound like the Grieg piece or the Hungarian Dances #5 but did have an old dutch ad; the nick carter episode was sponsored by someone else at the time.
===> Thus am wondering if
1. Ed Ryan, could it be that the music was really the Norwegian Dances #2 , ie
http://www.youtube.co/watch?v=JYrCj4lweLg
for the soap opera you mention ?
and if so, what was that show ?
(or if it was not, what was that show anyway, now I’m curious about that one too
2. Or could it be that Bachelor’s Children might be the soap opera you remember, which used actually the Hungarian Dance #5
3. Or could there have been another show sponsored by Old Dutch in which the
Norwegian Dances #2 was incidental music of the show
4. or was there another show not related to old dutch that had the grieg music in it ?
Ed, I really can agree with you about the earlier memories being clear – my wife said this happens as we age gracefully, and yet it can be a challenge to remember things today
PS If anyone has any ideas just about researching which other shows old dutch sponsored in those days, or how to track down the show with the Grieg music, please let me know.
21 Jaleen // May 16, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Hi, I am an art historian and I’m studying the illustrator Walter Haskell Hinton. He painted a lot of advertising images for Old Dutch in the 1910s. The artist remembered (in a 1976 interview) they were mainly of women cleaning bathtubs and so on. I’m looking for examples, if anyone has any.
22 :::Philebrity…media, culture, music and more::: » Blog Archive » Dept. Of Tipping Your Hand: Specter Accuses Sestak Of Smoking 1920s-Era Cleaning Product That Was Sometimes Used As A Douche // May 18, 2010 at 1:56 pm
[...] Of Smoking 1920s-Era Cleaning Product That Was Sometimes Used As A DoucheAlso known as… Dutch Cleanser! And, er, oh dear, it was used for that, wasn’t it? We’ve got an intern out and about [...]
23 BDL // May 26, 2010 at 11:54 am
Where did the name Bab-O come from?
24 Beatrice Giles Elliott // Jun 15, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Myfather’s boyhood friend, Chester Marhoff , was an employee of Cudahy Packing Co. in Chicago and I understood that he was the person who designed the Little Dutch Girl or had something to do with the finalizing of the label. We visted this man in Chicago during one of the World Fair years 1932 or 1933 . At that time I believe he was retired.
25 Bill // Jul 5, 2010 at 1:00 am
According to “Billboard Refrigerator Cars” (2006) back in the 1930s the Cudahy Packing Company would cover one entire side of their railroad cars with an ad for Old Dutch Cleanser while the other side of the same railroad car was an ad for one of their meat products, one of the few times a railroad car has ever had 2 completely different things advertised on its 2 sides.
26 Amy // Jul 19, 2010 at 3:25 pm
I have an old metal “can”, green, with the Dutch Girl logo clearly visible on the side, but with no words indicating that the can once held Dutch Cleanser. The top of the can is domed, with 8 holes in a circle. The bottom pries off, ergo enabling the can to be refilled. I wonder about its age, and its potential worth. Any ideas? Thanks for the help.
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