On Packaging: Eskimo Pie’s Magic Jar

Abstract In 1928, the Eskimo Pie company launched the Magic Jar, a counter-top container for storing and promoting their frozen confection in drugstores, cigar stores, and other retail outlets. A metal thermos, wrapped in orange and blue graphics and supported by three silver Eskimos, the Magic Jar was the culmination of a process in which a humble block of vanilla ice cream was wrapped in layers of packaging: chocolate coating, tinfoil, and the jar itself. This packaging offered more than physical protection: it also encased the new food product in legal protection and enveloped it in symbolism (reinforced by advertising and branding). Through research at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History’s Eskimo Pie archive, ice cream trade journals, and contemporary media articles, this article proposes a unique means of understanding mass-produced food products at a time when undifferentiated foods were becoming branded ones. Specifically, it reveals how packaging, legal considerations, new technology, and cultural narratives combined to create a modern, proprietary product.