The Malted Milk Mailing of 1895

It may be hard to believe now, but malted milk was once thought of as a medicinal product. And that’s the way it was marketed by Horlick’s Food Co. of Racine, WI.

In 1887 the company hired a rep named George Lambert to visit physicians in Manhattan and Brooklyn and introduce its drink, “then comparatively unknown in this vicinity,” according to a trade article written 10 years later.

Horlick’s knew “it was no use advertising a product such as theirs without first acquainting the doctors with its merits,” the article continued.

The firm, which manufactured many other health-related items, also sent direct mail to lists of clergymen and other professionals.

In 1895 the Rev. C.M. Griffin of Mount Vernon, NY, received a letter offering him a sample package. It was typed in green ink and included a large illustrated letterhead.

“Dear Sir,” it said. “We beg to call your attention to the peculiar value of HORLICK’S MALTED MILK to clergymen. Our food product is composed of the nutritive extracts of malted cereals, combined with pure, rich Wisconsin dairy milk, producing a highly concentrated, easily digested food that contains more nutrition in proportion to its bulk than any other food product, meat extracts, or cod liver oil. …Hence its value to you as a preventive of exhaustion incident to close application to study, or a long discourse, (so trying to clergymen, both physically and mentally) or extended calls upon your parishioners.”

The letter went on to state: “Leading physicians have long since discovered its great value in Nervous Prostration and Exhaustion, Indigestion, Dyspepsia, Weak Stomach, and Intestinal Troubles, and recommend it highly in such instances.”

The Rev. Griffin may have suffered from some of those maladies, for he clearly was worried about money. The margins of the surviving letter are covered with sums written in pencil.

Or maybe he was trying to figure out if he could afford the sample. The letter asked for “ten cents to prepay postage.”