Arm & Hammer Baking Soda: Multiple Uses for a Little Yellow Box

In 1846, two men created the company that is responsible for the little yellow box known as Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. It is impossible to believe Dr. Austin Church and John Dwight ever believed their invention of this product would reach the proportional heights it has today. The little yellow box containing a white powder known as sodium bicarbonate did not begin its life as Arm & Hammer. It did not even come in a little yellow box. It produced in a red label and its only use was for the "little woman" of the house in cooking. Some years following the birth of this brand, it became as synonymous to sodium bicarbonate, as copy is to Xerox. The brand was a household name. In total, through the years the company produced some 137 editions of Valuable Recipes in the form of a mini cookbook, nobody considering all the hundreds of uses this product has today. Even in those early days, it became an overnight sensation although it was for cooking and heartburn when mixed with water much in the same manner as Alka-Seltzer. The company would have more than changes in use; it would undergo numerous company production names as well. John Dwight and Company soon became the new name and the new family tradition for the cooking product for women in kitchens across the country.

In the mid-1860s, the Church sons tried their hand at the family business after Dr. Church retired. The sons changed the logo and name of the red label product in 1867. The product needed new production with a name and logo people would know and respect. The box color changed to yellow. The logo of the arm with the hammer represents mystical Vulcan, the God of Fire holding a hammer. Other changes in the promotional changes took place in the tenure of the Church sons. The company became extremely ecologically friendly as well as providing protection for the population of birds in danger of extinction.