From the Nike swoosh to the Twitter fledgling, contemporary society is awash in logos, trademarks, and graphics of all sorts to sell things and promote stuff. Amid all of this branding, it’s easy to forget that every seemingly impersonal, corporate-sanctioned logo has, at its core, a human behind it: Whether designed by a person or a committee, the greatest logos are not just tokens of capitalism but reflections of someone’s creativity, imagination, and possibly even heart.
In the case of the Gerber baby, the distinction between the commercial and the personal is even less clear than usual. For some 94 years, the world-famous sketch of an inquisitive-looking infant with an adorable cowlick has helped secure consumer loyalty in baby food and other products produced by Gerber, but behind it are two uniquely American stories: artist Dorothy Hope Smith, who sketched out the charcoal drawing in response to a contest sponsored by the company, and her subject, Ann Turner Cook, who, unknowingly, posed for it when she was not even 6 months old.
With her likeness adhered to more bottles of Gerber foodstuff than can be counted, Cook, who died on June 3 at the age of 95, became an emblem for something good, honest, and true. You might say there’s God and country — and the Gerber baby.
Good fortune always plays a part in becoming an icon, and little Ann had plenty of it. To start with, the odds of her becoming the subject of a drawing were high because she was surrounded by artists practically from birth. Born in 1926 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to newspaper cartoonist Leslie Turner and his wife, Bethel, Ann was raised in Westport. There, by lucky accident, her neighbors included Smith, an illustrator who, prior to Gerber’s invitation for artists to submit renderings of tots to be considered for its logo, had already whipped up a sketch of infant Ann in charcoal.
When the Gerber contest rolled around, Smith dug up her drawing of Ann but, in a classic case of a freelance artist not committing to completing a project until there is some likelihood of it reaching the public, held off on “finishing it” until, and if, Gerber gave her the go-ahead. According to Gerber’s history of the logo, company officials judged Smith’s drawing, even in its rough state, favorably against oil paintings (which, one presumes, were in completed states). Opting to adopt the image for the trademark in its sketchlike state, Ann’s wondrous eyes and eager expression eventually became as ubiquitous, and undoubtedly more beloved by mothers, as McDonald’s golden arches.
Of course, in those pre-social media days, consumers were left to wonder whether this or that famous person had, in their infancy, provided inspiration for the iconic drawing. In its history, Gerber says that Humphrey Bogart and Bob Dole were suspected of being models, though another purported model, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman star Jane Seymour, could hardly have counted as an educated guess given that the image began appearing on Gerber products in the late 1920s — and the British actress was born in 1951.
In 1978, Cook made it known that it was her likeness that helped define babyhood in the 20th century. Her many years of modesty about her ubiquity bespeaks the manners and mores of an earlier generation: Declining to capitalize on her unusual claim to immortality, Cook kept her head down and led a normal life. A graduate of Southern Methodist University and the University of South Florida, she found fulfillment as an English teacher in the public school system in her longtime state of Florida.
Most intriguingly, Cook, who had four children with her husband, James Cook, a criminologist, experienced a second brush with fame by churning out mystery novels with titles such as Shadow Over Cedar Key and Trace Their Shadows. There’s a delightful irony in that innocent-looking baby growing up to write crime fiction, but perhaps Cook felt that it was time that she be recognized for doing something rather than being drawn by someone. At the same time, she seemed to take a certain pride in her likeness’ longevity. “Although a lot of logos are changing, the Gerber company has kept me on that label,” Cook told CNN in an interview in 1997. “I’m sort of celebrating that: that my picture is still there.”
And so it shall remain, for as long as there are mothers, babies, and grocery stores. Yes, Ann Turner Cook helped sell baby food, but she captured our hearts in the process.
Peter Tonguette is a Washington Examiner magazine contributing writer.
