Introduction
Duncan Hines (March 26, 1880—March 15, 1959) was an American entrepreneur and pioneer of restaurant ratings for travelers. He is best known today for the brand of baking and cake mix products under his name.
Early life, family, and education
Duncan Hines was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on March 26, 1880, to Edward Ludlow Hines and Eliza Cornelia Duncan. His father, Edward, was a soldier. Duncan had four brothers—Hiram Markham Hines (born 9 March 1871), Edward Ramsey Hines (born 14 November 1874), William Warner Hines (born 23 December 1975), and Porter Hines (born 24 March 1878); and a sister, Annie Duncan Hines (born 5 April 1873).
After his mother died when he was four years old, Duncan was raised by his grandparents, Joseph Dillard Duncan (1814-1905) and Jane Covington Duncan (1817-1900). They lived on a large farm near the Morgantown pike, 15 miles from Bowling Green. Duncan learned to appreciate the art of good cooking from his grandmother, who would cook elaborate meals for the family.
After spending his first few years at Bowling Green Public School, Duncan spent a year at St. Columba, Bowling Green's Catholic school on Center Street, which was operated by the Sisters of Charity. He excelled in mathematics. After completing his primary education, he entered Bowling Green Business College (now Western Kentucky University) in 1896. He left without a diploma in 1898 due to health reasons.
Career
Duncan matured early, partly due to his mother's untimely death and his father's fragile health. When he was 18 years old, he took a job with the Wells Fargo Express Company in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Years later he told in an interview that he took a job with Wells Fargo because its president, John J. Valentine Sr., is from his hometown of Bowling Green. He started the job as a clerk. Working his way up the company ladder, he was soon promoted to railroad express messenger, then freight agent, and then company relief man.
After work, Duncan would often spend time at Fred Harvey's restaurant in Albuquerque. This was the first time he had eaten at a restaurant. He found the whole experience mesmerizing. The cleanliness of the restaurant reminded him of his grandmother's kitchen.
In 1902, he left Wells Fargo and found a job with Coal Fuel Oil Company in Colorado. After leaving the Oil Company in early 1903, he worked for Green Copper Company, a mining company in Cananea, Mexico, until September 1905. He married Florence Chaffin the same month in New Rochelle, New York. The couple decided to settle in Chicago, Illinois, where J.T.H. Mitchell, a direct mail advertising company, hired Duncan as a traveling salesman.
Working as a salesman for J.T.H. Mitchell, Duncan was on the road a lot. As he traveled to different cities and towns, he began to write down the names of his favorite restaurants and foods in a notebook for future reference. Over the years, his restaurant memorandum book grew as he found more good restaurants in which to dine. He even started to exchange lists of good eating places with his fellow salesmen. After leaving J.T.H. Mitchell, he started working as a salesman for Rogers and Company, a printing firm in Chicago.
After 1925, Duncan began to travel beyond the geographical confines of the Midwest, often traveling into the Deep South or the far Western states. In 1934, he started working for E. Raymond Wright, Inc., another printing company. He continued with his practice of adding good places to eat to his notebook and by 1935, his list of restaurants grew to a sizeable collection (almost 1,000). His list was also popular among his colleagues, friends, and friends of friends, all of whom sought him out for dining tips. In 1935, when he was 55, he and his wife Florence decided to send out their list along with their Christmas card. He entitled his restaurant list "Adventures in Good Eating." The demand among his friends grew and they kept nagging Duncan for the list. Shortly after, Duncan and Florence decided to formally publish their list as Adventures in good eating: good eating places along the highways and in cities of America. The list transformed him into a celebrity almost overnight, making him "America's most authoritative voice on the best places to eat". The list contained all—from big-city landmarks to rural tea rooms to hole-in-the-wall dining places.
Duncan's employer, Wright, helped him with his venture by letting him use his company's address as the incorporation site for Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. and even became his business partner, along with a third partner. In 1937, Duncan bought out his partners, making him the sole owner of the company. He became his own publisher and distributor.
The second edition of Adventures in Good Eating was published in 1937. This edition listed 1,250 restaurants, compared to 475 in the first edition. In 1938, Duncan published another book that recommended lodging. Titled "Lodging for a Night", the book carried a list of 3,000 hotels and motels found in the continental United States. That year, he also left E. Raymond Wright, Inc. both as a printing client and employee to focus on his new publishing business full-time.
In 1939/1040, Duncan moved back to his hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he wrote the newspaper food column Adventures in Good Eating at Home, which appeared in newspapers across the US. The column featured restaurant recipes adapted for home cooks that he had collected during his nationwide travels. In 1949, he published Duncan Hines Vacation Guide, a traveling guidebook.
In 1952, Duncan began selling bread under his name through the Durkee's Bakery Company of Homer, New York. Around that time, entrepreneur Roy Hampton Parkwas looking for a way to market and sell their excess food products. Given Duncan's brand recognition in the food space, he approached Duncan to lend his trusted name for the endorsement of packaged food products. The two entered a business deal and by 1953, Duncan sold the right to use his name and the title of his book to Park to form Hines-Park Foods, Inc., which licensed the name to a number of food-related businesses. Hines-Park Foods was an immediate success in the American food market, especially with its flagship product, Duncan Hines Cake Mix. The cake mix license was sold to Nebraska Consolidated Mills in Omaha, Nebraska, which developed and sold the first Duncan Hines cake mixes.
In 1957, Nebraska Consolidated Mills sold the cake mix business to the US consumer products company Procter & Gamble. The company expanded the business to the national market and added a series of related products.
In the media
In 1957, Duncan appeared as a guest challenger on Bud Collyer's CBS TV panel show To Tell the Truth.
Personal life
Duncan was married three times.
On September 27, 1905, he married Florence Chaffin at Fort Slocum in New Rochelle, New York. After her death in 1938, he married Emelie Tolman in 1939. They divorced in 1945, after which he married Clara Wright Nahm in 1947.
Books (selected)
Death
Duncan died of lung cancer on March 15, 1959, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He was buried in Fairview Cemetery of Bowling Green, Kentucky, in the same series of Hines family plots as Thomas Hines.