Happy 120th birthday to the Campbell Soup Kids!

Cheers to the Campbell Soup Kids, who celebrate their 120-year anniversary in 2025 as the advertising cartoon mascots of Campbell’s.

The legendary illustrations were drawn by Grace Gebbie, an accomplished artist from Philadelphia, Pa. Her first husband, Theodore Wiederseim, a lithographer, printed the streetcar advertising posters used by Joseph Campbell Company.

 

In 1904, Theodore took samples of Grace’s artwork to an account meeting at Campbell’s corporate headquarters in Camden, N.J. He suggested that illustrations of “healthy looking children” would be a good way to promote Campbell’s line of condensed soup products. Company officials readily agreed.

Grace’s children were loveable. She called them her “funny babies.” A tad on the plump side, with jolly faces, wide-set eyes and rosy cheeks, the cheerful characters were introduced on streetcar advertising posters in 1905. They represented the perfect picture of “health and wholesomeness” in that era.

 

Grace created about 16 variations of children that Campbell could draw upon for their ads. None were named.

 

Public reaction to the new Campbell Kids images was overwhelmingly positive. “Requests for copies of the advertisements inundated the company,” one historian commented. “Mothers hung images of the Kids on nursery walls, and teachers placed them in classrooms.”

 

The Campbell Kids also began appearing in print advertisements contained within popular magazines and publications, such as Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping and the Saturday Evening Post. An example of the accompanying text is: “The main object of these rollicking youngsters is to remind you of Campbell’s Soup…as it helps you to promote good digestion and robust health.”

Soon thereafter, the Joseph Campbell Company licensed the rights to make Campbell Kids dolls to E.I. Horsman Company, a well-respected doll company based in New York City.

 

According to Kate Kelly (shown below), publisher of the America Comes Alive! website that features stories about U.S. heroes and trailblazers, “the dolls were a huge success and sold by mail order through Montgomery Ward and Sears but also in the mom-and-pop toy stores that proliferated at the time.”

 

Many other items featured the NIL (name, image and likeness) of the Campbell kids followed, ranging from cooking sets to children’s pajamas. Their value as prized collectibles continues to rise.

Today, Grace Gebbie Wiederseim Drayton occupies a special place in Kate Kelly’s collection of “Inspirational American Women.”

Grace broke through as a successful artist as a 17-year-old in 1895 – 20 years prior to the launch of the Campbell Kids. She worked steadily, drawing for magazines, greeting card and paper doll companies. She also illustrated children’s books and eventually sold comic strips to newspapers and syndicates.

 

Grace Drayton is considered to be one of the first and most successful American female cartoonists.

She studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and also took drawing classes at Drexel Institute (now Philadelphia’s Drexel University) where many well-regarded illustrators taught.

Kate Kelly said she believes one of Grace Drayton’s major contributions was the creation of the highly popular “Dolly Dingle” series of paper dolls that appeared from 1913-33 in The Pictorial Review magazine.

 

Grace Drayton continued to draw her Campbell Soup Kids until she died of heart disease in 1936 at age 58.

The Campbell Kids characters progressed with the times. In the 1920s, for instance, Campbell girls donned flapper dresses and danced the Charleston. The Kids visited Egypt in 1922 after the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. They were shown riding in airplanes, a tribute to Charles Lindbergh’s famous transatlantic journey in 1927.

Into the 1930s, the Campbell Kids developed voices to sponsor radio shows like “Amos ’n’ Andy,” and to introduce the Campbell’s slogan: “M’m! M’m! Good!”