The Lost Photos of Dean & Betty Arnold by Material Culture

The Lost Photos of Dean & Betty Arnold FOUNDERS OF ARNOLD BRICK OVEN BAKERY

Dean and Betty Arnold’s personal photo collection contains over 300 Vintage 35mm Kodachrome slides. This book is just a sampling, and many photos in the collection do not appear.

COVER: Possibly Dean Arnold’s Shadow Self Portrait, Bishop’s Lodge, Santa Fe, NM, December, 1946 THIS SPREAD: Fifth Annual Arnold Brick Oven Bakers Picnic, Geriak Farm, Stamford, CT, September 1, 1945

The Lost Photos of Dean & Betty Arnold FOUNDERS OF ARNOLD BRICK OVEN BAKERY

Dean & Betty Arnold at the Fifth Annual Brick Oven Bakers Picnic, Geriak Farm, Stamford, CT., September 1, 1945

Dean & Betty Arnold’s Personal Photo Collection

Many slides in the collection are hand labeled with clues, identifying it as the personal photo collection of Dean & Betty Arnold, founders of Arnold Brick Oven Bakery. This collection of photos taken in the mid 1940’s of the their company, events, clubs, travels, friends and family, are evocative images of an epic postwar American success story. The entire collection of 314 original Kodachrome slides is for sale.

An Epic Postwar American Success Story

Dean in his office, January 1945

Betty Arnold, Bishop’s Lodge, Santa Fe, NM, December, 1946

In 1945, the New York Times reported on an American success story: the Arnold Brick Oven Bakery was celebrating its fifth birthday. The story chronicled the way in which, in 1940, Dean and Betty Arnold had started baking bread in their home kitchen. With a loan of $600 they grew their small business into the largest commercial baking company of its time.

an exasperated letter to Mr. Beers: “Dear Fred,” it began. “If you can’t put Dean in a position where he won’t breathe flour, kindly fire him. With best regards, Betty Arnold.” Mr. Beers dismissed Dean Arnold in January 1940, and two months later, Dean and Betty founded the Arnold Bakery. Renting an old garage in Stamford, CT, Dean installed a brick oven and he and Betty started baking. As Dean stoked the oven, Betty used a flatiron to seal wax around the loaves. Almostimmediately, their efforts were successful and within 5 years, Dean managed a staff of 125 workers and was distributing his products from Boston to Washington, DC.

Paul Dean Arnold was born on Staten Island on October 13, 1908. The son of a lawyer, he grew up in Greenwich and in New Rochelle, N.Y., graduating from Columbia University School of Business in 1930. Soon after, a New Rochelle neighbor, Frederick Beers, President of National Biscuit Company, offered him a job in the company’s Manhattan Bakery. Mr. Arnold was an unlikely candidate to make his name in baking — he was allergic to flour. But, ironically, it was that allergy that led to his dismissal as superintendent of a flour-clouded National Biscuit Company bakery in Portland ME, in 1940. And that setback prompted him to start his own business. Dean liked baking, but his allergy soon left him sneezing, coughing and red-eyed. Because he showed promise, the company put him in charge of its Portland, Me., bakery in 1935, but misery only continued there. Finally, his wife, whom he had married in 1932, wrote

Not content to just merely be a successful businessman, Dean strove to innovate his industry. Because he had always felt that the palatability of commercial breads was poor, he tinkered with ingredients to try and get the best flavor and texture. His efforts led to even greater success. In 1953, Dean triumphantly reported on his latest initiative for frozen bread, claiming that as a result of the company’s pioneering effort: “no one should ever have to eat a slice of stale bread again.” The company’s frozen “fresh out of the oven flavor” came to market not only with the endorsement of the United States’

Butter Roll Shop, Townsend St., Port Chester, NY, November, 1944 “Tony in front”

Top: Fifth Annual Brick Oven Bakers Picnic, 1945 Bottom: Arnold Brick Oven Minstral, Xmas, 1944

Department of Agriculture, but with an interesting back story featuring an unlikely protagonist: Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, USN Ret. On his final Antarctic expedition in 1934, Byrd discovered that bread placed in the snow four years earlier remained edible because it had frozen. Reading this tale in Byrd’s book “Discovery” Dean was so impressed that he appointed Byrd vice president of Arnold’s new frozen food products division. Thus began what Dean described to the NYT as his latest idea: an “experiment” studying the effect of frozen foods in persons in refugee camps in Europe and India. Byrd’s also had a big vision for his new job. Drawing back to his Antarctic travels, he hoped that the frozen tundra could serve as a storehouse for frozen foods that, when needed, could be shipped to areas of the world that needed them.

By 1958, Arnold Bakers’ was “Rolling in Dough,” as the Times described it, supplying 270,000 frozen hot dog buns to the Brussels World’s Fair so that attendees could enjoy the quintessential “American snack.” The NYT even likened Dean to the stories of Horatio Alger, the nineteenth century novelist who found his literary niche crafting tales of young boys who found success by hard work, a positive attitude, and self-reliance. Like them, the Times heralded Dean had gone from “rolls to riches.”

Not only did Arnold’s fresh frozen bread mean that there would be less flavor loss, it also obviated the need to add chemicals to the product. But perhaps its biggest advantage, according to the Science News Letter for April 18, 1953 was its convenience for postwar women: “The housewife can buy a week’s supply at a time, as she now buys most other food supplies, and keep it in her deep freeze or refrigerator until used.”

By 1961, Arnold’s Bakers was the largest industrial bakery of its kind in the world, able to produce 10,000 loaves of bread and 10,000 dozen rolls an hour. By the time he retired in 1970, Dean’s original investment of $600 with himself as president and Betty as treasurer (and the only employees) had grown to $80 million in annual sales and 3000 workers. In addition to his business success and his inventions, Dean and Betty could also be proud in their roles as employers: not only had they created thousands of jobs, they had been one of the first to provide medical and dental coverage for their employees. 1 Jane Holt, “News of Food,” New York Times, 30 April 1945, 16; “Byrd Joins Arnold,” New York Times, 27 May 1953, 47; June Owen, “Food: Rolling in Dough,” New York Times, 7 April 1958, Dead at 76,” New York Times, 6 April 1985, 26; Obituary, “Elizabeth Arnold,” New York Times, 3 June 1982, B16; “Fresh Frozen Bread,” The Science Newsletter, 63 (18 April 1953), 243

LEFT PAGE: Dean Arnold, Colorado Springs, CO, October, 1944 TOP RIGHT: Betty Arnold, Bishop’s Lodge, Santa Fe, NM, December, 1946 BOTTOM RIGHT: Betty Arnold, in blue dress with hotdog and camera. Joan Arnold Baldwin, sister of Dean Arnold, in red checker dress with camera, Fifth Annual Brick Oven Bakers Picnic, September 1, 1945

Dean & Betty

Dean & Betty Arnold, 37th Annual Rotary Club International Convention, Atlantic City, June, 1946

Brick Oven Bakers Picnic, 1945

Fifth Annual Arnold Brick Oven Bakers Picnic, Geriak Farm, Stamford, CT., September 1, 1945

Possibly the shadow of Dean Arnold taking this photograph

Rotary Club Convention 1946

37th Annual International Rotary Club Convention, Atlantic City, June, 1946

Family

Dean Arnold with his brother Charles “Ted” C. Arnold

Dean Arnold with his mother, father, sister, niece and dog

Dean Arnold’s mother “Olga” with dog

Dean Arnold’s father “Poppy Arnold”

Dean Arnold’s half-sister Joan with her husband John Baldwin

Betty Arnold with her sister-in-law, Ted’s wife

Travel