Jell-O girls : a family history / Allie Rowbottom.
"A memoir that braids the evolution of one of America's most iconic branding campaigns with the stirring tales of the women who lived behind its facade--told by the inheritor of their stories. In 1899, Allie Rowbottom's great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. The sale would turn out to be one of the most profitable business deals in American history, and the generations that followed enjoyed immense privilege--but they were also haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism, and mysterious ailments. More than 100 years after that deal was struck, Allie's mother Mary was diagnosed with the same incurable cancer, a disease that had also claimed her own mother's life. Determined to combat what she had come to consider the "Jell-O curse" and her looming mortality, Mary began obsessively researching her family's past, determined to understand the origins of her illness and the impact on her life of Jell-O and the traditional American values the company championed. Before she died in 2015, Mary began to send Allie boxes of her research and notes, in the hope that her daughter might write what she could not. Jell-O Girls is the liberation of that story. A gripping examination of the dark side of an iconic American product and a moving portrait of the women who lived in the shadow of its fractured fortune, Jell-O Girls is a family history, a feminist history, and a story of motherhood, love and loss. In crystalline prose, Rowbottom considers the roots of trauma not only in her own family, but in the American psyche as well, ultimately weaving a story that is deeply personal and deeply connected to the collective female experience."--Dust jacket.
Record details
- ISBN: 0316510610
- ISBN: 9780316510615
- Physical Description: 277 pages ; 25 cm
- Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2018.
- Copyright: ©2018
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-274). |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Rowbottom, Allie > Family. Fussell, Mary. Jell-O Company > History. Food industry and trade > United States > Biography. Cancer > Genetic aspects. Conversion disorder. Mothers and daughters. |
Genre: | Autobiographies. |
Other Formats and Editions
Show Only Available Copies
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Easton Main Library | 306.87 R876j (Text) | 31901004261311 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Abington Community Library | 929.2097 ROWBOTT (Text) | 50687011595140 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Albright Memorial Library | 929.2097 ROWBOTT (Text) | 50686015380087 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Allentown Public Library | 338.766 ROWB (Text) | 34455006470781 | Adult Nonfiction 2nd FL | Available | - |
Altoona Area Public Library | 929.209 ROW (Text) | 33240004876267 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Bethlehem Main Library | 394.12 (Text) | 33062009028821 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Dalton Community Library | 929.2097 ROWBOTT (Text) | 50689010420528 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Dingman Township Library | 920 ROW (Text) | 30352101226008 | Nonfiction | Available | - |
Dover Area Community Library | Adults 929.2 ROW Nonfiction (Text) | 34217000785519 | Adult Area | Available | - |
Exeter Community Library | ROW (Text) | 33249023710506 | Biography | Available | - |