Betty Crocker isnt actually a real person. She is the brainchild of an advertising campaign developed by the Washburn-Crosby Company, a flour milling company started in the late 1800s that eventually became General Mills. Gold Medal Flour, a product of Washburn-Crosby, helped to kick-start Bettys career. She was born in 1921, when an ad for Gold Medal Flour was placed in the Saturday Evening Post. The ad featured a puzzle of a quaint main street scene. Contestants were encouraged to complete the puzzle and send it in for the prize of a pincushion in the shape of a sack of Gold Medal Flour. The response was overwhelming; around 30,000 completed puzzles flooded the Washburn-Crosby offices. Many of the completed puzzles were accompanied by letters filled with baking questions and concerns, something the Washburn-Crosby Company hadnt anticipated. Previously, the companys small advertising department had dealt with customer mail and questions. The department manager, Samuel Gale, and his all-male staff would consult the women of the Gold Medal Home Service staff with customers' baking and cooking questions. Gale never felt completely comfortable signing his name to this advice, as he suspected that women would rather hear from other women who knew their way around a kitchen. The pile of questions pouring in from the puzzle contest reinforced the need for a female cooking authority, somebody who could gracefully answer any kitchen questions that customers might have. The departments answer to this issue was to invent a female chief of correspondence, a fictitious woman they named Betty Crocker.