June 10, 2022 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Greg Hengler tells us how Heinz food products have been a part of American culture for more than a century. Though Heinz Ketchup is one of the most recognized corporate symbols in the world, few people know anything at all about its creator, H.J. Heinz. His hard work, innovation, and obsessive kindness proved one of his favorite sayings: “To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is Lei Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites.
And we love to tell stories about business, and we
love to tell stories about entrepreneurs and how they change
(00:35):
the world, change the nation, and in the end, drive
our economy. Hinz food products have been a part of
American culture for more than a century. Though Hinz Catchup
is one of the most recognized corporate symbols in the world,
few people know anything at all about its creator, h J.
Hines is hard work, innovation, and obsessive kindness proved one
(01:01):
of his favorite sayings quote to do a common thing
uncommonly well, bring success. Here's Greg Hengler with the story
of h. J. Hines. You kids coming on more than artHis?
That's not good manners? Will you notice? Are Hines here
(01:21):
tasted by Amber Davy. That's pouring it on a little
thick Himes the taste that's worth the wait. The Hinz
(01:48):
family saga begins with the determination of immigrants to make
a better life for themselves. Beginning in the sixteen eighties,
many German immigrants took the long voyage across the Atlantic
Ocean to Pennsylvania. In eighteen forty three, John and Anna Hines,
both recent arrivals from Germany, settle outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. John
(02:10):
becomes a brickmaker. The next year they have their first child,
a boy they name Henry John or J. The Hines
family will grow to include nine children, four boys and
five girls. One of their daughters, however, dies when she
is only a baby. Like many German immigrants, mister and
(02:35):
missus Hines believe the importance of hard work. Every day,
HJ will pick up vegetables in the family garden before
walking over a mile each way to his Lutherans school
and back a school run by his church. Upon his
arrival back, he will continue working in the plot until sunset.
Henry's love of gardening is evident in the very first photo,
(02:58):
where his knuckles are visibly swollen from the hard work.
Here's the president of the Hines History Center, Andy masik
In Hines biographer Quentin Scraybeck. Like many of the other
German immigrant boys here in Pittsburgh, he spoke with a
German accent, though he went to American schools and he
(03:21):
felt very much American. It was typical for German families
to work as an economic union. The children would do
work like that, but most of them didn't take it
up as a career long term. He was real creative
and saw, gee, I can make money here, I can
make a living here. I can make a business out
of this. Henry Hines was just fifteen years old when
(03:44):
he started his business in downtown Pittsburgh. I'll take one jar, yes, sir.
He started by canning horse radish that his mother grew
in her garden and sold it on the streets of Pittsburgh,
pushing a handcart a wheelbarrow around and people love the product,
and he thought, well, let's try some other things. Two
(04:05):
years later, his little business has grown so much that
he now needs a horse to pull his card. Hello. Hello.
He was very influenced by his mother. She knew how
to play on his feelings and to encourage him when
he was down, and he learned some of those people
skills from his mother. Anna Hines is a disciplined and
(04:28):
devout Christian mother, training and instructing her children with Bible lessons.
Stressing the importance of serving others and counting them as
more significant than themselves. His mother was very religious. She
converted to Lutheranism, and she sent young Henry to the
Lutheran seminary nearby, thinking that maybe one day he would
(04:51):
be a minister. She thinks this until she sees his
love of the family garden. Here's former advertising executive at
Hines Edwin Luhu. She made the children work from sunrise
to sunset in this garden, and HJV is the only
one who favored it. In fact, he stayed out there
long after the hours were over. Hj's talent and passion
(05:14):
are playing to see, so when he turns twelve, his
mother proudly presents her firstborn with three acres of land
for his birthday. The young entrepreneur quickly develops and markets
a growing line of produce and homemade condiments, and shortly
after his little farm triples in size. At fifteen, HJ
(05:36):
quits school in order to focus entirely on his business,
waking at three am so he can take his vegetables
to stores in Pittsburgh, only to return home and work
for his father making bricks. Here's Harvard Business School Professor
Nancy Cohen and as a very successful junior entrepreneurs selling
cabbage and cucumbers and zucchini and tomato off his wagon
(06:01):
to neighbors and has a growing list of customers. And
from the very beginning, from his earliest days of peddling
horseradish door to door or from a wagon with his
own horse, he wanted to make sure his customers got
only pure food. HJ is obsessed with purity. As a Christian,
he associates purity with goodness. Fresh food is healthy food.
(06:25):
This is in an age when Americans are suspicious of
factory made food, and with good reason. It is often
packaged in filthy conditions and contains a stomach turning, a
array of cheap fillers like leaves or wood pulp, and
chemical preservatives. While his competitors use golden brown bottles to
hide addens and imperfections. HJ makes a point of selling
(06:49):
his mother's horse radish recipe in clear glass jars. HJ
wants his customers to believe that the food he delivers
is worth every penny they spend on it. Thanks to
his mother's recipes and beliefs, people grow to trust the
Hind's name and what a story this is. And we
will continue with the story of H. J. Hines. And
(07:11):
my goodness, it sounds like so many of the other
entrepreneurial stories we did. No matter what the ethnicity the story, well,
it sounds the same service to customers. More on the
Hjhines story here on our American stories. Folks, if you
(07:32):
love the stories we tell about this great country, and
especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all
of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
(07:53):
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more. And we continue with our American stories
and the story of J. Hines. And he started as
(08:16):
a boy canning his mom's horse, Radish and again dropping
out of school and just getting to work. We continue
now with the story of H. J. Hines. Thanks to
his mother's recipes and beliefs, people grow to trust the
Hind's name here again is the president of the Hines
History Center, Andy Masick. Henry was always a meticulous man.
(08:41):
He was a hard worker, and he kept detailed notes.
He kept journals and record books, and so he was
not only mathematical, but he had a human side to him.
He was kind of left and right brain both, so
he could figure out the forms for things and keep
(09:02):
good records. But he was also a people person. In
eighteen sixty one, seventeen year old Henry sells twenty four
hundred dollars worth of produce about sixty eight thousand dollars
in today's money, and by eighteen sixty six, Henry becomes
a partner in his father's brick company and quickly makes changes.
At the time most brickyards shut down for the winter,
(09:25):
Henry decides to heat the small factory so it can
stay open through the cold months. That way, the company
will have a supply of bricks ready when the demand
for bricks rises in the spring. In eighteen sixty nine,
at twenty five years of age, h J meets Sarah
Young at his church, a daughter of Irish immigrants, who
(09:46):
will bring his new household what his mother has to
the old religious devotion and a stable emotional foundation. On
a train to New York, they meet another couple planning
to marry. HJ, spotting an opportunity to save money, suggests
that both couples share a minister and marry the same day.
(10:08):
Eighteen sixty nine was also the year HJ and his
neighborhood friend Clarence Noble start a company designed to sell horseradish, pickles,
and sauerkraut across the Eastern Seaboard. As Hj's company grows,
so does his family. A daughter named Irene in eighteen
seventy one, and two years later a boy named Clarence.
(10:30):
HJ and Sarah will have five children. One of the
things he learned early on was that people weren't sure
about canned products or things in jars. Sometimes people got
sick eating the products of other people. So Henry found
that he didn't put his labels on the jar. At first,
He'd put somebody else's label on the jar, and if
(10:52):
nobody got sick, and if people liked it, then he
put his label on the next batch. The Hines and
Company is profitable until eighteen seventy five, when mistakes by
Noble in the Panic of eighteen seventy three suddenly threatened
its existence. HJ turns to his father and a friendly
(11:12):
banker who loaned him money. Even his wife pitches in,
but by the year's end, the company is bankrupt. Here's
Heine's biographer Eleanor Dienstag and Nancy Collen. The diaries read
like a Dickenziean novel, their heartrending. He has boils, his
wife takes to bed. He's too depressed to go to church,
(11:35):
which was unthinkable for him. His brothers started to take
to drink. The whole family was collapsing. Several creditors accuse
him of basically falsifying his records and demand that he'd
be arrested. He is arrested, held in jail for a day,
and comes back the next day to face what is
(11:57):
an ever mounting load of debts and unpaid bills. It's Christmas.
The Hines can't even afford to buy a single present
for their children. Here again is Heinz biographer Quentin Scraybeck.
He probably went through one phase of real depression. I
(12:18):
mean there was there was several months where he was
pretty much immobilized in bed. HJ believes his friends are
shunning him, he writes mournfully, I have no money, so
I have no friends. His parents mortgaged their house to
raise funds, only to see it repossessed. Creditors come and
sell off his mother's furniture. A wash and shame, HJ
(12:42):
can only watch helplessly as the crisis consumes his aging father.
Here's Heinz family archivist Frank Kurtic Henry J. Hines's father
had raised a family stopplished home in America an ammigrant,
and he sees much of his life wiped out before
his eyes. The elder Hines will never recover, spending his
(13:05):
final years in and out of sanitariums. A broken man.
Through this and other dark moments in his life, HJ
is anchored by his twin beliefs, belief in God and
God's unshakable plan for his life. Just two months after
the bankruptcy, on New Year's Day, eighteen seventy six, h
(13:28):
J picks himself up and asks the only people to
have stayed by his side, his family, to help him
start a new business. Together, they form the Hinz Food Company.
The whole family pitches in, and his mother and sisters
begin bottling horse Radish in the basement of their home.
(13:49):
Starting a brand new company on a slim budget, HJ
has to travel by foot to the vegetable fields to
have a horse again, he buys himself a bargain, a
blind horse. He owed a lot of people in Pittsburgh money,
a lot of grocers and so forth. He made a
pledge that he would pay them back, even though illegally
didn't have to, and that was one of the key
(14:12):
things in his life as well. He spent four or
five years repaying back grocers, farmers and suppliers. Through his leadership,
HJ guides to Hinz Food Company to immediate success, taking
special pleasure in culinary innovations. He's experimenting like a woman
(14:33):
in the kitchen, making it up as he goes along,
and his notebooks are choc a block full of fascinating recipes,
everything from peanut butter, which he does not pursue, to
baked beans, which he does very successfully, to Chutney's. In
eighteen seventy six, he creates the condiment that future generations
will associate with his name. Here again is Edwin Luhu.
(14:57):
When he was in England, he noted that they had
a product called kets yup, which was made of fish
and different ingredients and different spices. It was a very
spicy condiment and he liked it. And he thought, I
wonder if we substituted tomatoes for the fish, what that
would taste like. This is how we get the word ketchup.
(15:21):
It comes from the Chinese word kets yup, which is
a kind of fish sauce. Here again is animes. Yes,
it is good. Ketchup was probably invented in China a
thousand years ago, but HJ. Hines brought it to a
new level. There are several types of ketchup in the
(15:42):
nineteenth century, but none of them sell particularly well. Apart
from Hines, no one sees potential in the red vegetable sauce.
Pittsburgh is home of the steel industry, but it's also
center for glassmaking. Unlike his competitors, Hines believes that his
customer she'd be able to see the bright red ketchup. This, however,
(16:03):
has a drawback. You know, when you look in a
ketchup bottle sometimes it gets kind of dark and rubbery,
kind of oxidized near the top. Well, he knew that
people would be put off by seeing that, so he
put a paper label near the neck of the bottle
so the product looked red and beautiful. Hines builds a
(16:25):
new factory, which still stands today as an industrial monument
in Pittsburgh. The factory is one of the first in
the country run on electricity, and Hines will be the
first to put up an electric billboard in New York City.
The Pittsburgh headquarters site offers easy access to the Allegheny
River and railroad lines. The whole neighborhood smells of vinegar,
(16:48):
then as now the main preservative. As indispensable as HJA
is to the company, he's just as valuable to his church.
He is especially dedicated to teaching the children about the
Bible and their Christian faith at Sunday School. In fact,
HJ will travel all over the world in order to
(17:08):
promote the idea of Sunday School. HJ is also known
for his generosity. He will build a borning home for
homeless children. The poor will count on him for a meal,
and he will often loan money to his customers so
they can stay in business. Hines places his factory in
the midst of Andrew Carnegie's steel factory and rival steelmakers,
(17:32):
but Hines's revenues will one day surpass those of his
larger neighbors. HJ. Hines was an intuitive marketer. He had
a sense of how to sell things. And although he
didn't invent Ketchup, he marketed it better than anyone in
the world. And when we come back more of this
great American story, this great Pittsburgh story. Here on our
(17:55):
American stories, and we continue here with our American stories
and the life of HJ. Hines. Let's pick up where
we last left off. Ketchup quickly becomes the lynchpin of
(18:21):
Hj's growing business. By the mid eighteen eighties, with the
expansion of the railroad, the Hines Company is selling dozens
of products in all corners of the United States. On
every railroad cars company uses, the Hinz name is proudly
displayed on its side. In Pittsburgh, people see teams of
horses pulling wagons carrying Hinz products, and the company name
(18:45):
is always printed on each wagon. Grocery stores boast in
their ads that they carry the popular Hinz brand. HJ.
Hines believed that if people tasted his product, they would
certainly buy it, and he had an elaborate sum for
his sales staff to take out to stores and grocery
stores little packages of samples. He had cardboard spoons that
(19:11):
people could taste and then throw away. He had chasing
dishes and different pots that people could sample things in
the store, and when they tried it, they liked it
and they bought it. But with success comes competition. Hines's
competitors copy his ideas and methods. Hines has to fight
or survive, and not always by the fairest means. When
(19:37):
he wanted to run other people out of business, he
bought up all the glass bottles in town and used
all that he could, and those that he couldn't use
he put on a barge and sank the barge in
the Allegheny River so nobody else could use them. Hines's
(19:58):
dealings with the staff at the factory are colored by
a completely different climate. Here again is Nancy Cohen. Henry
Hunts looks at the railroad strikes of eighteen seventy two,
when over a thousand railroad cars were destroyed in a
mob rioting and the National Guard was called in and
twenty nine people were killed, and decides, this is not
going to be my future. This reinforces his determination to
(20:21):
create a different kind of organization, where his labor is content,
where his labor is motivated, where his labor is industrious.
In an age when horses are often treated better than
the workers, Henry Hines embraces his employees as family. In
the Hines Factory, there's a restaurant and rooftop gardens, free
(20:44):
carriage rides, an indoor swimming pool, and gymnasium, free doctors
and dentists. At a time when many people did not
have indoor plumbing, employees can shower and bathe in the factory.
HJ promotes women managers to supervise his predominantly female workforce,
and he creates some of the best incentive pay for
(21:05):
women in the nation. HJ takes poor immigrant wives and daughters,
teaches them English and homemaking skills, and prepares them for
their citizenship tests. These women receive freshly laundered aprons and
bonnets daily, and there's even a daily manicure for food handlers.
HJ believes that the hands that work with the food
(21:27):
should be as germ free as possible at the end
of the day. This all adds to the products quality
and shelf life. HJ knows that happy, well cared for
employees will stay on the job, work hard, and not
be interested in causing trouble, and he delights insane. Heart
power is stronger than horsepower. Here again is Edwin Luhu.
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People that came to work and they were down and trod,
and he went over to them, put his hand around
them and said, well, better days are ahead. This is
what we should do. This is how you can cope
with your problem. Let me help you out. And he
did this with the employees of the company and they
idolized him. He became a father to practically avery employee
in the company. HJ will travel throughout the country meeting
(22:14):
with customers and giving pep talks to his sales force.
His enthusiasm and confidence is contagious. The passion he has
for selling vegetables as a young boy never leaves him.
Hj's policies create a productive workforce and anchor his company's
unique public image. Here's Henry Ford Museum curator Judith Endelman.
(22:37):
He was really one of the founders of what today
we call public relations through his use of branding and
a clear identity for his company, corporate giveaways and keeping
his company in the public eye in so many different ways.
Henry is the first to initiate the factory tour, inviting
the general public to view the immaculate conditions under which
(22:59):
high products are packaged. By nineteen hundred, twenty thousand guests
a year are passing through his factory gates. In eighteen
eighty six, forty year old Henry Hines takes his family
on a vacation to Europe to visit his parents' homeland
of Germany. The first stop is England, where he immediately
(23:20):
visits the graves of his Christian heroes John Bunyan, Isaac Watts,
and John Wesley. Hines writes, I felt I was upon
holy ground. For his trip, HJ has brought samples of
some of his best products, like his ketchup and horseradish.
With a suitcase of Hines products, he journeys to London
(23:41):
and calls on Fortnum and Mason, purveyor of fine food
to the royal family. Here again is Edwin Luhu and
Eleanor deinstegg A stroke his whiskers, put on his top
hat and it bursted right into the front door. As
an awesome salesman, he went in and showed his products
(24:03):
and talked about them and had him sample the products.
They said, I believe we will take them all. Everybody
was shocked, including h Jay him. At this time, nobody
in Europe buys food from America. It's Hj's first step
towards running a global company. Hines has always been part
(24:24):
of the progressive wing of the Republican Party, which supports
the expansion of American business into Asia. The American administration
saw China and Japan as the key to the Orient.
Hines saw things differently. They were the keys to the
Orient in both business and the acceptance of Sunday School.
(24:44):
Because of Hinz's missionary passion, planning and financial backing Sunday
School's prosper all over Asia. Hines has taken the small
business he started with his family eleven years earlier and
turned it into a food producing giant. Here again is
Andy Masick. Hines believed in pure foods. He built his
(25:09):
brand on the fact that his product was better than
anyone else's. He always said, the secret to success is
to do a common thing uncommonly well. HJ discovers ideas
in unlikely places and a chance encounter in eighteen ninety
two inspires a world famous advertising slogan. You've seen that
(25:32):
fifty seven on his products. Well, the story behind that
is he was going to New York City on a
business trip and he was on an elevated train and
as he looked out the window, he saw a billboard
that said twenty three styles of shoes, and he thought,
twenty three styles of shoes. That's pretty impressive. I wonder
how many products I have, And he started counting them
(25:54):
up in his head. There were fifty four, fifty five,
fifty six, fifty seven, fifty seven. That's an interesting looking number.
He liked the look of it. When he got home,
he found out he really had many more products than
fifty seven. But he liked the number so much that
he decided to put it on all of his labels.
He put it in whitewashed stone, on hillsides, on billboards
(26:18):
every place. He branded his company with Hines fifty seven.
Fifty seven is one of the greatest marketing ideas of
all time. It promises diversity while remaining manageable, and so
Hines fifty seven has entered the American lexicon. Yeah, and
(26:38):
when we come back more of the life of HJ. Hines,
and my goodness, you're learning so much about not just
the product, not just about the man, but about his
faith and how it intertwines with and it's in aescapable
part of every part of this great business. I mean,
the idea of making the best product, the purest product,
(27:00):
come straight from who he is. And yet this same
guy can sort of make up the number fifty seven
because he just likes the look of it and just
drives at home. And nobody knew branding better than h. J. Hines.
When we come back the rest of his life story,
here are our American stories, and we continue with the
(27:40):
life story of H. J. Hines here on our American stories,
and now the very last part of this terrific story.
He developed kind of a distinctive style of his own.
He had very distinctive whiskers, white whiskers, and kind of
his hair brushed back. He was kind of a character.
(28:03):
He had a sense of himself. But above all, Hines
is clever. In eighteen ninety three, HJ. Hines went to
the Columbian Exposition, that's the world's fair in Chicago, and
they gave him a booth or a place to show
his wares on the third floor of the exhibit hall. Well,
nobody at the World's Fair was climbing three sets of
(28:25):
stairs to go up to the third floor. So Hines
came up with an idea. On the spur of the moment.
He printed little gold luggage tags. They had kind of
a gold foil on it, and he printed on the
back of the tag, bring to the Hines booth on
the third floor for a free prize. And people would
be strolling along arm in arm, and they would catch
(28:46):
the glint of gold out of the corner of their
eyes and they pick it up and they say, oh, look,
we could bring it to the for a free prize.
And so they trooped up the steps, by the hundreds,
by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands. People were
going up to the third floor and they found the
Hines booth and they saw his pyramids of ketchup and pickles,
and it was the hit of the fair. After twenty
(29:09):
years in business, the HJ. Hines Company is the largest
food processing company in the United States, with a workforce
of twenty three thousand people. His mansion occupies one corner
of a Grand Street in the east end of Pittsburgh.
His immediate neighbors are named Westinghouse, Carnegie, and Melon. In
(29:32):
eighteen ninety four, Sarah Hines dies of typhoid on Thanksgiving
Day at the age of seventy four. Henry writes, the
darkest day we ever knew. Hines will never marry again.
Typhoid is the number one killer in the Pittsburgh area
due to the dirty water. HJ will promote finance and
(29:55):
lead a commission on smoke abatement, sewage control, and water
tration plants that will eliminate the one hundred year plague
of typhoid fever. By nineteen oh four, HJ is selling
its products on all six inhabited continents, decades before Coca
Cola or McDonald's becomes symbols of the international economy, Hinz
(30:18):
products are found in all corners of the world. The
American son of German immigrants, has made himself world famous.
He has changed eating habits, convincing customers that eating food
made in an unknown factory thousands of miles distant can
be as good, if not better, than homemade. Here again
(30:40):
is Quentin Scrayback. His main competition for most of his
life was not other competitors as much as the Housewife
and preserved foods. He was competing against the Home Preserving
Group in nineteen o six, the sixty two year old
(31:03):
Henry Hines will willingly risk everything he has achieved to
defend a point of principle. Suddenly, the entire food business
comes under attack when Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle exposes
horrendous conditions in Chicago meatpacking plants. An outraged public demands
federal regulation, but all of the food processing companies oppose
(31:27):
the controls, all except one. When Heinz supports the Pure
Food and Drug Act of nineteen o six, he's branded
a trader. Competitors boycott his products and threaten his life.
HJ is courageous and stands firm, as he's fond of saying,
quality is to a product what character is to a man.
(31:51):
His competitors realize that if they are forced to meet
the standards he has always lived by, they will go
out of business. While a great deal of American food
processing industry, like ketchup manufacturers, are opposing this legislation, here's
Hines supporting this legislation. Well, you can imagine he quickly
(32:12):
got the support of magazines like Good Housekeeping and so forth,
and consumers. Here's an industrialist, you know, out there supporting
the legislation like this, So it was good commercial advertising
(32:32):
and marketing form. HJ arouses further wrath when he personally
lobbies President Theodore Roosevelt. Hines even convinces Roosevelt that without
food quality oversight, even his beloved Scotch might not be pure.
With Roosevelt support, the landmark Pure Food and Drug Act
(32:52):
became the law that protects consumers from toxic additives and fraud.
Roosevelt declares man should be able to drink a whiskey
in the evening without jeopardizing his health. To the very
end of his days, HJ lives a very vigorous lifestyle.
(33:15):
He considers himself a simple workingman and never loses his
common touch, still rolling up his sleeves and joining the
workers in the fields. Hinz is a colorful character. On
his seventy first birthday, he has asked how he feels,
and he doesn't say anything. He just jumps over a chair.
(33:38):
In nineteen eighteen, following the end of World War One,
HJ is seventy four years old and still goes to
the factory every day, and on Sundays involves himself in
his church. In May nineteen nineteen, HJ has what appears
to be a simple cold, but it is soon apparent
(33:58):
that it's pneumonia. The founder of the Henry John Hines
Food Company dies peacefully in his home at the age
of seventy four. Tributes pour in from all around the world,
but none would have meant more to him than the
grief of his corporate family. Here again is Edwin Lehu.
They all became so close to him when he passed away.
(34:21):
There were in tears, They rang bells in the company,
and it was a day of mourning. The Hines employees
feel as though they've lost a father, and they pull
their resources to commission a sculpture of the beloved founder.
In his will, Henry writes, I desire to set forth
at the very beginning of this will, as the most
(34:43):
important item in it, a confession of my faith in
Jesus Christ as my savior. He then requests that a
church be built in memory of his mother. It now
stands on the University campus in Pittsburgh. Over the years,
the Hines Company will continue to innovate. In nineteen sixty eight.
(35:05):
It is the first company to offer Ketchup in small
to go packets. In nineteen eighty three, Hinz introduces the
first squeezeable plastic bottle for Ketchup. Ketchup is in ninety
percent of all American homes, and Hines has doubled the
Ketchup market share of its nearest competitor. Today, the company
(35:26):
employs more than thirty three thousand people and sells more
than six hundred and fifty million bottles of Ketchup every year.
In Pittsburgh, the company's legacy is present everywhere. Hines Field
is home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Hines Hall is dedicated
to the performing arts, and the Hinzendawman's Foundation is the
(35:47):
city's most important sponsor. Here again is Andy Masik and
Hj's great great grandson, Andre Hines. He was one of
the first people to really understand global marketing. He was
also someone who understood branding, how important a name was,
(36:08):
and how important consumer confidence was in building a business,
and of course, the Hines Company as it was during
his lifetime, I think, was a manifestation of his worldview,
which as you again you do right by other people,
and that there's no room for being sloppy or for
(36:28):
setting out I like that. I'm Greg Hengler and this
is our American Stories. And what a story. Indeed, one
man builds a global brand. But in the end, what
he really did was impact his neighborhood, the city of Pittsburgh.
Drive around it, walk around at Hinesfield, Hines Hall, Hines Endowman.
(36:51):
Still to this day, this man's work, this man's faith,
still being felt in the great city of Pittsburgh. Henry
Hines's story here are in our American Stories. Folks, if
(37:39):
you love the great American stories we tell and love
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Go to Our American Stories dot com now and go
(38:00):
to the donate button and help us keep the great
American stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com.
This is Lei Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites.
And we love to tell stories about business, and we
love to tell stories about entrepreneurs and how they change
(00:35):
the world, change the nation, and in the end, drive
our economy. Hinz food products have been a part of
American culture for more than a century. Though Hinz Catchup
is one of the most recognized corporate symbols in the world,
few people know anything at all about its creator, h J.
Hines is hard work, innovation, and obsessive kindness proved one
(01:01):
of his favorite sayings quote to do a common thing
uncommonly well, bring success. Here's Greg Hengler with the story
of h. J. Hines. You kids coming on more than artHis?
That's not good manners? Will you notice? Are Hines here
(01:21):
tasted by Amber Davy. That's pouring it on a little
thick Himes the taste that's worth the wait. The Hinz
(01:48):
family saga begins with the determination of immigrants to make
a better life for themselves. Beginning in the sixteen eighties,
many German immigrants took the long voyage across the Atlantic
Ocean to Pennsylvania. In eighteen forty three, John and Anna Hines,
both recent arrivals from Germany, settle outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. John
(02:10):
becomes a brickmaker. The next year they have their first child,
a boy they name Henry John or J. The Hines
family will grow to include nine children, four boys and
five girls. One of their daughters, however, dies when she
is only a baby. Like many German immigrants, mister and
(02:35):
missus Hines believe the importance of hard work. Every day,
HJ will pick up vegetables in the family garden before
walking over a mile each way to his Lutherans school
and back a school run by his church. Upon his
arrival back, he will continue working in the plot until sunset.
Henry's love of gardening is evident in the very first photo,
(02:58):
where his knuckles are visibly swollen from the hard work.
Here's the president of the Hines History Center, Andy masik
In Hines biographer Quentin Scraybeck. Like many of the other
German immigrant boys here in Pittsburgh, he spoke with a
German accent, though he went to American schools and he
(03:21):
felt very much American. It was typical for German families
to work as an economic union. The children would do
work like that, but most of them didn't take it
up as a career long term. He was real creative
and saw, gee, I can make money here, I can
make a living here. I can make a business out
of this. Henry Hines was just fifteen years old when
(03:44):
he started his business in downtown Pittsburgh. I'll take one jar, yes, sir.
He started by canning horse radish that his mother grew
in her garden and sold it on the streets of Pittsburgh,
pushing a handcart a wheelbarrow around and people love the product,
and he thought, well, let's try some other things. Two
(04:05):
years later, his little business has grown so much that
he now needs a horse to pull his card. Hello. Hello.
He was very influenced by his mother. She knew how
to play on his feelings and to encourage him when
he was down, and he learned some of those people
skills from his mother. Anna Hines is a disciplined and
(04:28):
devout Christian mother, training and instructing her children with Bible lessons.
Stressing the importance of serving others and counting them as
more significant than themselves. His mother was very religious. She
converted to Lutheranism, and she sent young Henry to the
Lutheran seminary nearby, thinking that maybe one day he would
(04:51):
be a minister. She thinks this until she sees his
love of the family garden. Here's former advertising executive at
Hines Edwin Luhu. She made the children work from sunrise
to sunset in this garden, and HJV is the only
one who favored it. In fact, he stayed out there
long after the hours were over. Hj's talent and passion
(05:14):
are playing to see, so when he turns twelve, his
mother proudly presents her firstborn with three acres of land
for his birthday. The young entrepreneur quickly develops and markets
a growing line of produce and homemade condiments, and shortly
after his little farm triples in size. At fifteen, HJ
(05:36):
quits school in order to focus entirely on his business,
waking at three am so he can take his vegetables
to stores in Pittsburgh, only to return home and work
for his father making bricks. Here's Harvard Business School Professor
Nancy Cohen and as a very successful junior entrepreneurs selling
cabbage and cucumbers and zucchini and tomato off his wagon
(06:01):
to neighbors and has a growing list of customers. And
from the very beginning, from his earliest days of peddling
horseradish door to door or from a wagon with his
own horse, he wanted to make sure his customers got
only pure food. HJ is obsessed with purity. As a Christian,
he associates purity with goodness. Fresh food is healthy food.
(06:25):
This is in an age when Americans are suspicious of
factory made food, and with good reason. It is often
packaged in filthy conditions and contains a stomach turning, a
array of cheap fillers like leaves or wood pulp, and
chemical preservatives. While his competitors use golden brown bottles to
hide addens and imperfections. HJ makes a point of selling
(06:49):
his mother's horse radish recipe in clear glass jars. HJ
wants his customers to believe that the food he delivers
is worth every penny they spend on it. Thanks to
his mother's recipes and beliefs, people grow to trust the
Hind's name and what a story this is. And we
will continue with the story of H. J. Hines. And
(07:11):
my goodness, it sounds like so many of the other
entrepreneurial stories we did. No matter what the ethnicity the story, well,
it sounds the same service to customers. More on the
Hjhines story here on our American stories. Folks, if you
(07:32):
love the stories we tell about this great country, and
especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all
of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
(07:53):
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more. And we continue with our American stories
and the story of J. Hines. And he started as
(08:16):
a boy canning his mom's horse, Radish and again dropping
out of school and just getting to work. We continue
now with the story of H. J. Hines. Thanks to
his mother's recipes and beliefs, people grow to trust the
Hind's name here again is the president of the Hines
History Center, Andy Masick. Henry was always a meticulous man.
(08:41):
He was a hard worker, and he kept detailed notes.
He kept journals and record books, and so he was
not only mathematical, but he had a human side to him.
He was kind of left and right brain both, so
he could figure out the forms for things and keep
(09:02):
good records. But he was also a people person. In
eighteen sixty one, seventeen year old Henry sells twenty four
hundred dollars worth of produce about sixty eight thousand dollars
in today's money, and by eighteen sixty six, Henry becomes
a partner in his father's brick company and quickly makes changes.
At the time most brickyards shut down for the winter,
(09:25):
Henry decides to heat the small factory so it can
stay open through the cold months. That way, the company
will have a supply of bricks ready when the demand
for bricks rises in the spring. In eighteen sixty nine,
at twenty five years of age, h J meets Sarah
Young at his church, a daughter of Irish immigrants, who
(09:46):
will bring his new household what his mother has to
the old religious devotion and a stable emotional foundation. On
a train to New York, they meet another couple planning
to marry. HJ, spotting an opportunity to save money, suggests
that both couples share a minister and marry the same day.
(10:08):
Eighteen sixty nine was also the year HJ and his
neighborhood friend Clarence Noble start a company designed to sell horseradish, pickles,
and sauerkraut across the Eastern Seaboard. As Hj's company grows,
so does his family. A daughter named Irene in eighteen
seventy one, and two years later a boy named Clarence.
(10:30):
HJ and Sarah will have five children. One of the
things he learned early on was that people weren't sure
about canned products or things in jars. Sometimes people got
sick eating the products of other people. So Henry found
that he didn't put his labels on the jar. At first,
He'd put somebody else's label on the jar, and if
(10:52):
nobody got sick, and if people liked it, then he
put his label on the next batch. The Hines and
Company is profitable until eighteen seventy five, when mistakes by
Noble in the Panic of eighteen seventy three suddenly threatened
its existence. HJ turns to his father and a friendly
(11:12):
banker who loaned him money. Even his wife pitches in,
but by the year's end, the company is bankrupt. Here's
Heine's biographer Eleanor Dienstag and Nancy Collen. The diaries read
like a Dickenziean novel, their heartrending. He has boils, his
wife takes to bed. He's too depressed to go to church,
(11:35):
which was unthinkable for him. His brothers started to take
to drink. The whole family was collapsing. Several creditors accuse
him of basically falsifying his records and demand that he'd
be arrested. He is arrested, held in jail for a day,
and comes back the next day to face what is
(11:57):
an ever mounting load of debts and unpaid bills. It's Christmas.
The Hines can't even afford to buy a single present
for their children. Here again is Heinz biographer Quentin Scraybeck.
He probably went through one phase of real depression. I
(12:18):
mean there was there was several months where he was
pretty much immobilized in bed. HJ believes his friends are
shunning him, he writes mournfully, I have no money, so
I have no friends. His parents mortgaged their house to
raise funds, only to see it repossessed. Creditors come and
sell off his mother's furniture. A wash and shame, HJ
(12:42):
can only watch helplessly as the crisis consumes his aging father.
Here's Heinz family archivist Frank Kurtic Henry J. Hines's father
had raised a family stopplished home in America an ammigrant,
and he sees much of his life wiped out before
his eyes. The elder Hines will never recover, spending his
(13:05):
final years in and out of sanitariums. A broken man.
Through this and other dark moments in his life, HJ
is anchored by his twin beliefs, belief in God and
God's unshakable plan for his life. Just two months after
the bankruptcy, on New Year's Day, eighteen seventy six, h
(13:28):
J picks himself up and asks the only people to
have stayed by his side, his family, to help him
start a new business. Together, they form the Hinz Food Company.
The whole family pitches in, and his mother and sisters
begin bottling horse Radish in the basement of their home.
(13:49):
Starting a brand new company on a slim budget, HJ
has to travel by foot to the vegetable fields to
have a horse again, he buys himself a bargain, a
blind horse. He owed a lot of people in Pittsburgh money,
a lot of grocers and so forth. He made a
pledge that he would pay them back, even though illegally
didn't have to, and that was one of the key
(14:12):
things in his life as well. He spent four or
five years repaying back grocers, farmers and suppliers. Through his leadership,
HJ guides to Hinz Food Company to immediate success, taking
special pleasure in culinary innovations. He's experimenting like a woman
(14:33):
in the kitchen, making it up as he goes along,
and his notebooks are choc a block full of fascinating recipes,
everything from peanut butter, which he does not pursue, to
baked beans, which he does very successfully, to Chutney's. In
eighteen seventy six, he creates the condiment that future generations
will associate with his name. Here again is Edwin Luhu.
(14:57):
When he was in England, he noted that they had
a product called kets yup, which was made of fish
and different ingredients and different spices. It was a very
spicy condiment and he liked it. And he thought, I
wonder if we substituted tomatoes for the fish, what that
would taste like. This is how we get the word ketchup.
(15:21):
It comes from the Chinese word kets yup, which is
a kind of fish sauce. Here again is animes. Yes,
it is good. Ketchup was probably invented in China a
thousand years ago, but HJ. Hines brought it to a
new level. There are several types of ketchup in the
(15:42):
nineteenth century, but none of them sell particularly well. Apart
from Hines, no one sees potential in the red vegetable sauce.
Pittsburgh is home of the steel industry, but it's also
center for glassmaking. Unlike his competitors, Hines believes that his
customer she'd be able to see the bright red ketchup. This, however,
(16:03):
has a drawback. You know, when you look in a
ketchup bottle sometimes it gets kind of dark and rubbery,
kind of oxidized near the top. Well, he knew that
people would be put off by seeing that, so he
put a paper label near the neck of the bottle
so the product looked red and beautiful. Hines builds a
(16:25):
new factory, which still stands today as an industrial monument
in Pittsburgh. The factory is one of the first in
the country run on electricity, and Hines will be the
first to put up an electric billboard in New York City.
The Pittsburgh headquarters site offers easy access to the Allegheny
River and railroad lines. The whole neighborhood smells of vinegar,
(16:48):
then as now the main preservative. As indispensable as HJA
is to the company, he's just as valuable to his church.
He is especially dedicated to teaching the children about the
Bible and their Christian faith at Sunday School. In fact,
HJ will travel all over the world in order to
(17:08):
promote the idea of Sunday School. HJ is also known
for his generosity. He will build a borning home for
homeless children. The poor will count on him for a meal,
and he will often loan money to his customers so
they can stay in business. Hines places his factory in
the midst of Andrew Carnegie's steel factory and rival steelmakers,
(17:32):
but Hines's revenues will one day surpass those of his
larger neighbors. HJ. Hines was an intuitive marketer. He had
a sense of how to sell things. And although he
didn't invent Ketchup, he marketed it better than anyone in
the world. And when we come back more of this
great American story, this great Pittsburgh story. Here on our
(17:55):
American stories, and we continue here with our American stories
and the life of HJ. Hines. Let's pick up where
we last left off. Ketchup quickly becomes the lynchpin of
(18:21):
Hj's growing business. By the mid eighteen eighties, with the
expansion of the railroad, the Hines Company is selling dozens
of products in all corners of the United States. On
every railroad cars company uses, the Hinz name is proudly
displayed on its side. In Pittsburgh, people see teams of
horses pulling wagons carrying Hinz products, and the company name
(18:45):
is always printed on each wagon. Grocery stores boast in
their ads that they carry the popular Hinz brand. HJ.
Hines believed that if people tasted his product, they would
certainly buy it, and he had an elaborate sum for
his sales staff to take out to stores and grocery
stores little packages of samples. He had cardboard spoons that
(19:11):
people could taste and then throw away. He had chasing
dishes and different pots that people could sample things in
the store, and when they tried it, they liked it
and they bought it. But with success comes competition. Hines's
competitors copy his ideas and methods. Hines has to fight
or survive, and not always by the fairest means. When
(19:37):
he wanted to run other people out of business, he
bought up all the glass bottles in town and used
all that he could, and those that he couldn't use
he put on a barge and sank the barge in
the Allegheny River so nobody else could use them. Hines's
(19:58):
dealings with the staff at the factory are colored by
a completely different climate. Here again is Nancy Cohen. Henry
Hunts looks at the railroad strikes of eighteen seventy two,
when over a thousand railroad cars were destroyed in a
mob rioting and the National Guard was called in and
twenty nine people were killed, and decides, this is not
going to be my future. This reinforces his determination to
(20:21):
create a different kind of organization, where his labor is content,
where his labor is motivated, where his labor is industrious.
In an age when horses are often treated better than
the workers, Henry Hines embraces his employees as family. In
the Hines Factory, there's a restaurant and rooftop gardens, free
(20:44):
carriage rides, an indoor swimming pool, and gymnasium, free doctors
and dentists. At a time when many people did not
have indoor plumbing, employees can shower and bathe in the factory.
HJ promotes women managers to supervise his predominantly female workforce,
and he creates some of the best incentive pay for
(21:05):
women in the nation. HJ takes poor immigrant wives and daughters,
teaches them English and homemaking skills, and prepares them for
their citizenship tests. These women receive freshly laundered aprons and
bonnets daily, and there's even a daily manicure for food handlers.
HJ believes that the hands that work with the food
(21:27):
should be as germ free as possible at the end
of the day. This all adds to the products quality
and shelf life. HJ knows that happy, well cared for
employees will stay on the job, work hard, and not
be interested in causing trouble, and he delights insane. Heart
power is stronger than horsepower. Here again is Edwin Luhu.
(21:52):
People that came to work and they were down and trod,
and he went over to them, put his hand around
them and said, well, better days are ahead. This is
what we should do. This is how you can cope
with your problem. Let me help you out. And he
did this with the employees of the company and they
idolized him. He became a father to practically avery employee
in the company. HJ will travel throughout the country meeting
(22:14):
with customers and giving pep talks to his sales force.
His enthusiasm and confidence is contagious. The passion he has
for selling vegetables as a young boy never leaves him.
Hj's policies create a productive workforce and anchor his company's
unique public image. Here's Henry Ford Museum curator Judith Endelman.
(22:37):
He was really one of the founders of what today
we call public relations through his use of branding and
a clear identity for his company, corporate giveaways and keeping
his company in the public eye in so many different ways.
Henry is the first to initiate the factory tour, inviting
the general public to view the immaculate conditions under which
(22:59):
high products are packaged. By nineteen hundred, twenty thousand guests
a year are passing through his factory gates. In eighteen
eighty six, forty year old Henry Hines takes his family
on a vacation to Europe to visit his parents' homeland
of Germany. The first stop is England, where he immediately
(23:20):
visits the graves of his Christian heroes John Bunyan, Isaac Watts,
and John Wesley. Hines writes, I felt I was upon
holy ground. For his trip, HJ has brought samples of
some of his best products, like his ketchup and horseradish.
With a suitcase of Hines products, he journeys to London
(23:41):
and calls on Fortnum and Mason, purveyor of fine food
to the royal family. Here again is Edwin Luhu and
Eleanor deinstegg A stroke his whiskers, put on his top
hat and it bursted right into the front door. As
an awesome salesman, he went in and showed his products
(24:03):
and talked about them and had him sample the products.
They said, I believe we will take them all. Everybody
was shocked, including h Jay him. At this time, nobody
in Europe buys food from America. It's Hj's first step
towards running a global company. Hines has always been part
(24:24):
of the progressive wing of the Republican Party, which supports
the expansion of American business into Asia. The American administration
saw China and Japan as the key to the Orient.
Hines saw things differently. They were the keys to the
Orient in both business and the acceptance of Sunday School.
(24:44):
Because of Hinz's missionary passion, planning and financial backing Sunday
School's prosper all over Asia. Hines has taken the small
business he started with his family eleven years earlier and
turned it into a food producing giant. Here again is
Andy Masick. Hines believed in pure foods. He built his
(25:09):
brand on the fact that his product was better than
anyone else's. He always said, the secret to success is
to do a common thing uncommonly well. HJ discovers ideas
in unlikely places and a chance encounter in eighteen ninety
two inspires a world famous advertising slogan. You've seen that
(25:32):
fifty seven on his products. Well, the story behind that
is he was going to New York City on a
business trip and he was on an elevated train and
as he looked out the window, he saw a billboard
that said twenty three styles of shoes, and he thought,
twenty three styles of shoes. That's pretty impressive. I wonder
how many products I have, And he started counting them
(25:54):
up in his head. There were fifty four, fifty five,
fifty six, fifty seven, fifty seven. That's an interesting looking number.
He liked the look of it. When he got home,
he found out he really had many more products than
fifty seven. But he liked the number so much that
he decided to put it on all of his labels.
He put it in whitewashed stone, on hillsides, on billboards
(26:18):
every place. He branded his company with Hines fifty seven.
Fifty seven is one of the greatest marketing ideas of
all time. It promises diversity while remaining manageable, and so
Hines fifty seven has entered the American lexicon. Yeah, and
(26:38):
when we come back more of the life of HJ. Hines,
and my goodness, you're learning so much about not just
the product, not just about the man, but about his
faith and how it intertwines with and it's in aescapable
part of every part of this great business. I mean,
the idea of making the best product, the purest product,
(27:00):
come straight from who he is. And yet this same
guy can sort of make up the number fifty seven
because he just likes the look of it and just
drives at home. And nobody knew branding better than h. J. Hines.
When we come back the rest of his life story,
here are our American stories, and we continue with the
(27:40):
life story of H. J. Hines here on our American stories,
and now the very last part of this terrific story.
He developed kind of a distinctive style of his own.
He had very distinctive whiskers, white whiskers, and kind of
his hair brushed back. He was kind of a character.
(28:03):
He had a sense of himself. But above all, Hines
is clever. In eighteen ninety three, HJ. Hines went to
the Columbian Exposition, that's the world's fair in Chicago, and
they gave him a booth or a place to show
his wares on the third floor of the exhibit hall. Well,
nobody at the World's Fair was climbing three sets of
(28:25):
stairs to go up to the third floor. So Hines
came up with an idea. On the spur of the moment.
He printed little gold luggage tags. They had kind of
a gold foil on it, and he printed on the
back of the tag, bring to the Hines booth on
the third floor for a free prize. And people would
be strolling along arm in arm, and they would catch
(28:46):
the glint of gold out of the corner of their
eyes and they pick it up and they say, oh, look,
we could bring it to the for a free prize.
And so they trooped up the steps, by the hundreds,
by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands. People were
going up to the third floor and they found the
Hines booth and they saw his pyramids of ketchup and pickles,
and it was the hit of the fair. After twenty
(29:09):
years in business, the HJ. Hines Company is the largest
food processing company in the United States, with a workforce
of twenty three thousand people. His mansion occupies one corner
of a Grand Street in the east end of Pittsburgh.
His immediate neighbors are named Westinghouse, Carnegie, and Melon. In
(29:32):
eighteen ninety four, Sarah Hines dies of typhoid on Thanksgiving
Day at the age of seventy four. Henry writes, the
darkest day we ever knew. Hines will never marry again.
Typhoid is the number one killer in the Pittsburgh area
due to the dirty water. HJ will promote finance and
(29:55):
lead a commission on smoke abatement, sewage control, and water
tration plants that will eliminate the one hundred year plague
of typhoid fever. By nineteen oh four, HJ is selling
its products on all six inhabited continents, decades before Coca
Cola or McDonald's becomes symbols of the international economy, Hinz
(30:18):
products are found in all corners of the world. The
American son of German immigrants, has made himself world famous.
He has changed eating habits, convincing customers that eating food
made in an unknown factory thousands of miles distant can
be as good, if not better, than homemade. Here again
(30:40):
is Quentin Scrayback. His main competition for most of his
life was not other competitors as much as the Housewife
and preserved foods. He was competing against the Home Preserving
Group in nineteen o six, the sixty two year old
(31:03):
Henry Hines will willingly risk everything he has achieved to
defend a point of principle. Suddenly, the entire food business
comes under attack when Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle exposes
horrendous conditions in Chicago meatpacking plants. An outraged public demands
federal regulation, but all of the food processing companies oppose
(31:27):
the controls, all except one. When Heinz supports the Pure
Food and Drug Act of nineteen o six, he's branded
a trader. Competitors boycott his products and threaten his life.
HJ is courageous and stands firm, as he's fond of saying,
quality is to a product what character is to a man.
(31:51):
His competitors realize that if they are forced to meet
the standards he has always lived by, they will go
out of business. While a great deal of American food
processing industry, like ketchup manufacturers, are opposing this legislation, here's
Hines supporting this legislation. Well, you can imagine he quickly
(32:12):
got the support of magazines like Good Housekeeping and so forth,
and consumers. Here's an industrialist, you know, out there supporting
the legislation like this, So it was good commercial advertising
(32:32):
and marketing form. HJ arouses further wrath when he personally
lobbies President Theodore Roosevelt. Hines even convinces Roosevelt that without
food quality oversight, even his beloved Scotch might not be pure.
With Roosevelt support, the landmark Pure Food and Drug Act
(32:52):
became the law that protects consumers from toxic additives and fraud.
Roosevelt declares man should be able to drink a whiskey
in the evening without jeopardizing his health. To the very
end of his days, HJ lives a very vigorous lifestyle.
(33:15):
He considers himself a simple workingman and never loses his
common touch, still rolling up his sleeves and joining the
workers in the fields. Hinz is a colorful character. On
his seventy first birthday, he has asked how he feels,
and he doesn't say anything. He just jumps over a chair.
(33:38):
In nineteen eighteen, following the end of World War One,
HJ is seventy four years old and still goes to
the factory every day, and on Sundays involves himself in
his church. In May nineteen nineteen, HJ has what appears
to be a simple cold, but it is soon apparent
(33:58):
that it's pneumonia. The founder of the Henry John Hines
Food Company dies peacefully in his home at the age
of seventy four. Tributes pour in from all around the world,
but none would have meant more to him than the
grief of his corporate family. Here again is Edwin Lehu.
They all became so close to him when he passed away.
(34:21):
There were in tears, They rang bells in the company,
and it was a day of mourning. The Hines employees
feel as though they've lost a father, and they pull
their resources to commission a sculpture of the beloved founder.
In his will, Henry writes, I desire to set forth
at the very beginning of this will, as the most
(34:43):
important item in it, a confession of my faith in
Jesus Christ as my savior. He then requests that a
church be built in memory of his mother. It now
stands on the University campus in Pittsburgh. Over the years,
the Hines Company will continue to innovate. In nineteen sixty eight.
(35:05):
It is the first company to offer Ketchup in small
to go packets. In nineteen eighty three, Hinz introduces the
first squeezeable plastic bottle for Ketchup. Ketchup is in ninety
percent of all American homes, and Hines has doubled the
Ketchup market share of its nearest competitor. Today, the company
(35:26):
employs more than thirty three thousand people and sells more
than six hundred and fifty million bottles of Ketchup every year.
In Pittsburgh, the company's legacy is present everywhere. Hines Field
is home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Hines Hall is dedicated
to the performing arts, and the Hinzendawman's Foundation is the
(35:47):
city's most important sponsor. Here again is Andy Masik and
Hj's great great grandson, Andre Hines. He was one of
the first people to really understand global marketing. He was
also someone who understood branding, how important a name was,
(36:08):
and how important consumer confidence was in building a business,
and of course, the Hines Company as it was during
his lifetime, I think, was a manifestation of his worldview,
which as you again you do right by other people,
and that there's no room for being sloppy or for
(36:28):
setting out I like that. I'm Greg Hengler and this
is our American Stories. And what a story. Indeed, one
man builds a global brand. But in the end, what
he really did was impact his neighborhood, the city of Pittsburgh.
Drive around it, walk around at Hinesfield, Hines Hall, Hines Endowman.
(36:51):
Still to this day, this man's work, this man's faith,
still being felt in the great city of Pittsburgh. Henry
Hines's story here are in our American Stories. Folks, if
(37:39):
you love the great American stories we tell and love
America like we do, we're asking you to become a
part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree
that America is a good and great country, please make
a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy
six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters.
Go to Our American Stories dot com now and go
(38:00):
to the donate button and help us keep the great
American stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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