Uncle Bob's Grennan Cake Club

Black text on a white background at the top with a photograph of Uncle Bob underneath and red and black text on a white background under the photograph. 

Philip H. Grennan was the founder and owner of Grennan Cakes. The business was established in Detroit, Michigan in 1914 as the Grennan Cake Bakeries and was later consolidated in 1919 into the Grennan Cake Corporation. Branches of the company, in 1921, were located in Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Toledo. The company specialized in ready-to-eat cake. The ready-to-eat cake was marketed to housewives as a relief from baking on hot summer days. In a 1921 article in Printer’s Ink, housewives confirmed that they were purchasing pre-made cakes because they had “relief from baking-day work, banishing hot kitchen toil, saving time and money, quality and variety.” (p. 49). In 1924 the company was supplying cakes, cookies, and fried cakes to around 482 cities and towns. There is an announcement in Kokomo Daily Tribune from Thursday May 16, 1929 for the Uncle Bob Cake Club of Children radio program. The radio program was on NBC Chicago at 8:00 and featured 30 minutes of Music and Stories.