We first encountered Dorothy W. Kirk through a charming, undated die-cut advertising booklet for Duff’s Ginger Bread Mix, which is made with Duff’s Molasses. This booklet, shaped like a can, is showcased in a post by r/VintagePaperEyeCandy on Reddit. As noted on page 1 of the booklet, Dorothy W. Kirk is credited as the food consultant, with the statement: “The recipes in this book will give you lots of suggestions. They have been tested and approved by Dorothy W. Kirk, food consultant.”
Duff’s was the first cake mix, folks—not the company we associate with cake mixes today, but nevertheless they were the first–and it came in a can! Pillsbury bought the company later yet they had to sell it as the FTC considered it monopolizing. The dramas!—it took six years in court.
Professional Life
Dorothy Kirk graduated from Columbia University, a universal stepping-stone in the early 1900s for a successful career in Home Economics. She taught Home Economics for three year before she settled into her career in magazines. Dorothy was on staff for the food section of McCall’s Magazine from at least 1928 to 1932. Newspapers across the country reprinted her shorter articles and recipes to fill their columns. And we know so far that at least between 1935-1954, she was an editor and then chief of the food section of Woman’s Home Companion (WHC). Besides the magazine, she also edited a few cookbooks for WHC including “Twice Round The Year With Party Cakes,” “Woman’s Home Companion Cook Book,” and “100 Kinds of Candy.” Both McCall’s and WHC publications were based in Manhattan.
Dorothy Kirk Crossword
Private Life
Dorothy W. Kirk was born in 1891 and raised in Mount Vernon, Westchester county, New York, a hop and a skip to Manhattan. Dorothy W. Kirk was her maiden name that she kept for professional life, but she also went by Mrs. Sinker, the wife of Frederick Sinker (1881-1970) the “tall” owner and founder of Intercontinental New Bureau, a global financial news service. Frederick was born in Wales, and his family moved to Manhattan via Indiana when he was a young man. In New York, he was a hotel cashier, a newspaper reporter, then a manager of the Commercial Telegram Bureau before founding his own news service. His family lived at 136 Stuyvesant Place, Staten Island, NY before he married. After he and Dorothy married, he temporarily moved to Dorothy’s location in Mount Vernon.
As a married couple, Dorothy and Frederick prospered and had a country house in Newton, Connecticut and an apartment in the city; perhaps back on Staten Island, as in the 1950s Dorothy was an active leader in children’s groups in Great Kills, Staten Island: the Great Kills Parent-Teacher Association, the Great Kills “Happy Blue Birds” public school group, and in the Camp Fire Girls there. From jellybean contests and Halloween contests to group singing to writing numerous skits performed by the Camp Fire Girls, it seemed to be a joy. She even co-wrote skits, such as “The Breakfast Broadcast” and “Day with the President” and acted in it with other adults.
