ACT II
The Era of Mainstreaming & Erasure (1950-2000)
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Set Design
Welcome to Act II! Warning: our set has undergone a massive change. Nearly unrecognizable from the grimy tenement basements notorious for producing the ethnic bagel, the commercial bagel's set is pristine, fluorescent, and sterile: the modern American supermarket aisle. This supermarket is a nearly identical copy of those that proliferated throughout America in the 1950s and 60s, but is not located just anywhere; it is in the town of Mattoon, Illinois, coined in 1986 as the "non-Jewish bagel capital of America." At its peak, Mattoon was home to a 75,000-square-foot bagel production facility that employed just 600 bakers who oversaw the mostly mechanized production process and used state-of-the-art technology to churn out 1.75 million bagels a day, generating $1.5 billion in revenue annually. These numbers were hundreds of times larger than the production and gross revenue of delis during the ethnic era, illustrating the profound effect that technological streamlining and the displacement of hand-crafted practices had on the industry. The bagels produced in Mattoon and across the country took up residence in the bread aisle of Mattoon, Illinois's supermarket alongside established white bread brands such as Wonderbread and Pepperidge Farm; the bagel had become just another white bread variation. Our physical set, moreover, highlights the bagel's separation from its role in facilitating Jewish-gentile education and interaction in urban Jewish delis. During the commercial era, the bagel lost its ethnic connations and was marketed as a "convenient and versatile" breakfast bread that resides behind a cold freezer door. We have entered the era of the "roll with a hole."
Setlist
We Are Never Ever Getting Back to the Deli
NYT 1989 Article, "The Bagel's New York Accent Is Fading"
Cream Space
You Need to Calm Dough
Modern Bagel Machine
"You Need to Calm Dough" emphasizes the physical changes that the ethnic bagel's dough underwent during its transformation into the commercial bagel. These changes were prompted by the need to adapt to new technologies and to satisfy the gentile American palate. To ensure new bagel machines could churn the dough efficiently, bagel producers were required to thin traditionally stiff dough with water and oil to lubricate it. Additionally, as technologies scaled, bagel production also required the use of dough conditioners (food additives that quicken yeast rising) and relaxants (food additives that soften dough) that eliminated the bagel's dense, hard, and nutty texture and taste. Additionally, to appeal to the 1950s American culture of abundance, in which the post-War economic boom increased demand for indulgent foods, the bagel was supersized, increasing from its original 2.5 ounces to 4-5 ounces and featuring a far smaller hole. Traditionalist Jews did not simply stand by and watch as the bagel changed. Instead, they vocalized concerns that innovations were betraying the bagel's authentic form. Local 338 engaged in technological sabotage to halt production while Jewish publications mourned the "death of the traditional Jewish bagel." Yet despite these protests against the "roll with a hole," commercial bagel producers patronizingly told Jews to calm down and ignored their concerns.
The first track in Act II, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back To the Deli," highlights the temporal and social severance of the bagel from its Lower East Side, Jewish ethnic origin as of a result of the introduction and proliferation of quick-freezing and polyethylene packaging. These technological innovations that followed the invention of the bagel machine were impressive (increasing the bagel's shelf life over 10x) and led to a shift in bagel purchasing from the small, insulated deli to the widespread, widely accessible supermarket . For Jews capitalizing on the GI Bill and migrating to white suburbia in the 1950s, the availability of the bagel at their local supermarket displaced the ritual of frequenting their neighborhood deli. Indeed, as Jews moved out of urban areas, so too did the bagel. In a process known as spatial succession, deli institutions were gradually replaced by other ethnic food institutions, limiting bagel consumption to the commercial bagel. With few recognizable Jewish delis selling the bagel, the bagel's status as a symbol of Jewishness eroded. By the time Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's launched bagel menus in the late 1990s, the bagel had officially been transformed from an ethnic bagel to an American staple.
Act II's third track, "Cream Space," explores the powerful partnership between Lender's bagels and Kraft's Philadelphia Cream Cheese, which revolutionized public perception of the bagel. This 1965 partnership, which eventually morphed into a "marriage" when drawings of the bagel and cream cheese tied the knot in the 1990s, gave the bagel associative legitimacy in the eyes of the gentile American public, prompting its nationwide acceptance. By the mid-1960s, Kraft was an established food conglomerate, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese was a spread (or schmear) commonly used on other white breads in American households. Lender's partnership with Kraft and the subsequent positioning of the bagel as a cream cheese complement appealed directly to the gentile American public while simultaneously stripping the bagel of its previous associations with Jewish foods such as whitefish or herring. Additionally, Kraft's national network of frozen-food brokers and marketing agencies helped mainstream the commercial bagel, with ads featuring bagel toppings like jam, butter, and bacon. By the time Kraft acquired Lender's in 1984, the last traces of Judaism had been eradicated from the company and its bagels. The transition was complete; a 1985 Parkay and Kraft ad says it best: margarine and the bagel just "naturally go together."
Out of the Lower East Side
Our setlist for Act II concludes with "Out of the Lower East Side," a track that explores the strategic rebranding of the bagel from an ethnic food to a regional "New York Style" icon, despite bagel production being localized away from Lower East Side Jewish enclaves. This shift in marketing made the bagel enticing to the broader American public while avoiding anti-Semitic resistance or hesitance to trying ethnic foods. Bagel packaging replaced Yiddish phrases and Jewish imagery with images recalling New York City. The 2001 redesign, moreover, of the Murray Lender cartoon featured the character stripped of his traditional baker's hat and dark hair, instead adorned by the American imagery of a baseball cap. Major brands also co-opted Jewish bagel innovations; in a 2019 advertisement, Thomas' Breads claimed they invented the Everything bagel, when the creation was, in reality, created by Jewish baker David Gussein. Similarly, fast-food brands introduced the concept of bagel sandwiches as a "whole new idea" in 2000, willfully ignoring Jewish delis’ nearly century-long tradition of making bagel sandwiches. Although various bagel advertisements invoked the food's New York heritage, the food's “New York” status was separated from its status as the creation of Jewish immigrants; the bagel no longer belonged to the Lower East Side.
Heading 6
MERCH
Sponsored By Kraft, Kellogg, and more!*
Supermarket Standard Sweatpants
$40.00
Who doesn't love sweats? Not anyone we'd like to be friends with, that's for sure. Sweatpants are a comfy, convenient pant option-- not unlike the commercial bagel. The commercial bagel rose to prominence by appealing to the convenience culture of the 1950s; by 1957, supermarket freezer footage surpassed that of fresh meats for the first time. Beyond simply providing the physical infrastructure necessary for bagel distribution, the shift in American preferences to frozen foods signaled a diminishing desire to engage with the culture surrounding foods. Instead, the average American simply wanted to put bread on the table, flattening the bagel into a yeast product rather than treating it as a cultural symbol. Previously, consuming the bagel meant engaging with Jewish culture: you had to go to a deli and eat a bagel fresh. The buy-and-reheat culture of supermarkets firmly planted this experience in the past.
Corporate Carbs Cup
$15.00
Everyone needs a good, reliable cup, and we have the perfect one for you. Our Corporate Carbs Cup is the real deal, highlighting the bagel’s associative legitimacy, fueled by Kraft Foods' 1984 acquisition of Lender's. Kraft, an American conglomerate, stripped Lender's bagels of its recognizably Jewish owner and Jewish connotations by positioning the bagel as a complement to cream cheese. Although economically successful (Kraft earned over $1 billion in revenue each year from bagel sales), mass corporations' acquisitions of smaller bagel producers and incorporation of bagels into their offerings erased the bagel's heritage and identity. Bagel Bites's rollout of the Pizza Bagel, which framed the bagel as a replaceable component of a beloved "American food," and McDonald's bagel sandwich rollout, which replaced a typical roll with a bagel in its sausage-and-Spanish-omelet sandwich, completed the systemic erasure of the bagel's ethnic identity.
Basic Breakfast Beanie
$25.00
You know you want it, and honestly, you just might need it. Our adorable Basic Breakfast Beanie commemorates how the commercial era of the bagel reshaped it from a foreign, ethnic food into a breakfast staple as versatile as your favorite hat. By 1988, mainstream bagel producers (Lender's, Kraft, Thomas') had successfully positioned the bagel as a perfect substitute for most American breakfast brands. Indeed, a Lender's ad specifically asks the audience if they would "rather have a bagel for breakfast, or toast?" Consequently, this shift in branding stripped the bagel of its unique ethnic history and impact, providing the gentile public with a familiar frame of reference (white bread) and eliminating the bagel’s status as a Jewish food.
SALE
McDonalds Bagel Menu
Suprise Song - Vote Now!
which song defines this era?
So Acculturation
Some historians argue that the ethnic bagel's transformation into the mainstream commercial bagel is evidence of acculturation: a bilateral cultural exchange between Jewish communities and gentile America. They posit that Jewish bakers acted as cultural interpreters, proactively dictating the broader public's perception of the bagel. These historians point to specific instances, such as a 1958 article from the Saturday Evening Post, a mainstream New York newspaper, that positioned the bagel as a sophisticated cultural experience and permitted non-Jews to engage with it. Bilateral exchange experiences, historians highlight, occurred in third places such as kosher-style delis in the Uptown Theater District in Uptown Manhattan; in these spaces, Jewish immigrants educated the broader public about bagel consumption. Later, these historians spotlight how Jews, most notably Murray Lender, actively participated in bagel advertising: Murray Lender partnered with Willy Evans to create popular bagel cartoons, and Lender's TV persona dominated the bagel's marketing from the 1960s til the late 1990s. Because of the prominence of Jewish figures and voices during the bagel's mainstreaming, proponents of acculturation argue that the bagel served as a durable symbol of Jewish identity during its gentile adoption.
Guilty as Assimilation?
Conversely, other historians argue that the positioning of the bagel for mainstream audiences is an example of assimilation, in which the bagel's ethnic connotations were unilaterally erased under pressure to appeal to gentile American norms. These historians first point to the physical changes the bagel underwent, becoming doughier and larger, which betrayed the bagel's Eastern European history in favor of meeting American standards for white bread. Indeed, the commercial era saw the rise of the "bull bagel": an over-5-ounce supersized bagel that appealed to gentile America's preference for indulgent foods. Historians also point to the deliberate exclusion of the bagel's Jewish history in advertisements. Despite Murray Lender's prominence in advertising throughout the mid-to-late 1900s, he never explicitly acknowledged his Judaism on television or in print. His cartoon, moreover, eventually removed his Jewish attributes while Americanizing his dress. With Lender's acquisition by Kraft and American fast food companies' adoption of the bagel, Jewish bagel producers were erased from everyday American bagel consumption. This erasure, these historians argue, is most apparent in recent years: in 2024, Kraft launched Philadelphia Bagel Wholes, which eliminated the bagel hole altogether. Removing the hole, the defining characteristic of the ethnic bagel, completed the bagel's assimilation into American food culture.