This paper investigates the role of Betty Crocker, a fictitious woman created by the milling company General Mills in 1921, who conveyed the messages of the company to its customers. As the author of many cookbooks and a speaker on a popular radio program, Betty Crocker provided specific advice about women's roles as good mothers and wives. In this paper, I specially focus on the portraits of Betty Crocker, which were changed seven times between 1936 and 1996, in order to examine the complex

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... ationships between the company, its customers, and Betty Crocker. Betty Crocker 's portraits have been intimately concerned with the transformation of twentieth-century American society, including baby boom after the WWⅡ, the increase of women at workplaces, feminist movements, and multiculturalism. While the transformation of the portraits reflected the social changes in the United States, at the same time, Betty Crocker actively influenced American women by offering an image of ideal womanhood which changed over the years. After the 1960s, however, the company stopped showing the portraits on their products and advertisements. The withdrawal of Betty Crocker's face indicates that her/the company's messages which had always been deeply tied to the ideas of cooking and family were not necessarily accepted by many American women. With the diversification of social values, Betty Crocker came to have difficulty communicating with women as a "mediator" between the company and its consumers.