IN 1945, FORTUNE MAGAZINE named Betty Crocker the second most popular American woman, right behind Eleanor Roosevelt, and dubbed Betty America's First Lady of Food. Not bad for a gal who never actually existed.
"Born" in 1921 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to proud corporate parents, Betty Crocker has grown, over eight decades, into one of the most successful branding campaigns the world has ever known. Now, at long last, she has her own biography. Finding Betty Crocker draws on six years of research plus an unprecedented look into the General Mills archives to reveal how a...

At a time when polite society wouldn't dream of hanging women's and men's underwear on the same clothesline, a Minnesota manufacturer dared to advertise the unmentionable. "Don't Say Underwear," crowed the ads, "Say Munsingwear " Consumers of the 1890s responded. The company's wildly popular "itchless" union suits represented a truly revolutionary advance.

When fashion and central heating changed the market, Munsingwear offered silk and nylon stockings, "stretchy-seat" briefs for men, and the essential Foundettes, the Spanx of its generation. Erotic ads showed underwear-clad women...