Calumet Baking Powder Company
Calumet Baking Powder Company was an American food company established in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois, by baking powder salesman William Monroe Wright. His newly formulated double-acting baking powder took its name from the French-derived, colonial-era word for a Native American ceremonial pipe, given to the lands now known as Calumet City, Illinois. Wright's company adopted a stylized Indian wearing a war bonnet as its trademark.
In 1929, William Wright sold out to General Foods and Calumet Baking Powder became one of its many name brands. Wright, a fan of horse racing, would use his wealth to build what would become a world-renowned breeding and training operation in Lexington, Kentucky, which he named Calumet Farm. It was later run by his son, Warren Wright. General Foods merged with Kraft Foods in 1990.
Cans of Calumet Baking Powder were used as props in the larder scenes of the 1980 film, The Shining. This detail is noted early in the 2012 documentary Room 237, as the catalyst for Bill Blakemore's theory that the film is an allegory for European settlers' genocide of Native Americans.
