Why Gorton’s Fish Sticks Make America So Nostalgic

Postwar convenience food and school-lunch staple still has millions hooked

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Aug. 25, 1961, was a big day in Gloucester, Mass. In a long clapboard building on Rogers Street, just above the Inner Harbor, some 250 attendees gathered to glad-hand and listen to speeches by various VIPs, including the esteemed professor and researcher Samuel Goldblith. Up from Washington was Sen. Benjamin Smith II (D-Mass.)—keeping JFK’s seat warm while he was in the White House—who hailed the “foresight and vision” of his hosts.

You might guess this event was a gathering of the local Freemasons, or perhaps a class reunion for Harvard or MIT.

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This story first appeared in the April 29, 2019, issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.