For more than a century, the Campbell Soup Company has helped revolutionize eating habits around the world by offering a line of convenient, inexpensive canned "condensed soups." All consumers need do is add a can of water to the soup before heating it. Based in Camden, New Jersey, the firm was an outgrowth of the Joseph A. Campbell Preserve Company. The company had been started in 1869 by Joseph A. Campbell (1817–1900), a fruit merchant, and Abraham Anderson, a manufacturer of iceboxes. In 1897, the fortunes of the company changed. General manager Arthur Dorrance reluctantly hired his nephew, Dr. John T. Dorrance (1873–1930), a twenty-four-year-old chemist. John Dorrance invented a process for making the condensed soup by eliminating water from the cans, thus reducing the costs for packing, shipping, and storage. Dorrance's breakthrough allowed the company to reduce the price of a can of soup from...