The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
The original TV dinner was introduced nationally by C.A. Swanson & Sons in 1954. Clarke and Gilbert Swanson, whose father had founded the company, were responding to a new social force: television. At the time, television programming was only available three or four hours a day, so if you had a set, you watched it during those hours. Since most of the programming was on in the late afternoon and early evening, that's when people gathered around their sets. The Swansons' idea was to create a portable meal that people could carry into their living rooms to eat.
The Swanson TV dinner was the first widely available frozen dinner. The original dinner contained roast turkey, cornbread dressing and gravy, peas, and sweet potatoes in a three-compartment aluminum tray. It was packaged in a box designed to look like a television, with the food pictured inside a "screen" surrounded by what looked like a wood-grain console complete with knobs at the bottom. In 1987, Swanson's original aluminum dinner tray took its place in the Smithsonian Institution.
Swanson soon added fried chicken and roast beef dinners as well. The TV dinners were an instant success. In their first year of national distribution, 10 million dinners were sold. Today frozen dinners and entrees still comprise the largest category of frozen food, with over $4 billion in annual U.S. sales. In 1994, 382 new dinner and entree products were introduced, up nearly 50 percent from the previous year.