Tide Liquid detergent product overview

Tide Detergent and the Political Environment

According to Otto Bettmann's memorably titled book, The Good Old Days -- They Were Terrible, adulteration of soaps and foodstuffs were rife in the era of the 1910's and 1920's before Tide Detergent became a reality in the 1930's America. (Bettmann, 1974) Thus, the main legal consideration for Proctor & Gamble was not the safety of Tide or indeed any detergent as a product, rather it was forming a patent for its manufacture, to avoid the chemical process for manufacturing detergent becoming widely known. Today, the method of securing patents is so widely circulated that there are books written on the subject in the form of do-it-yourself guides. (Pressman, 2000) Also, there are sites on the Internet devoted to patent protection. But at the time, P&G's methodology of creating something to make whites truly whiter was a hotly contested patented product. After all, "for the farmer's wife of the Victorian Age who required a placid temperament to endure the rigors of running a country house," laundry was perhaps the most physically punishing labor of the farm, without the help of machinery or "miracle detergents." (Bettman, 1974, p.48)