Vintage Elsie and Beauregard Borden Cow Postcard 🃏 RIP to Another USA Icon!

🐄 Elsie the Famous Borden Cow, Her Son Beauregard, and the Cowdillac

"Elsie the Famous Borden Cow and her son Beauregard travel the U S A in her famous Cowdillac greeting her friends in a tastefully furnished barn colonial boudoir." That is the whole message printed on the back of this postcard, and it holds a big piece of American advertising history in one sentence. Elsie started as a cartoon in 1936, became a living cow at the 1939 New York World's Fair, and kept greeting crowds for decades — live Elsies were still making yearly appearances at the State Fair of Texas until 2013. The company that made her famous did not last as long. Borden, founded by Gail Borden in 1857, was bought out in 1995 and sold off in pieces, and the Borden Dairy Company that carried Elsie on filed for bankruptcy in 2020. RIP to another USA icon.

🔍 The Postcard

An unused color photo postcard measuring 5 1/2 x 3 1/4 inches. The front sets four photographs on a light blue ground, each with its own caption:

• ELSIE'S FAMOUS COWDILLAC — a white and yellow tractor-trailer rig with a round red emblem on the trailer and the cab door
• BEAUREGARD — a calf in a blue blanket lettered BEAU with an X and an O, trimmed in pom-pom fringe
• ELSIE AND BEAUREGARD — Elsie in a red blanket embroidered with daisies and her name, the calf pressed against her side in his BEAU blanket, in front of grey clapboards
• ELSIE — her horned head in a halter with a nameplate, a garland of daisies around her neck and a fine chain across her forehead

The back carries Borden's caption about the Cowdillac and the barn colonial boudoir, a "PLACE STAMP HERE" box, and along the bottom the slogan REMEMBER—IF IT'S BORDEN—ITS GOT TO BE GOOD! It has never been written on or mailed.

🌼 How a Cartoon Cow Became a Celebrity

Elsie was born on paper in 1936, created by a team headed by David William Reid, and first appeared in Borden advertisements in medical journals alongside three other cartoon cows. By 1939 her campaign had been voted the best of the year at the Annual Advertising Awards. That same year, at the New York World's Fair, Borden's "Rotolactor" exhibit turned the cartoon into a real animal: a cow named You'll Do, Lobelia, born at Elm Hill Farm in Brookfield, Massachusetts, was chosen to be Elsie. She played "Buttercup" in the 1940 film Little Men. She died in 1941 after a traffic accident and was buried at the Walker-Gordon farm in Plainsboro, New Jersey, under a tombstone that calls her "one of the great Elsies of our time."

The family grew around her. In 1940 Borden gave Elsie a mate, Elmer the Bull, who went on to become the mascot of Elmer's Glue. A daughter, Beulah, came along, then her son Beauregard in 1947, and twins Larabee and Lobelia in 1957. The boudoir on the back of this card was part of the act as well: Elsie's Boudoir welcomed visitors at the Freedomland U.S.A. park from 1960 to 1963, and a live Elsie appeared in a musical revue by Broadway composer Kay Swift at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

Elsie was named Queen of Dairyland in Wisconsin and received the P.T. Barnum Award of Showmanship from Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 2000 Advertising Age named her one of the top ten advertising icons. Live Elsies kept the tradition going with a yearly turn at the Texas state fair right up to 2013.

🥫 Gail Borden: "I Tried and Failed"

The name in the slogan belongs to Gail Borden Jr., born November 9, 1801 in Norwich, New York. He moved to Texas in 1829 and became a surveyor and a newspaperman. In October 1835 he launched the Telegraph and Texas Register with his brother John and Joseph Baker, and its March 24, 1836 issue carried the first published list of the Texians killed at the Alamo. That same year he plotted the cities of Houston and Galveston.

His first food invention, a dehydrated meat biscuit, won the Great Council Medal at the 1851 world's fair in London. His second made his name: he patented a vacuum process for condensing milk in 1856 and founded his company in Connecticut in 1857. When it struggled, investor Jeremiah Milbank bought half the stock, the firm became the New York Condensed Milk Company in 1858, and the Union Army's demand for condensed milk during the Civil War led to new factories across New York and Illinois. Borden died on January 11, 1874. His gravestone reads: "I tried and failed, I tried again and again, and succeeded."

🏭 From Dairy Giant to RIP

The company pioneered glass milk bottles in 1885 and evaporated milk in 1892, took the name the Borden Company in 1919, and bought up dairies, ice cream makers and cheese producers until it was the largest dairy and pasta producer in the United States. Later purchases brought in Wyler's, ReaLemon, Wise and Cracker Jack.

After heavy losses from 1991 to 1993, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought Borden in 1995 and sold it off: the dairies went in 1997 and the pasta lines through 2001, and by 2005 Borden no longer existed as an independent company. The Borden Dairy Company later revived the name, and on January 5, 2020 it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing declining sales; that June its assets were won at auction by New Dairy Opco LLC. Borden Dairy still uses Elsie.

❓ Questions People Ask About the Elsie and Beauregard Postcard

Who was Elsie the Cow?

Borden's mascot: a 1936 cartoon who became a real cow at Borden's Rotolactor exhibit in 1939.

Who is Beauregard?

Elsie's son, who joined the Borden family of characters in 1947.

What was the Cowdillac?

The postcard's name for the tractor-trailer in which, as its caption tells it, Elsie and Beauregard traveled the U.S.A. to greet her friends.

How big is the postcard?

5 1/2 by 3 1/4 inches.

Has it been mailed?

No. The back is blank apart from the printed caption, stamp box and slogan.

Is Elsie still used today?

Yes. Borden Dairy still uses her as its mascot.