Horton, Mary Burnett

Mary Burnett Horton was born in Stirling, Scotland, in 1897 and moved to New York City with her family as a child. She graduated from Hunter College, where she trained as a bacteriologist. In 1920 she began working as a laboratory assistant at Sheffield Farms; she became chief bacteriologist in 1932. When Sheffield inaugurated a consumer education program in 1937, she became its director, developing school and public visiting programs at four major milk processing plants in greater New York, focusing on pasteurization and the nutrition of dairy products. With wartime restrictions in 1941, she took the programs to consumers, lecturing extensively to women’s clubs on feeding families under food shortages and rationing. She served as chairperson of the Manhattan Nutrition Committee from 1944 to 1946, while earning a master’s degree from New York University in Home Economics with a specialty in nutrition in 1946. In 1949 she became the only woman elected to the Board of Directors of Sheffield Farms, a post she held until 1956, when the company became a division of National Dairy.

In 1947 Horton was appointed director of National Dairy’s Sealtest Consumer Service, which included four test kitchens equipped with the latest and newest appliances. The aim of the kitchens was to help consumers, dietitians, and school, hospital and industrial food managers to adjust to postwar changes, including the advent of convenience foods and the transfer of new technology to consumer products. The staff working in the kitchens performed extensive work on recipe development, culminating in recipe pamphlets, publicity releases and quantity recipe cards. During her fifteen years as director of Sealtest Consumer Service, Horton was widely regarded as an authority in home economics and a pioneer in the consumer and institutional education in the foods and nutrition field.

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