Good Humor

The Good Humor truck is one of the most recognizable early vending services in America. Started in the early 1920s, Harry Burt, Sr., the proprietor of an ice cream parlor in Youngstown, Ohio, created a chocolate-coated vanilla ice cream bar on a stick with the help of his son, Harry Burt, Jr. They sold the bars in the white ice cream trucks equipped with ringing bells to announce their arrival. These trucks grew in popularity and soon enough Good Humor franchises  established franchises in major cities around the country.1 Burt also developed a headquarters in 1921—a three-story building in Youngstown that housed an ice cream factory in the basement and a candy store on the top floor.2

Wooster has a special connection to Good Humor besides the fact it was established so close to our town. The connection is a man named Vince Swinehart who wheeled his Good Humor cart all over town in the 1960s and 1970s. Folks around town have many fond memories and stories.“Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s,” wrote Connie Franks of Wooster, “we lived on West South Street in Wooster. Vince was always pushing his cart in our neighborhood. He’d stop to rest in front of our house and all my neighborhood friends would run out, talk to him and buy some treats.”3

The children would help Vince and be rewarded with free ice cream regularly Vince was a fixture of Wooster and is memorialized in our historical society as part of the permanent collection where his Good Humor Cart along with a picture of him is on display.4

Burt innovations lived on, with Good Humor trucks remaining an American staple until 1978. His groundbreaking building was used by a television and radio wholesale company until the Mahoning Valley Historical Society bought it in 2007 for $150,000.

Come to the Wayne County Historical Society to see the push cart Vince used to give our his Good Humor treats.

  1. “Good Humor Truck, 1938.” The National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1287653.
  2. Guerrieri, Vince. “Sweet Memories.” Ohio Magazine. August 01, 2015. https://www.ohiomagazine.com/ohio-life/article/sweet-memories.
  3. “Bits and Pieces Memories of Vince and His Wagon.” The Daily Record. May 16, 2008. https://www.the-daily-record.com/article/20080516/LIFESTYLE/305169548.
  4. Ibid.