Cans of homogenized vegetables, fruits, and meats sold as baby food first became popular in the 1920s. The first to produce them on a large scale was a man named Harold Clapp in Rochester, New York. He had a sick child, made a vegetable soup, his child got better, and people asked for his recipe. There was a canning facility in his town and so he hooked up with them and created Clapp’s Baby Food.

About the same time, Gerber, which was a fruit- and vegetable-canning facility in Michigan, switched to producing pureed fruits and vegetables specifically as baby food.  For women, it was one less job that they had to do, it gave them some flexibility, and it was seen as scientific and modern.

Read more in How Canned Baby Food Became King by Julie Beck on the atlantic.com (2014)