The story goes like this: Jim Muir, a sales manager for Wolverine World Wide and a dinner guest at the home of a customer in Tennessee, asked why corn fritters were called Hush Puppies. His host replied that the fried dough was used by farmers to quiet their barking dogs.
Muir reasoned that Hush Puppies would be a good name for Wolverine's new casual shoes because when feet hurt they are much like barking dogs.That was in 1958, and the name has been synonymous with casual footwear ever since. Before that, when you got a new pair of shoes, you recycled your old pair for weekend wear.
In celebration of the the Rockford, Mich., company's 35th anniversary, Hush Puppies is embarking, so to speak, on a campaign to regain some of the women's casual shoe market lost to athletic footwear.
About the only thing that will remain the same, says Geof Bloom, president and chief executive officer of Wolverine World Wide, is the Hush Puppies signature basset hound.