Spreading the story of cream cheese in Philadelphia

It’s light and fluffy, has dollops of truth and tanginess, and spreads well. 🥯 Are we talking about Philadelphia Cream Cheese or the lore of cream cheese in Philadelphia? Or maybe the absurdly silly new marketing character employed by the internationally famous Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand?

All photos courtesy of Emma Leuschner

Capitalizing on the tradwife/cowboy-husband trend sweeping through our Instagram feeds and the current cultural zeitgeist, Philadelphia Cream Cheese created “Phillyboy” to sell its creamy spread. This rough and tough man in a cowboy hat rides into the sunset on… a dairy cow. 🐄 Not a horse? Weird.

No matter, though. He’s a strong “man of the land,” saving us all from dry cakes and chalky sauces sans cream cheese. Thank goodness; what would we do without him?! And he’s apparently making everything “Really Philly Good,” whatever the heck that means?! 🤔

Real history of cream cheese in Philadelphia

But what’s the real deal with Philadelphia and cream cheese? What’s the connection? “New York dairyman William A. Lawrence (1842–1911) is widely credited with the invention of American cream cheese,” according to Emma Leuschner, local historian. Many people think cream cheese has no history in Philadelphia because the Lawrence narrative has spread widely. But Leuschner says there’s more to the story.

Emma is a prolific documenter of our community’s past, always sleuthing out the truth from the lore. She conducted in-depth research on P.E. Sharpless and his impressive dairy business in Chester and Delaware counties to (successfully! 🎉) secure his home’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places. She notes that Lawrence called his product “Philadelphia Cream Cheese” precisely because the dairies in Philadelphia produced such high-quality products. He wanted his cream cheese to be affiliated with the well-regarded cream cheese and other dairy products in Philadelphia.

Ultimately, Kraft acquired the Lawrence and Sharpless cream cheese brands through various business mergers, so the path from cream cheese in Philadelphia to the world-famous spreadable brand is circuitous. But the origins of best-in-class cream cheese trace back to our area, and that’s pretty neat.

Recently, Emma shared more details on Facebook to set the record straight. (Her post is below, shared with permission.) 👇🏻

A neighbor sent me a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article titled “Philadelphia Cream Cheese introduces ‘Phillyboy,’ a new mascot that has nothing to do with Philly,” (gift link) which unfortunately repeats the same misinformed claim that Philadelphia cream cheese is completely unrelated to Philadelphia.

I respectfully emailed the author and the editor in hopes of correcting the record. I spent two years researching Philadelphia cream cheese, the P.E. Sharpless Company, and Mr. Sharpless himself while preparing my first-ever nomination to the National Register of Historic Places (which was listed in September 2024)!

Philadelphia Cream Cheese has a distinct, often overlooked connection to Philadelphia and southeastern Pennsylvania. The P.E. Sharpless Company, incorporated in 1904 and headquartered in Philadelphia, was one of only 5 commercial creameries in the United States to produce and sell cream cheese by the 1920s, and the only one of those 5 located in Pennsylvania. The P.E. Sharpless Company’s corporate offices were in Philadelphia, and it manufactured cream cheese and other dairy products at various branch creameries in Delaware and Chester counties.

Kraft Cheese Company purchased the P.E. Sharpless Company in 1924, giving Kraft ownership over the P.E. Sharpless Company’s three patents related to the manufacture of cream cheese products. The high reputation of Sharpless cream cheese and dairy products, along with their “Philadelphia” packaging labels, led to widespread recognition of Philadelphia as a center of quality dairy products. Sharpless dairy products were ordered by the White House during the administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt!

My research on Philadelphia Cream Cheese has been published in VISTA.Today (“Modern cream cheese has roots in Chester County dairy farming,” February 2026), Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Pennsylvania Trails of History (February 2026), the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation’s Pennsylvania Heritage magazine (Fall 2025 edition), and in the National Park Service’s National Register for Historic Places (Pennock E. Sharpless House, listed September 2024). I created a public website with general, narrative research on the P.E. Sharpless Company.

To say that Philadelphia Cream Cheese has nothing to do with Philadelphia is simply untrue!

Learning the history of where we live, like how cream cheese connects our past to the present, roots us. In his book Why Old Places Matter, Thompson Mayes says:

“Old places connect us to our ancestors and our ancestors connect us to old places, giving us a sense of belonging and identity.” (source)

Chadds Ford and the Brandywine Valley are rich with old places and stories that shaped the communities we call home today. In the case of cream cheese, agriculture and food remain central to our region’s identity. Knowing where we started helps us understand how we got here and fosters a greater appreciation for the relics of our past that remain today.

Did you know the history of cream cheese in Philadelphia and why the most famous brand in the world carries our city’s name?