Library of Congress Cornflake crusade/by Gerald Carson CORNFLAKE CRUSADE BOOKS BY GERALD CARSON THE OLD COUNTRY STORE CORNFLAKE CRUSADE CORNFLAKE CRUSADE By GERALD CARSON “He that witholdeth corn, the people shall curse him; but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it. ” —PROVERBS XI: 26 RINEHART & COMPANY, INC. New York Toronto RM236 .C3 PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN CANADA BY CLARKE, IRWIN & COMPANY, LTD., TORONTO © 1957 BY GERALD CARSON PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ALL RIGHTS RESERVED LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 57-9631 To My Mother vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author acknowledges with a deep sense of obligation the assistance received from individuals, general and special libraries, universities and other institutions mentioned below. If any name should appear below, and does not, it is through inadvertence. Some Cornflake crusade/by Gerald Carson http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09631 Library of Congress who rendered substantial assistance have passed on while the research and writing was in progress, suggesting how late the hour is for capturing segment of the American story. The manuscript owes so much to Mrs. Stanley T. Lowe and Forest H. Sweet that it is doubtful if the book could have been completed without the encouragement, help and candid criticism of the text which each provided. I have also to thank Dr. Benjamin Ashe, A. L. Miller and Dr. Mildred S. Titley for reading th manuscript, and for their valuable suggestions and criticism. None are, of course, responsible for any errors of fact or interpretations. Various libraries and repositories which were visited generously made their resources available. The author wishes to thank Miss Margaret Scriven, Librarian, and Miss Elizabeth Baughman, Reference Librarian, of the Chicago Historical Society; Mrs. Ruth P. Braun and her staff, The Catlin Memorial Library of The Detroit News; the Reference Division of the Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts; George H. Fairchild, Librarian, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Charles R.Green, Librarian, the Jones Library, Amherst, Massachusetts; Dr. F. Clever Bald, Assistant Director, Michigan Historical Collections of the University of Michigan; Miss Janet Doe and staff, the New York Academy of Medicine Library; the New York Bar Association Library; the staff of the Reading Room at the New- York Historical Society, and especially Mrs. Bella C. Landauer; the Reference Divisions of the New York Public Library and the expert and gracious staffs of Rooms 300, 308 and 328; The Philadelphia Free Library; Mason Tolman and Miss Edna Jacobsen, The New York State Library; Harold Swart, Chief of Readers’ Service at Printers’ Ink Publishing Company; the Quincy, Illinois, Free Public Library; Mrs. Frances H. Morgan, viii Librarian, the Scoville Memorial Library, Salisbury, Connecticut; Miss Doris K. Meyerhoff, United States Trade Mark Association; Fred Dimoch, the University of Michigan General Library, Miss Helen L. Warner and staff, the Willard Library, Battle Creek, Michigan. Thanks are due also to the following for their varied contributions—answering queries, double-checking an elusive fact, providing photostats, making suggestions, preparing Cornflake crusade/by Gerald Carson http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09631 Library of Congress bibliographies and reference materials, making available inaccessible periodicals, pamphlets or books and unpublished material through interlibrary loans: Miss Florence Rowley, Librarian, the American Association of Advertising Agencies; Mrs. Ruth M. Yakel, Executive Secretary, The American Dietetic Association; the Armed Forces Medical Library; Norman Draper, Director of Public Relations, American Meat Institute; Charles C. Colby, Reference Librarian, Boston Medical Library; Andrew Duncan, President, The Cereal Institute, Inc.; Charles T. Smutney, Librarian, The Chicago Tribune; Miss Margaret Rose, Reference Librarian, The City Library Association, Springfield, Massachusetts; Colonel Arthur P. Long, and Lt. Colonel Stanley J. Weidenkopf, Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army; Mrs. Elleine Stones, Chief, the Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library; William Henry Harrison, Director, Fruitlands and the Wayside Museums; Illinois State Historical Library; John H. Berthel, Librarian, The Johns Hopkins University Library; Mrs. Helen M. McFarland, Librarian, Kansas State Historical Society; the Library of Congress, especially David Chambers Mearns; Stephen T. Riley, Librarian, Massachusetts Historical Society; Mrs. Evelyn Hunter, Librarian, The Millerton Library; R. W. Thomas, Curator and Librarian, New Haven Colony Historical Association, Syracuse, New York; Miss Dorothy Stuart, Assistant Librarian, The State Historical Society of Colorado; and the University of Chicago Library. Also assistance was generously given by: Roy V. Ashley, Miss Edith and Miss Mary Barber, R. Habermann, Secretary, Battle Creek Chamber of Commerce; Professor Adelia M. Beeuwkes, August F. Bloese, Miss Helen M. Bramble, Frank Briscoe, Henry D. Brown, Miss Leta Browning, Ralph Starr Butler, Earnest Calkins, the late Professor A. J. Carlson, Walter N. Chimel, Ross ix Coller, James C. Colvin, Miss Lenna F. Cooper and Dr. J. E. Cooper. Timely help of an unusual kind was forthcoming from Mr. and Mrs. George Degener, J., who loaned their fireproof chicken house for the storage of the manuscript. I also am indebted in various ways to R.O. Eastman, Dr. Moses Ehrlich, Miss Ruth Enlow, Dr. Morris Fishbein, Dr. Jonathan Forman, Chester Foust, the late Earle J. Freeman, Mrs. Regina Cornflake crusade/by Gerald Carson http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09631 Library of Congress G. Frisbie, Mrs. Martha Brockway Gale, Parker Gates, Harry Gilbert, Professor Carroll W. Grant, Mrs. Helen B. Green, Putney Haight, Burritt Hamilton, Ray B. Haun, Dr. David D. Henry, S. N. Holliday and Mrs. Ernest L. Ives. I levied upon James A. Jackson for contributions which were of great assistance, as well as S. E. Jennings, August Johansen, Miss Elsa Johnson, Dr. Norman Jolliffe, Dr. Louis C. Jones, Clarence Jordan, Dr. George L. Kaeur, Mark W. Kiley, K.H. Knowlton, Sidney Kocin, Dr. Hedwig Koenig, G. H. Lauhoff, John C. Lippen, Joe Lynch, George C. Mckay, Dr. Douglas Miller, Mrs. Dorothy Mongan, Frank W. Northrup, Thomas C. O'Donnell, George Oliva, Ralph Olmstead, James O'Shaughnessy, Arthur Osterholm, Stuart Peabody, Miss Dorothy Potter of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, Massachusetts, Horace B. Powell, Wilfred J. Rauber, Historian of the Village of Dansville, New York, and Professor Warner G. Rice. Francis Robinson has a share in what follows, as does Mrs. Grace C. Rose; the late Andrew Ross, for his invaluable recollections of W.K. Kellogg and early food merchandising, also Mrs. Ruth Schaefer and the late Edgar F. Schaefer lent a hand, as did John Sickles, Mr. and Mrs. Wendell Smith, L. E. Stacey, Henry M. Stegman, Colton Storm, Mrs. Bertha B. Stump, Mrs. Forest H. Sweet, Miss Marguerite Swallen, Mrs. Fanny Sprague Talbot, R. R. Thomson and Miss Cynthia Walsh. Roswell Ward provided information about the Centennial Exposition of 1876 from family sources, Professor Luther S. West prepared a helpful memorandum on Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and Battle Creek College. George Whitsett wrote me a letter, an important one, and Don Wright introduced me to Whitsett. This book, and I, owe much to Willis Kingsley Wing; and to Professor J. Harvey Young, who generously provided a copious flow of citations and suggestions for further investigation. x Cornflake crusade/by Gerald Carson http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09631 Library of Congress To Ted Amussen and his associates at Rinehart, who with taste and enthusiasm turned a typescript into a book, I am deeply and admiringly grateful. Permission to reprint portions of the book which first appeared in magazines was kindly granted by American Heritage, Michigan History, New York History and Sales Management. The book owes much to Miss Louella F. Still for her copyreading and her full and careful subject index. From my wife, Lettie Gay Carson, who typed the first draft and brought taste and judgement to bear upon each problem as it arose, I have had faith, hope, charity and unfailing good counsel. xi PREFACE These last words, which appears first, constitute a kind of hail and farewell to the diet revolt of the past century, and to a group of characters richly endowed with singularity. The fantasia of our food reform has not hitherto been set down as a consecutive narrative. Out of it came, on the one hand, an insatiable popular interest in “scientific” eating, and more food cultists, faddists and kelp wizards than any other civilized nation has ever known. And on the other hand we have the enterprising ready-to-eat cereal industry which, with its “built-in maid service,” its eye-filling packages and massive advertising, has influenced importantly both what we put in our stomachs and our minds. The “world” laughed at “the food protest,” but succeeding generations ate corn flakes and philologists could not but observe that the word “dyspepsia” had disappeared from common speech. For some twelve years I have been pursuing the social history of American eating, the food reformers and the corn flake kings, trying to sift fact from folklore and get the storyline straight in my own mind. A chronology which has been helpful to me and may assist others appears in the back of the book. I have tried to tell the truth—what happened, and why —as I encountered it, recognizing these limiting factors: the historian is human and has Cornflake crusade/by Gerald Carson http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09631 Library of Congress his own point of view. “Truth” is shaped primarily by survivors and by those who leave the fullest records. Half-truths are probably the only kind we know, and sometimes the fraction is even smaller. “As it is the commendation of a good huntsman to find game in a wide world,” says Plato,“ so it is no imputation if he hath not caught all”. Other hunters are welcome in this public domain. There are no “no trespassing” signs. There has been no attempt made to underline the applicability of this chronicle to our own times.