44. Carson, p. 112. See also “In Memoriam, Ella Eaton Kellogg,” originally appeared in Good Health, July 1920, reprints from the Collections of the University of Michigan.
45. Testimony of J. H. Kellogg, State of Michigan Supreme Court Record, Volume 2 (Kellogg v. Kellogg, p. 365), Box 21, File 3, J. H. Kellogg Papers, Michigan State University.
46. Edison’s famous search for a proper filament to create illumination in his light bulb is nicely described in Matthew Josephson’s classic Edison: A Biography (New York: Francis Parkman Prize Edition/History Book Club, 2003) in a chapter entitled “The Breakthrough,” pp. 205–27.
47. Carson, p. 122.
48. Dreams, Sanitarium Lecture, August 19, 1892, Reel 6, Images 641–67. J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M. I discuss Freud’s interpretation of dreams in my book An Anatomy of Addiction, pp. 157, 218.
49. “Divine Healing,” Lecture by J. H. Kellogg, April 10, 1909, Reel 11, Images 383–89, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Interestingly, Dr. William Sadler, who knew both Freud and Dr. Kellogg, claimed they had one thing in common in that “both hung on tightly to basic ideas they had started with.” William Sadler Interview with Richard Schwarz, September 22, 1960. Box 6, File 11, Sadler 6. Richard Schwarz Papers, Center for Adventist Research.
50. Carson, p. 124. See also A. S. Bloese Manuscript, “Founded a New Industry,” pp. 68–70H, Box 1, File 13.
51. Carson, p. 123. Butler was married to John’s sister Clara, who was divorced from him sometime in 1907. Clara was entirely devoted to her brother, lived in his house for most of the remainder of her life, and often served as his secretary and boon companion. See Schwarz, PhD thesis, p. 87; see also Schwarz, John Harvey Kellogg, p. 148.
52. Norman Williamson Jr., too, denies the “romantic account” that flaked cereals were invented in Ella’s kitchen. More likely, it was the San’s experimental kitchen where “in his [Will’s] unrelenting search for nutritious substitutes for meat he burned the midnight oil.” See Williamson Jr., p. 25.
53. Powell, p. 91. Williamson Jr. contends that Will did this work on his own and then told the doctor of the events concerning the moldy dough. Given the closeness of the relationship between the chronicler and the subject, as well as the stakes in telling this particular version, it is probably somewhat of an exaggeration and, more likely, both brothers were involved in the seminal discovery of the value of “tempered dough.” See Williamson Jr., pp. 25–26.
54. Carson, pp. 124–25; Powell, pp. 90–91.
55. Powell, p. 91.
56. J. H. Kellogg, “Flaked Cereal and Process of Preparing the Same,” U.S. Patent 558,393, April 14, 1896, Reel 5, Box 6, File 4, J. H. Kellogg Collection, Michigan State University; Charles MacIvor, MS of “The Lord’s Physician,” Chapter 9: “A Man of Many Talents” (page 6 of typescript). MacIvor Collections, Center for Adventist, Box 10, File 12.
57. Deposition of W. K. Kellogg, May 5, 1917, Kellogg Food Company v. Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flake Company, Box 20, File 2, pp. 22–24 of the typescript, J. H. Kellogg Papers, MSU; Carson, p. 125.
58. Powell, p. 92.
59. Ibid., p. 93.
60. Ibid.; Carson, p. 125.
61. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1897, Volume 13 (Detroit: R. L. Polk and Company, 1897), pp. 643, 685, 2276.
62. Carson, p. 127.
63. Over the years, different secondary historical accounts have estimated between forty and fifty such firms, but research conducted by Garth “Duff” Stoltz, using the records of the Corporations and Securities Bureau of the Department of Commerce of the State of Michigan, numbers 101 companies. See Garth “Duff” Stoltz, “101 Cereal Manufacturing Companies in Battle Creek, Michigan,” Adventist Heritage, Fall 1992; 15(2): 10–13. See also Garth “Duff” Stoltz, “A Taste of Cereal,” Adventist Heritage, Fall 1992; 15(2): 4–9.
64. New York World, September 7, 1902, p. 1, quoted in Powell, p. 101.
65. Carson, p. 182; “Willie Heston, 85, Football Star at Michigan Under Yost, Dies.” New York Times, September 11, 1963, p. 43. Heston, considered one of college football’s all-time greatest halfbacks, scored 93 touchdowns during the seasons of 1901–1904. The New York Times reported that Heston was the first player outside of the Ivy League to “make All-America.”
66. Nettie Leitch Major, C. W. Post—The Man and the Hour: A Biography with Genealogical Supplement (Washington, DC: Press of Judd and Detweiler, Inc., 1933), pp. 38–63.
67. Post was hardly the only businessman to compete with the Battle Creek Sanitarium. From 1907 to 1909, muscleman and body trainer Bernarr Macfadden took over the former Phelps Sanitarium in Battle Creek and operated his Institute of Physical Culture. A Barnumesque promoter of health foods, exercise, and many of the same pursuits espoused by Dr. Kellogg, Macfadden also founded the famed Physical Culture, several other magazines, and the rather racy tabloid newspaper, The New York Graphic. See Robert Ernst, Weakness Is a Crime: The Life of Bernarr Macfadden (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991).
68. In later years, Dr. Kellogg ordered his laboratory men to feed rabbits Postum and then measure their red blood cell counts in comparison to the rabbits that were fed normal diets. The doctor was pleased to learn that Post’s claim was bunkum. See Helen S. Mitchell, Popular Survey. Animal Experiments Conducted at the Nutrition Laboratory, Battle Creek Sanitarium, 1927 (reprint). See also canister of “Battle Creek Sanitarium Minute Brew” (“A Table Beverage with Bran, Malt, Starch, Rye and Calcium Carbonate Dissolves Instantly in Hot Water”), Battle Creek Food Co., Battle Creek, MI. Both in Collections of the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine.
69. Charles Goodrum and Helen Dalrymple, Advertising in America: The First 200 Years (New York: Harry Abrams, 1990), p. 68.
70. Powell, p. 172.
71. Major, C. W. Post—The Man and the Hour, pp. 144–45; John Milton Cooper Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), pp. 188–89.
72. Major, C. W. Post—The Man and the Hour, pp. 145–46, quote is from p. 145; Nancy S. Rubin, American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post (New York: Villard, 1995), pp. 89–94.
73. “C. W. Post a Suicide in California Home,” New York Times, May 10, 1914, p. 12.
74. Letter from J. H. Kellogg to C. W. Barron, September 23, 1919, in Arthur Pound and Samuel T. Moore, eds., More They Told Barron: Conversations and Revelations of an American Pepys in Wall Street (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931), p. 281.
75. Norman Williamson Jr., An Intimate Glimpse, p. 18.
76. Carson, pp. 154–56.
77. Powell, p. 94.
78. Deposition of W. K. Kellogg, May 5, 1917, Kellogg Food Company v. Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flake Company, Box 20, File 2, pp. 3–4, J. H. Kellogg Papers, MSU; Powell, p. 102; Carson, p. 184.
79. Schwarz, John Harvey Kellogg, p. 120.
80. Powell, pp. 110–11; Carson, p. 184.
81. Powell, p. 98.
82. The length of Will’s tenure at the San varies with different tellings. He began in 1880 and resigned in August 1901. He took on the task of raising capital for the new San, after the old one burned down in mid-February 1902, for about two and one half years but was primarily focused on building his food business. Will often dated his San tenure as twenty-two and a half years, but at other times he used the number twenty-five years to date his tenure. Ibid., p. 99.
7.
“FIRE!”…AND CEASE-FIRE
1. The Battle Creek Sanitarium Fire was widely reported across the United States; see, for example, “Wild Panic in Sanitarium Fire,” Chicago Tribune, February 19, 1902, p. 2; “Fire Imperils 400 Lives,” Washington Post, February 19, 1902, p. 2; “Many Escape from Fire,” New York Times, February 19, 1902, p. 3; “The Sanitarium Burned!,” Battle Creek Daily Moon, February 18, 1902, p. 2. See also “In Days Gone By,” unidentified clipping about the fire on the Sanitarium’s twenty-fifth anniversary, circa 1927, Reel 33, Image 452, J. H. Kellogg
Papers, U-M.
2. “Battle Creek Sanitarium in Ruins,” Battle Creek Daily Journal, February 18, 1902, p. 1.
3. “Will Rebuild the Sanitarium,” Battle Creek Daily Journal, February 19, 1902, p. 2.
4. “In Days Gone By.”
5. “Battle Creek Sanitarium in Ruins,” p. 1.
6. “Now in Ruins! Kellogg Sanitarium,” Battle Creek Morning Enquirer, February 18, 1902, pp. 1, 8.
7. “Battle Creek Sanitarium in Ruins,” p. 1.
8. Ibid., p. 6.
9. “The Sanitarium Burned!,” Battle Creek Daily Moon, February 18, 1902, p. 1.
10. “In Days Gone By.”
11. Carson, p. 133; “In Days Gone By.”
12. “Battle Creek Sanitarium in Ruins,” p. 1.
13. Ibid.
14. “The Sanitarium Burned!,” p. 1.
15. Ibid.
16. “In Days Gone By.”
17. “Battle Creek Sanitarium in Ruins,” p. 1.
18. “The Sanitarium Burned!,” p. 1. In the “In Days Gone By” account written twenty-five years later it is claimed that while there was poor water pressure, it was “not due to the pumping station as the standpipe was kept filled.” Whatever the precise cause, there were problems in getting enough water out to extinguish the flames.
19. “Battle Creek Sanitarium in Ruins,” p. 1.
20. “The Sanitarium Burned!,” p. 2.
21. Ibid.
22. “Disastrous Fire and Great Tribulation,” A. S. Bloese Manuscript, Box 1, File 13.
23. Ibid., p. 110.
24. Typescript, “Mass Meeting of the Citizens of Battle Creek at the Tabernacle, February 19, 1902,” p. 19, Reel 8, Images 333–65, J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M.
25. The new San was actually not completed until May of 1903. “Will Rebuild the Sanitarium,” p. 2.
26. Charles MacIvor, “The Lord’s Physician.” Manuscript Biography of Dr. Kellogg. “Fire! Fire! Fire!,” Chapter 14 (p. 3 of typescript), Box 10, File 12, Charles MacIvor Papers, Collections of the Adventist Research Center; J. H. Kellogg, The Battle Creek Sanitarium Fire (pamphlet), Reel 33, Image 279, J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M; “The Fire,” manuscript dated October 31, 1907, Reel 10, Images 1101–2, J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M.
27. “Mass Meeting of the Citizens of Battle Creek at the Tabernacle,” February 19, 1902,” Reel 8, Images 333–65, J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M.
28. “Will Rebuild the Sanitarium,” p. 2. See also The Standard (Chicago), March 1, 1902; 49: 30. And also see I. D. Sankey, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns and of Sacred Songs and Solos (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1907); I. D. Sankey, Welcome Tidings: A New Collection of Sacred Songs for the Sunday School (with Robert Lowry and Howard Doane) (New York: Biglow & Main, 1877); I. D. Sankey, Gems of Song for the Sunday School (with Hubert Main) (Chicago: The Biglow & Main Co., 1901).
29. Interestingly, this phrase is also the city of Detroit’s motto. The French Roman Catholic priest Father Gabriel Richard, who was, at the time, the assistant pastor at St. Anne’s Church, is credited for uttering it. On June 11, 1805, “a fire destroyed nearly the entire city, weeks before the Michigan Territory was established.” It was this fire that led Father Richard to write: “Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus,” the Latin for “We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes.” Kate Linebaugh, “Rising from the Ashes: The Origins of Detroit’s Motto,” Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2013.
30. “Entry on the Hon. Charles Austin,” Portrait Biographical Album of Calhoun County, Michigan Containing Full-Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County (Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1891), pp. 211–12. In 1876, Austin was mayor of Battle Creek, and in 1880 he was elected to the state legislature.
31. Carson, p. 129.
32. Ibid., p. 130.
33. Ibid. There were San branches in St. Helena, Los Angeles, and San Diego, California; Boulder and Colorado Springs, Colorado; Spokane, Seattle, and Tacoma, Washington; Lincoln, Nebraska; Chicago, Peoria, and Moline, Illinois; Detroit, Jackson, and Grand Rapids, Michigan; as well as locations in Mexico, Switzerland, England, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, Palestine, India, South Africa, and Japan. For a detailed description of Dr. Kellogg’s far-flung health reform empire and the church’s growing missionary activities around the world, see Year Book of the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association. Origin and Development of Medical Missionary and Other Philanthropic Work Among Seventh-day Adventists (Battle Creek, MI: International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, 1896), Reel 28, Images 1009–1228; Articles of Incorporation of the Guadalajara Sanitarium, May 28, 1898, Images 414–17, 424–25, “The Guadalajara Mission, 1894–1897,” Reel 30, Images 478–80. See also Articles of Association of the Michigan Sanitarium and Benevolent Association, December 1897, and “Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Michigan Sanitarium and Benevolent Association, March 9, 1899,” Reel 30, Images 488–509, 513–37; all in J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M.
34. “Review and Herald in Ashes,” Battle Creek Daily Moon, December 31, 1902, p. 1. There were two suspicious “accidental,” and ultimately unsolved, fires in town that occurred prior to the San’s disaster: John’s Sanitarium Food Company factory burned to the ground on July 19, 1898; another fire destroyed his Sanitas Nut Food Company factory on July 21, 1900. Additionally, Will’s first Corn Flakes factory burned down on July 4, 1907, and the Haskell Memorial Home, an orphanage actively supported by Ella Kellogg, burned down on February 5, 1909.
35. Letter from J. H. Kellogg to Ellen White, December 31, 1902, Reel 1, Images 206–8, Correspondence with Seventh-day Adventist Members on Rebuilding the Sanitarium, J. H. Kellogg Papers, MSU.
36. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 8, p. 97, Chapter 18, “The Review and Herald Fire.” Letter to the Brethren of Battle Creek,” January 6, 1903, accessed July 24, 2015, at http://text.egwwritings.org/publication.php?pubtype=Book&bookCode=8T&pagenumber=97.
37. Ellen G. White, “Our Duty to Leave Battle Creek. Talk by Mrs. E. G. White, Friday Morning, April 3, 1903,” The General Conference Bulletin. Thirty-Fifth Session, April 6, 1903; 5(6): 84–91. In this sermon, she heatedly criticized Dr. Kellogg’s imperious ways in Battle Creek. John made his own impassioned defense of his plans for the new San, its branches, and the realities of “ownership” of a nonprofit, nondenominational medical center in Michigan under existing state laws at the same conference that same morning, pp. 71–84.
38. Letter from George Butler to J. H. Kellogg, January 2, 1905, Reel 2, Box 2, File 6, Images 615–25 (page 5 of the typescript), J. H. Kellogg Papers, MSU.
39. Carson, p. 132.
40. Ibid., p. 134.
41. “Mass Meeting of the Citizens of Battle Creek at the Tabernacle, February 19, 1902,” Reel 8, Images 333–65 (p. 28 of the typescript), J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M.
42. “Experience Meeting (Patients) in the West Hall, February 22, 1902,” Reel 8, Images 367–88 (p. 3 of the typescript), J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M.
43. Ibid., p. 7.
44. T. C. Boyle, The Road to Wellville (New York: Viking, 1993); The Road to Wellville, Columbia Pictures, 1994, screenplay by T. C. Boyle and Alan Parker, based on T. C. Boyle’s book, directed by Alan Parker and starring Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Kellogg.
45. C. W. Post, The Road to Wellville (Battle Creek, MI: 1910). In 1925, his company was still advertising his products in popular magazines with slogans such as “Follow this Road to Wellville!,” Postum Cereal Company Advertisement, Saturday Evening Post, November 28, 1925, p. 62, Collections of the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine. Mr. Boyle, of course, knows the origin of this slogan and duly notes in the text that “the Road to Wellville” was C. W. Post’s sales pitch (p. 118).
46. “Hulda’s” real name is lost to history. The spelling of her name varies in different primary and secondary accounts, such as “Hildah” and “Huldah.” I use “Hulda” because that is how Dr. Kellogg
refers to her in an account he wrote on the child in the New York Sunday Recorder, August 4, 1901, pp. 1 and 7. William Sadler claimed Dr. Kellogg paid “Hilda” $50 for the child and added, in a 1960 interview, “Hilda’s kid turned out to be a disappointment after a promising start, later blackmailed JHK, and brought him much sorrow.” William Sadler interview by Richard Schwarz, September 22, 1960, Box 11, File 1, Sadler A, Card VII-B-1,2,4; IX-B-2, Richard Schwarz Papers, Center for Adventist Research. See also Elizabeth Neumayer’s “Mother.” Neumayer does a yeoman’s job of collecting birth records, government and court records, journal entries and letters to document the list of the Kelloggs’ forty-two adoptees. She calls the chapter in which this table appears “Work in Progress” because there may be slight discrepancies in what she found. She cites the year of George’s adoption as 1897, but it could have been 1898.
47. “Unique Experiments in the Training of Slum Children by Dr. J. H. Kellogg,” New York Sunday Recorder, August 4, 1901, pp. 1 and 7, Reel 35, Images 12–14 (quote is from p. 7), J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M.
48. Ibid., p. 7. Kerosene baths were then a common treatment for skin infestations such as ringworm and body or head lice.
49. Brian Wilson, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Religion of Biologic Living (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), pp. 150–51. See also a series of clippings in the J. H. Kellogg Papers, U-M: “Adopts 22 Children to Make ‘Gentlemen’ in One Generation,” North American, April 13, 1902; “Educating Slum Children: Dr. Kellogg’s Experiments in Proving That Environment Is Greater than Heredity,” New York Tribune, August 3, 1901 (all these clips on Reel 32, Image 25); “Environment Wins Against Heredity in Famous Family,” Detroit Tribune, March 31, 1912 (Reel 33, Image 496); George T. B. Davis, “The Father of Forty Children: The Story of Dr. J. H. Kellogg and His Unique Philanthropy,” The Quiver, February 1908, pp. 259–64 (Reel 35, Images 4–9); untitled clipping on the Kelloggs’ twenty-two adopted children, “Charlotte Tribune, August, 1898” (Reel 36, Images 211–12). See also J. H. Kellogg, “What Must Be Done for the Street Waif” (an account of his “adoption” of Hulda’s child, or George), Life Boat, February 1902; 5: 26–28. Richard Schwarz goes into great detail on Dr. Kellogg’s adoption of children and his changing views over nurture versus nature in his PhD thesis, pp. 88, 92, 303–9, and in his biography, John Harvey Kellogg, pp. 147–56. For a complete list of the children the Kelloggs adopted, in deed or by law, see Neumayer, “Mother”: Ella Eaton Kellogg, p. 49.
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