A Secret History of Brands

by A Secret History of Brands- The Dark

  Kellogg’s Cereal Today

  The Kellogg brothers continued to be a stark contrast. William Keith Kellogg was not an ardent eugenicist and, by contrast, he established the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in 1930. According to the official W.K.K.F. website their mission is:

  The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 by breakfast cereal pioneer W.K. Kellogg, who defined its purpose as ‘…administering funds for the promotion of the welfare, comfort, health, education, feeding, clothing, sheltering and safeguarding of children and youth, directly or indirectly, without regard to sex, race, creed or nationality.…’ To guide current and future trustees and staff, he said, ‘Use the money as you please so long as it promotes the health, happiness and well-being of children.’

  The foundation receives its income primarily from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Trust, which was set up by Mr Kellogg. In addition to its diversified portfolio, the trust continues to own substantial equity in the Kellogg Company. While the company and the foundation have enjoyed a long-standing relationship, the foundation is governed by its own independent board of trustees. The foundation receives its income primarily from the trust’s investments.

  Over the years, the Kellogg Foundation’s programming has continued to evolve, striving to remain innovative and responsive to the ever-changing needs of society. Today, the organisation ranks among the world’s largest private foundations, awarding grants in the United States, Mexico, Haiti, northeastern Brazil and southern Africa.

  Chapter Eight

  Winchester: Guns to Ghosts

  The twisted tale of the Winchester Mystery House is one of California’s most enduring legends. A spooky and supernatural tale follows the legacy of the late Sarah Winchester and the seemingly bizarre home that the wealthy gun heiress built to appease the angry spirits of the dead. It is said that the spirits haunted her due to her departed husband’s work in manufacturing firearms during the Civil War era and beyond. If you believe the inflated campfire tales, the grieving widow turned to a medium in the height of her misery and regularly held séances to communicate with the ‘other side’, all the while building a home that featured staircases to nowhere and closed-off hallways. The truth behind the legend may be infinitely less spectacular, but equally as tragic.

  The Winchester Rifle

  This chapter focuses on the legacy of the tortured widow, Sarah Winchester, but in order to understand her pain and paranoia it is important to understand the legacy of death and pain that lead to the Winchester curse. There are iconic images of the Wild West, the cowboy with his trademark hat and, of course, his Winchester rifle. The imagery of legendary characters, like Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley, can be seen brandishing the rifle in pictures of the era. In fact, the only picture known to exist of the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid shows him posing proudly with his Winchester model 1873 rifle. The iconic weapon also became a staple in Hollywood westerns, with John Wayne himself using them in some of his more famous films, like True Grit and Stagecoach. Don’t mistake the Winchester firearms for harmless movie props, the guns remain a piece of history and culture for a reason, they were as deadly a weapon as the world had seen to that point. The gun emerged at just the right time to change history, and would be dubbed: ‘The gun that won the west’.

  The expansion of the American settlers westward was a major catalyst in United States history. The establishing of cities and towns all across the country and the eventual creation of the railroad to unite the east and west serve as turning points in history. The 1850s were a treacherous time to travel across the country. Pioneers left the comforts of home behind to make their way across America and build a new life in a gritty and unfamiliar area. This is an era before automobiles and before the mid-western territories were settled, so dangers abounded. The terrain and elements were harsh enough, but there were also aggressions with the Native Americans, who were none too happy to find people trudging across the country into their territories and claiming land as their own. The only real method of defence that a pioneer and his family would have on a wagon train is a single shot rifle. It was a step up from the musket, but not by much. It took an experienced user approximately ten seconds to reload the rifle after each shot, leaving them vulnerable during that time. It has been suggested that without the innovations of Winchester’s firearms, the west may never have been settled at all.

  The man who would come to revolutionise firearms and have his name emblazoned in history and forever tied with armaments, was as far from being a gun maker as it is possible to imagine. Oliver Fisher Winchester was born on 30 November 1810 to Samuel and Hannah Winchester. When Oliver was a boy he worked on a farm and attended school during the winter when the farm work was on hold. Oliver Winchester began his life in the carpentry trade, working as an apprentice throughout his teenage years, and soon moved to Baltimore to oversee the production of various buildings and homes. Despite starting a business being a risky venture in the economic climate of 1837, Winchester made the bold move of opening his own men’s clothing store. Winchester became a producer of men’s shirts and found a moderate level of success. In 1847, he sold his store in Baltimore and moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where he would stay for the remainder of his days. Winchester had a unique idea for improving upon the method of shirt making by inventing a curved seam, which would remedy the pull on the neckband, causing wear on the garments. His patent, number 5,421, was granted on 1 February 1848.

  Winchester was anxious to go to work, but he needed a business partner to get him off the ground. He joined forces with John M. Davies to form the Winchester & Davies factory. The business would use Winchester’s patented seam to produce quality men’s shirts for many years. The success of the company would make Winchester a very comfortable man and by 1855 his company was grossing upwards of six hundred thousand dollars a year. Oliver was looking for other ventures to invest in so he could establish and expand his wealth. He soon found an emerging marketplace in which to invest.

  On 21 August 1849 prolific inventor Walter Hunt patented a brand new invention, the repeating firearm. Hunt held patents for many items we now take for granted, such as the fountain pen, sewing machine and the safety pin. His US patent 6,663 was granted for a ‘Combined piston breech and firing cock repeating gun’ and US patent 5,701 for his ‘Rocket Ball’ ammunition. He took his patent and developed what he called the ‘Volition Repeater’ rifle. This revolutionary measure would pave the way for the most effective firearms of the era, but it wasn’t Hunt’s gun that would do the job. In fact, it suffered from numerous defects, which kept it from ever making its way to mass production. The idea was improved upon by Lewis Jennings and produced by Robbins and Lawrence. The new design produced by Jennings was awkward to hold and fire, not to mention the weak strength of the ammunition. The gun was a failure, only 1,000 units were produced before it was pulled from the market. It was at the Robbins and Lawrence factory that two gunsmiths, Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, began developing improvements on the Jennings design.

  The duo were eventually able to patent their own magazine firearm on 14 February 1854. The repeating rifle that Smith and Wesson had developed was a vast improvement on the previous Jennings model. This was the first time we saw the lever design able to swing forward, allowing for a faster repetition of firing. The image of a cowboy cocking the Winchester rifle and firing in rapid succession would be made iconic by Hollywood and in television shows like the opening to the 1958 western classic series The Rifleman. Guns like the Smith and Wesson rifle allowed the user to load up to thirty bullets into the magazine, which was conveniently located under the barrel of the gun. Adverts for the gun claimed that it could be loaded in less than a minute and that the ammunition was waterproof. The entire design was far more streamlined. Smith and Wesson formed their first joint venture, Smith & Wesson Company, around their new design and went forward with production. They changed the name to the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company in 1855 to mirror the name that they gave their r
ifle, the Volcanic.

  Smith and Wesson had a gun and a venture, but now they needed to find some backers, investors who could take the production to the next level. Oliver Winchester purchased eighty shares of the upstart Volcanic Repeating Arms Company in 1855. This marked the beginning of a legacy that is still going strong today. It was a rocky start for Smith and Wesson; though we know them today as legends in the firearms business, the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company suffered from a lukewarm reception from the public. It turns out that their ammunition just wasn’t powerful enough to shoot long distances, or to do enough damage, so the sales quickly began to suffer. The investors pulled out one by one, even Smith and Wesson moved on. In 1856 Winchester was the sole remaining investor, and he bought out the remains of the company for forty thousand dollars, determined to make it work. Now sitting as the president and treasurer of the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, Oliver Winchester went to work making changes that he thought would take the business to a new level.

  The first change brought about by Oliver was a name change to the New Haven Arms Company. A fresh start and a name without a stigma was necessary to try and carve out a piece of the market and convince gun dealers to carry his product. Winchester personally oversaw the factory, which employed dozens of gunsmiths and machinists. He was a shirt maker and a businessman, which set him apart from other gun makers, who were largely machinists and gunsmiths themselves. Winchester needed to bring in an expert to help him develop a more effective weapon. That man was Benjamin Tyler Henry, a masterful mechanic who Winchester had utilised to care for the 500 sewing machines in his shirt factory. In 1857 Henry became the plant superintendent, using the limited gunsmith experience that he had picked-up as a teenager. What he lacked in experience, Henry made-up for in dedication. It is said that he lived in the factory, sleeping only a few hours at a time, working tirelessly on a new rifle design.

  It was around this time that the American Civil War was beginning to brew. The North and South were at odds and by this time, their new gun design, the ‘Henry rifle’, went into production. The Henry rifle also included a brand new innovation, metallic cartridges to house the ammunition. The idea of metal bullets is still the industry standard today, but back then it was a radical concept, which created waterproof ammunition that was easier to store and carry. The Henry rifle was available to the public by 1862 and the Civil War had been raging on since the previous year. The demand for weaponry was high, but the federal government was hesitant to commit to the weapon in any major way, largely due to the unique ammunition that was required. The government was also unsure of how well the rifle would perform on the battlefield and how reliable it would be. In the past, so many models had disappointed, and it was hardly the time to chance everything on a new product.

  Never one to miss a promotional opportunity, Winchester sent a special Henry rifle to President Lincoln. The rifle was the sixth ‘Henry’ ever produced and was plated in gold and intricately inscribed and personalised. Rifles were also sent to Secretary of War, Edwin McMasters Stanton, and Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles. In fact, it is a long-standing tradition that every standing President of the United States since has been presented with their own Winchester rifle. Despite these efforts, Winchester was only able to sell 1,731 models of the Henry rifle to the Union army. That’s not to say that the rifle wasn’t more heavily used by the soldiers of the North, but the capital for those guns had to come out of their own pockets. Word of mouth about the reliability and rapid-fire capability of the Henry rifle travelled fast through the ranks of the Union army, and soon soldiers who were earning limited incomes of around $13 a month were happy to spend their precious little money to purchase the $50 rifle. They would carry the weapon and purchase the ammunition on their own, anything to help better ensure a safe return home. The Henry rifle could be fired fourteen to fifteen times per minute, so a Union soldier would naturally want to take that into war against the Confederate soldiers, who were still often firing single-shot muskets. It is estimated that somewhere between six and seven thousand soldiers carried the Henry rifle into combat throughout the Civil War.

  Winchester’s Henry rifle would prove itself during the Civil War, but it was during the westward migration of America that Winchester firearms would truly shine. In 1865 Oliver renamed his company the Winchester Arms Company, after a short stint as the Henry Repeating Rifle Company. The sales of the Henry rifle grew strong once the rifle had proven its worth, with sales reaching 13,000 units. The Henry was a great gun, but it had a few faults that Winchester wanted to improve upon. The barrel would often become hot enough to burn the user when the rifle had been fired in rapid succession. Also, the exposed magazine would allow dirt to clog the weapon and the ammunition wasn’t powerful enough for big game or long-range shooting. Winchester brought in a new superintendent for his factory, Nelson King, who would solve these defects by developing the Winchester Model 1866 rifle. The sales for the Model 1866 would skyrocket the company to success, selling over 170,000 units. The gun, dubbed the ‘Yellow Boy’ by the Native Americans due to its brass features, found fame during the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn, also known as ‘Custer’s Last Stand’. The infamous battle-turned-massacre was largely a case of the American soldiers being outgunned by the combined force of the Lakota Sioux, Arapaho and Northern Cheyenne tribes. The United States 7th Cavalry was still armed with single shot weapons, despite the lessons learned during the Civil War. The Native American forces were, by contrast, armed with Winchester repeating rifles. To cut a long story short, the result was an overwhelming defeat of the Cavalry by the Native Americans; so devastating that it made the history books.

  In 1873 Winchester released yet another rifle and this one was far more powerful. The Winchester Model 1873 saw the frame of the rifle change from brass to iron, and the addition of removable side panels, which made the gun easier to maintain without a complete disassembly. The ammunition was also far more powerful, with a revolutionary central fire round that included ⅓ more black powder. The amped-up ammunition allowed the gun to bring down a buffalo from 200yds away. The new gun was widely adopted by lawmen, in fact the Texas Rangers, who had previously used the Winchester Model 1866, upgraded to the new rifle and used it well into the twentieth century. President Theodore Roosevelt, who was an avid hunter, touted the Model 1873 as one of his favourite weapons in his memoirs.

  The Winchester rifles continued production long after the west was won, and carved out a status as a cultural icon, as the weapon of choice for cowboys, ranchers, outlaws and lawmen. Despite the high level of success that their business ventures came to enjoy, the Winchester family seemed to have a bit of a curse in play. Oliver passed away on 11 December 1880, at the age of 70. He passed ownership of the company over to his son William, who would die only a few months later of tuberculosis, leaving behind a devastated and distraught widow Sarah, who would cast a dark cloud over the Winchester family name, one that lives on in legend to this day.

  Sarah Winchester’s Early Life

  The exact date that Sarah Lockwood Pardee was born remains shrouded in mystery, much like the confusing legacy she left in her wake. What we do know is that she was born sometime around the year 1840 in New Haven, Connecticut, to Leonard and Sarah Pardee. It wasn’t until she met William Winchester, the son of Oliver Winchester, in her early twenties that Sarah’s life would become of public interest and be far more closely documented. William and Sarah married on 30 September 1862

  The newlywed couple moved to a large stone house on Prospect Street in New Haven, very close to the Winchester factories. This was during the turbulent era of the Civil War (1861-1865). From the balcony on the back of her home, Sarah could see the factories where the arms were made. The war kept William quite busy with the Winchester Repeating Arms business and Sarah longed for the end of the war, because she understandably wanted more time with her new husband. The couple would have one child, a little girl named Annie Pardee Winchester, born on 15 June 1866
. Tragically, baby Annie would only live a short time, dying on 24 July 1866.

  The day that Annie was laid to rest, it is said that a terrible storm raged, complete with a dramatic tinge of thunder and lightning, as though Sarah’s emotions could almost govern the weather. Her grave read simply ‘Babie Annie’ and now lies next to her two parents in Evergreen Cemetery. Sarah and William’s infant daughter died of a condition known as marasmus, which was untreatable at the time. Modern medicine now associates marasmus with a protein deficiency known as kwashiorkor.

  Tragedy would again strike the Winchester household fifteen years later, when William began to show signs of illness. He was working hard, nearly around the clock, so Sarah could have assumed that exhaustion and stress played a role in his wellbeing, but there was more to it than that. It took years of slowly wasting away, but William fell seriously ill and died on 7 March 1881. The legend goes that on the day of his funeral, there was thunder and lightning in the sky yet again.

  Sarah was left alone in a large, cold, dark home overlooking the Winchester factories where her husband spent a good portion of their married life, and which she may very well have blamed for his eventual death. They stood like grisly beacons, continuing to make instruments of death on a daily basis. Sarah Winchester would be the sole heiress to her husband’s full estate, a fact that would leave her wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of most, but Sarah was so haunted by the death of her family that she couldn’t enjoy it.

  The legend goes that Sarah, obsessed with death and desperately seeking contact with her deceased husband, fell into company with a medium from Boston named Adam Coons. It is also said that she had an interest in the occult and believed that she could communicate with the dead through Coons. In 1884 she placed an urn on the graves of William and Annie that said: ‘Hearts are dust. Heart’s love remains. To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.’