Rise of the Kellogg empire
Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan, has written an impressive dual biography of Dr. John H. Kellogg and W.K. Kellogg, and in passing the history of the famous sanitarium at Battle Creek, Michigan and of the cereal giant, Kelloggs.
There was a symbiotic relationship between the sanitarium and the cereal factory mainly related to the relationships within the Kellogg family, and particularly between John and Will. The title of Markell’s book is also his main thesis: The Kellogg ’s: the Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, recently published by Pantheon Books.
Some of the parallels with local experience also attracted my interest. The parents of John and W.K. traveled from Massachusetts to Michigan in 1833, and the experiences mirrored experiences of others in those years. In this case, the details were captured in a diary kept by one of the sons of this large family. The trip was not comfortable. They travelled to Albany, took the Erie Canal to Buffalo, crossed Lake Erie in four days to Detroit, and then through the forested Michigan Territory. Then came the task of establishing a farm; the father cleared and burned about 10,000 cords of wood; between the 1830s and 1870s, as in our area, people believed there were lots of trees.
Health issues were very important. There was a cholera epidemic in Ontario and Michigan in 1832, following the vector of immigrants. Markel notes the dismal state of medicine with too few doctors and wrong theories about diseases. Childbirth was dangerous, and tuberculosis, then known as consumption, was widespread and lethal. Doctors were not to be trusted!
Both John and Will were sons of J.P. Kellogg’s second wife, who bore 11 children (in addition to five from the first marriage) between 1843 and 1866. John was born in 1852, and Will in 1860. The eight years were quite significant, as John bullied Will; and as the oldest of three sons that survived childhood was most favoured for education. The father believed Will was stupid and not worth educating; when he was 22, Will learned he was nearsighted.
John was assisted by leaders in the Seventh Day Adventists and received a superb education for the period, and became the doctor in charge at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which had an envied reputation for its medical miracles. Will became the administrator of the Sanitarium, directly subservient to his older brother, a famous doctor. When there were problems, John assigned them to Will, who never disappointed on handling the details around the sanitarium. At the same time, John never respected Will even when he depended on him.
Will became an extraordinary administrator, and understood modern systems of business administration that his brother never appreciated. The net effect, as Markel makes clear, was that working for the better part of a decade at the Sanitarium was the perfect preparation for his main careers. W.K. Kellogg was the founder of America’s most successful cereal company, and of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation one of the largest philanthropic funds, and especially significant in educating children. No one, he felt, should have the childhood experiences that had plagued him.
Historians always look to see what research and archival resources are available. It would be impossible to write a history of Quaker Oats, with the strong Peterborough footprint, because the archival records that could assist the historian are unknown or inaccessible. Markel faced many obstacles. Historians can use the archives of W.K. Kellogg and the Kellogg Foundation, but everything has to be approved by the head of the company or of the Foundation. This is unacceptable. However, Markel had luck that a historian of Quaker could never expect. Dr. John H. Kellogg left archival records in three universities. One brother had written a diary, and another brother, Preston, had written about the cereal company. Preston had special access to the archives, including W.K.’s diary, and he quoted original sources generously enough that Markel did not have to face the censorship from Kellogg officials.
When Bruce Dyer and I were looking for Quaker archives in 1986, we were shown some pictures and documents tied to public relations and promotion, and some advertising. We did not have access to any business records, either at the board or management level, or tied to production. There are plans of the grounds, and land records that are now accessible. When we did a special issue of the Heritage Gazette of the Trent Valley to mark 115 years of Quaker in Peterborough, we had some memories, and a superb piece of investigative journalism by Ken Brown on why Quaker came to Peterborough. When Quaker expanded its main office building in 1987 I was one of those who toured the impressive facilities; the computer room and the exercise room are still firm memories.
There were references to Quaker Oats in this superb book. Founders of what became Quaker developed ways to crack, and later to roll oats, and by 1883 were selling rolled oats, a nutritious porridge that required considerable less time to prepare. Henry P. Crowell worked to consolidate several companies and their product was named “Quaker Oats”, a symbol of integrity and health. (110) Even so, the cereal was far from instant. In the 1880s, several rivals emerged who were producing convenient breakfast cereals. Henry Perky invented shredded wheat, and C. W. Post made a fortune stealing ideas from the Kelloggs who were experimenting with breakfast foods for the sanitarium.
In the 1920s, one of Will’s sons, John Leonard, developed an interest in hot cereals, something his father studiously avoided. The son bought a former Quaker Oats mill in Davenport, Iowa; this proved to be a failure.
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes did not emerge until 1906, five years after Quaker Oats had come to Peterborough. This book provides insight into questions and issues that affected Quaker. Consider the logistics of having enough grain on hand; the manufacturing of the cereal; the internal arrangement of the plants; the managing of a workforce (which in Battle Creek reached 1,500 by 1930); the distribution of the product; the placing of orders so that the products reach grocery shelves; ensuring the amount of shelf is sufficient; the manufacture of boxes and liners; the issues tied to advertising; planning for expansion within plants or with new plants some distance away. It was a complex world, and W. K. Kellogg had his finger on everything.
The Kellogg’s factory operated 24 hours a day, through three shifts (four shifts in the 1930s depression era to create jobs) all made possible by changes in electricity and gasoline controlled by switches. Will Kellogg was using business systems very early and followed all the literature on business management.
In 1906, on the advice of Arch Shaw, who was given a sizeable share in Kellogg’s, Will invested in a full-page advertisement in Ladies Home Journal. With a circulation of over one million, the ad explained that Kellogg’s was too new to have a national sales force and so 90% of grocery stores did not carry its product. Women readers were offered a season’s worth of Corn Flakes if they got their local store to order it. In that first year, Kellogg spent $90,000 on advertising.
In 1912, Will Kellogg undertook an adventure in advertising. He had rented the roof top of the Mecca Building in Times Square for five years at $15,000 a year and then supervised the construction of the “largest electric sign ever built.” It cost over $40,000 to erect, weighed 80 tons, and measured 106 feet wide and 80 feet high. The sign had a boy’s smiling face and a box of Kellogg ’s Toasted Corn Flakes and the already familiar red Kellogg’s script. The boy changed from sad to happy as the slogan went from “I want” to “I got” Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flakes.
Also in 1912, Kellogg’s advertised in all the national magazines, also a recent development. The ads became more “attractive and clever.” The advertising was particularly effective as it aimed at mothers and children, and built a generational effect into cereal purchasing, something that Clyde Miller, a propaganda guru, observed in 1937 (and which I learned when I met him in 1958).
By the time that W.K. Kellogg retired in 1939, Kellogg’s had 40 per cent of the American breakfast cereal market; and over 50 per cent of the cereal market elsewhere; Kellogg’s Canadian plant was in London, Ontario.
Kellogg ’s growth had been phenomenal from the outset. Morning cereals have become household staples. In 1957, the Battle Creek plant produced six million boxes of cereal a day; one box in six were Corn Flakes.
This fascinating and intriguing book offers insights into many practical problems. Getting past parents and brothers is only a start.
NOTE: Howard Markel, The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, New York, Pantheon Books, 2017, Pp xxix, 505.