Sylvester Graham
1794 – 1851
Photo Source: Univ. of Florida College of Medicine
A Brief Biography of Sylvester Graham
Sylvester Graham was a minister by trade, earning a license to preach in the Presbyterian church in 1823 at the age of 29, but he would later become one of the most ardent, influential, and bizarre health reformers of the 19th century. He is best remembered as the inventor of the graham cracker, although his original product was very different from the sweet cookies assigned that name today. At a time when the market economy was rapidly expanding in scope and scale across the United States and industry was overtaking the nation’s cities, Graham warned of the evils of commoditized urban baking: the increasingly common refined wheat flour (i.e., white bread) and chemical additives were poisoning consumers. What healthy bodies needed was good, old-fashioned whole-wheat bread, made from only the unbolted, unprocessed, unsifted grains. “Graham flour,” “graham bread,” and “graham crackers” became synonymous with whole-wheat. Graham bread was not relegated solely to breakfast, but subsequent reformers would adopt his concept when creating the first cold breakfast cereals.
Graham’s reform career began in the temperance circuit, where he lectured in promotion of the popular belief that liquor harmfully stimulated the body and drained it of its “vitality.” Graham soon expanded this concept to include other foods, insisting that Americans avoid over-stimulation of the body (and thereby avoid disease) by adhering to a strict and simple diet devoid of meat, spices, white bread, and all liquids save cold water. His system even warned of too much variety of dishes consumed in a meal, limiting the number of items on a table to three or four, and demanded a martial mealtime regimentation: meals were to be eaten at 6:00 am, 12:00 noon, and 6:00 pm only. Sound fun?
Graham promoted his brand of health salvation on lecture tours and via several publications. The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity, published in Boston by one of his disciples, enjoyed a brief, two-year run as a weekly journal, but failed to gain the readership its proponents foresaw. One of Graham's more famous works was Lectures to Young Men on Chastity, where he branched out into the sexual reform field and condemned masturbation, too much sex, and even the enjoyment of sex as improperly stimulating to those same vitalities affected by drink, spice, and white bread. Graham and his “Grahamite” disciples also opened boardinghouses in New York and Boston where adherents to his system could stop in for meals. Legend has it that his New York boardinghouse was fittingly turned into a pub after Graham’s star fell and his operation closed down.
1794 – Born in West Suffield, Connecticut to a 72-year-old minister, the 17th of 17 children
1796 – Father dies
1801 – Mother is declared insane and unfit to care for him; he is placed in the care of a local farmer
1823 – Attends Amherst Academy (preparatory school associated with Amherst College), but does not graduate; gives his first lecture on temperance and soon forms an informal temperance club in West Suffield
1824 – Marries the daughter of a Rhode Island sea captain
1826 – Ordained as a Presbyterian minister
1830 – Joins the Pennsylvania Temperance Society, becoming one of their traveling speakers
1831 – Gives a speech in New York City on the relationship between diet and disease
1837 – Publishes A Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, reportedly inciting a mob attack by angry bakers in Boston; 1st issue of The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity is published by David Campbell
1839 – Publishes Lectures on the Science of Human Life; last issue of The Graham Journal is published
1847 – Helps to found the American Vegetarian Society, modeled after the British Vegetarian Society, with fellow reformers William A. Alcott and William Metcalfe
1851 – Dies after a long illness and deterioration of mental state
A Sylvester Graham Bibliography
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A Lecture on Epidemic Diseases Generally and Particularly the Spasmodic Cholera. New York: Day, 1833.
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A Lecture to Young Men on Chastity: Intended also for the Serious Consideration of Parents and Guardians. Boston: George W. Light, 1840.
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A Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making. Boston: Light & Stearns, 1837.
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Graham’s Lectures on Chastity; Specially Intended for the Serious Consideration of Young Men and Parents. Glascow, Scotland: Royalty Buildings, 1837.
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Lectures on the Science of Human Life. Boston: Marsh, Capen, Lyon & Webb, 1839.
- Letter to the
Honorable Daniel Webster, on the Compromises of the Constitution.
Northampton, Mass.: Hopkins, Bridgeman & Co., 1850.
- The Philosophy of Sacred History Considered in Relation to Human Aliment and the Wines of Scripture. New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1855.
Sylvester Graham Sources and Links
International Vegetarian Union
Graham Family Papers at University of Michigan
Sylvester's Restaurant, Northampton, MA
Bookrags Encyclopedia of World Biography
Greenwood Press: Nissenbaum’s Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America