1854 – 1914
Photo Source: Houston
Chronicle
A Brief Biography of Charles William Post
Charles
William Post was born in 1854, the son of a grain dealer, farm machine
inventor, and Congregational deacon. As a young man, he moved around to
several cities in the Mid-West and Texas, bouncing between various
trades and entrepreneurial opportunities, all the while adhering
strictly to his religious faith. Like Graham and Jackson, Post’s
younger years had been plagued by failing health, and he eventually
sought remedy at Kellogg’s by-then famous Michigan sanitarium. He
arrived at Battle Creek in 1891 with his wife for a brief stay, and
quickly gained a reputation among his fellow boarders as an ambitious
entrepreneur—selling a type of suspender he had invented as a means to
pay for his stay—but also as a prickly, difficult man. Impressed with
but ultimately dissatisfied by the Sanitarium’s Adventist atmosphere,
Post sought deeper answers to his existential questions and developed an
interest in spirituality, the occult, and divine healing, leaving the
San to study Christian Science.
Post
returned to Battle Creek in 1892 and soon set up shop in direct
competition with Kellogg, founding his own medical boardinghouse, La
Vita Inn, across town. There, he mirrored the health-food and exercise
regimen of Kellogg’s operation, but infused his patient’s experience
with his new notions of Christian Science and concentrated on mental
healing. La Vita Inn proved profitable, and, following his rival’s
lead, Post began to write. In his works, Post insisted on his
system’s superiority to that of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, though the
similarities were striking. Among those was the wheat-bran-based coffee
substitute he served at La Vita Inn, a proper dietary alternative to the
traditional cup of joe that was clearly based on a product Kellogg
provided for his own patients. Acknowledging the drink’s marketability,
especially in the diet-crazy town of Battle Creek, Post began cooking up
commercial batches of the dry base for his coffee drink, under the name
“Postum Cereal Food Company.”
Like Kellogg, Post was an ardent promoter of a healthy diet, especially as a means for attaining spiritual well-being; but, unlike the elder Kellogg, Post was also a savvy entrepreneur. The Postum drink caught on, and he began manufacturing the product on a mass scale in 1895, backing its runs with a rigorous ad campaign that honed in on nearby Chicago. Post wrote the copy for his advertisements himself, offering gratuitous statements of the health benefits offered by the product. Business was steady but Post became frustrated by the seasonally-limited demand for his grain product, which was to be prepared as a hot beverage. For the summer months, while demand for the hot drink was low, he turned to his own brand of twice-baked, ground cereal product—which also bore a close resemblance to a Kellogg product, granola. Post christened his new cold cereal concoction “Grape Nuts,” as it contained maltose, commonly known as “grape sugar,” and due to the cereal’s nutty flavor. The new Postum Cereal product debuted in 1898. Clearly set on his dietary crusade, Post included in each package of Grape Nuts a pamphlet insert he had written entitled “The Road to Wellville,” a favorite phrase of his. The inclusion of this tract in the cereal boxes was also a deft marketing tactic, as it followed Postum’s far-reaching promotional drive touting Grape Nuts as a cure for appendicitis, consumption, malaria, and loose teeth. The success of the Postum Company cereals troubled the elder Kellogg, who insisted on wellness rather than profit, but it impressed his younger brother. Will Kellogg carried on the family rivalry by infusing his own market savvy into the nascent breakfast cereal industry, developing and promoting the Kellogg's brand.
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The Modern Practice: Natural Suggestion, or Scientia Viteae. Battle Creek, Mich.: La Vita Inn Co., 1894.
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The Second Man. Battle Creek, Mich.: La Vita Inn Co., 1894.