History Matters: Book Recommendations Relating to February Historical Events

ARLINGTON, Va. - Rezul -- by  Ed Lengel for David Bruce Smith's Grateful American Book Prize

The Founding of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, February 1906

America's long love affair with breakfast cereals can be attributed to the insights and antics of the erratic Kellogg family—and particularly—John Harvey Kellogg. A devotee of fitness, healthy living, and spiritualism, he and his younger brother, (and, to some degree, fellow visionary) Will, focused their multifarious activities in the vicinity of Battle Creek, Michigan, where John directed a sanitarium that sought to purify the physical and mental health of his burgeoning band of believers. By the late nineteenth century, John Kellogg was actively promoting exercise, sunbathing, vegetarianism, the consumption of peanut butter; nuts, enemas, and sexual abstinence.

These ideas and treatments were generally controversial even within the Kellogg family. While John and Will pioneered the development of granola and flaked breakfast cereals—and patented them—Will countered his brother's wishes by asserting that flaked cereal might benefit from the addition of some sugar. In the meantime, a local upstart, C.W. Post invented Grape Nuts in 1897; he alleged they were good for brain and nerve center health.

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Will eventually broke away from John, founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in February 1906, and sustained their cereal wars, but Will would prevail as his corporation evolved into Kellogg's; he transformed America's breakfast eating habits in America—and throughout the world.

For more information about the Kellogg family and their inventions, the Grateful American Book Prize recommends Howard Markel's The Kellogg's: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek (2018).

History Matters is a feature courtesy of the Grateful American Book Prize. For more book recommendations, information about the annual award, or to submit a book for the 2026 Grateful American Book Prize, visit https://gratefulamericanbookprize.org/.