The familial disagreement officially went to court in 1910 when William Keith sued John Harvey; John Harvey fought back by suing William Keith over the use of the family name. Dr Kellogg felt that he himself had made the Kellogg’s brand name a household icon with a fine reputation, which only he could be entrusted with. The Michigan Supreme Court finally granted William Keith Kellogg the right to use his own name in his business ventures in 1920. William was a progressive businessman who ran his cereal plant on four six-hour shifts, which provided more jobs for the local economy in Detroit.
William Keith also took a page out of Post’s book and would eventually start getting serious about developing more innovative ways to promote his product. Advertisements for Kellogg’s would become a prevalent part of magazines, newspapers and billboards throughout the next few decades. There were a variety of marketing campaigns, such as the one for Kellogg’s Bran advertisement that touted that it ‘Will sweep Constipation out of your system Permanently’. Yet another example was a giant 50ft billboard in New York City’s Times Square that read simply: ‘I want Kellogg’s’.
One of the more genius marketing campaigns that Kellogg’s Cereal would offer was the ‘Give your grocer a wink and see what you get’ promotion. The adverts would advise shoppers to wink at their grocer and they would subsequently be given a free sample of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes! The promotion went to great lengths to boost the visibility and popularity of the brand at the time.
The controversial doctor would continue his curious proclivities later in life. In 1906, long before the trend became infamous in Hitler’s Nazi Germany, John Harvey Kellogg was an ardent eugenicist. The complicated, but disturbing, trend of eugenics in the early twentieth century often involved blatant bigotry and racism. John Harvey co-established and helped to fund the ‘Race Betterment Foundation’ in Battle Creek. The foundation of the racist group was to promote a purity of breeding. In fact, Kellogg himself purported that they should create a registry that would identify appropriate breeding pairs, exercising control over the white race and keeping it pure. He firmly believed in racial segregation. They also believed that anyone that wasn’t of ‘good stock’ shouldn’t breed, from the mentally ill to criminals. There were many famous eugenicists in the era, including President Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and (quite ironically) Helen Keller.
Dr Kellogg’s beloved San would fall into difficult times during The Great Depression. The well-to-do business saw a drop in turnover by a devastating seventy-five per cent. In 1930 Dr Kellogg broke with the church and left The San. The Sanitarium was over three million dollars in debt by the middle of the 1930s and in 1933, it fell into receivership. Kellogg left Michigan and established a new life in Florida with an interest in opening another Sanitarium there. William Keith made his brother the generous offer of 1.5 million dollars (around 21 million dollars today) to purchase the Battle Creek Food Company. John Harvey was insulted by the offer, feeling that it was far too low. Dr Kellogg continued working in medicine, as a pioneer in recognising the risks of high blood pressure and heart disease. It was during his time in Florida that his relevance began to fade, as medicine continued to grow and progress beyond his out-dated ideals.
In October of 1942 William Keith Kellogg made a tepid journey down to the state of Florida, where his brother John was residing, to discuss some business concerns. William Keith arrived expecting their usual confrontational relationship, only to find that John Harvey had been rapidly losing touch with reality. William Keith found his brother rambling and confused, a shell of the once sharp and decisive man. The divide that was caused by the Kellogg brothers’ cereal wars had taken a deep toll on their relationship and now that John Harvey had all but lost his senses, any hope of reconciliation was out the window. It is said that John Harvey wrote a seven-page letter of apology to William Keith on his deathbed, but his brother never received it. The Kellogg brothers would never speak to each other again. John Harvey Kellogg passed away on 14 December 1943, at the ripe old age of 91. William Keith Kellogg lived until 6 October 1951, also dying at the age of 91.
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.
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’.