Remembering the Monster: Cereal Maker John Harvey Kellogg
Please contact Kellogg’s to voice your displeasure over the release of Michael Phelps: (800) 962-1413.
W. K. Kellogg, the founder of Kellogg’s, was the brother of John Harvey Kellogg. J. H. Kellogg was the founder of the Battle Creek Sanatorium. They originally had a partnership in a cereal company, but it was dissolved after J.H. Kellogg refused to add sugar to his recipe.
Both W.K. Kellogg and C.W. Post (the founder of Post cereals) were frequent visitors to the Battle Creek Sanitarium and believers in what J.H. Kellogg did.
Here are just a couple of his abhorent beliefs:
Kellogg worked on the rehabilitation of masturbators, often employing extreme measures, even mutilation, on both sexes. In his Plain Facts for Old and Young, he wrote
“ A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed. ” and
“ In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid [phenol] to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement. ” He also recommended, to prevent children from this “solitary vice”, bandaging or tying their hands, covering their genitals with patented cages, sewing the foreskin shut and electrical shock.
On Race Relations:
In 1906, Kellogg founded—together with Irving Fisherand Charles Davenport—the Race Betterment Foundation, which became a major center of the new eugenics movement in America. Kellogg was in favor of racial segregation and believed that immigrants and non-whites would damage the gene pool. Also, Kellogg gave a large portion of the common stock of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company to the Race Betterment Foundation. Whether any of that stock has been converted into Kellogg Company stock is unknown.
