John Harvey Kellogg

About John Harvey Kellogg

John Harvey Kellogg was an American businessman, inventor, physician, and advocate of the health reforms advocated by the Battle Creek Progressive Friends movement and the eugenics policies espoused by many in the Progressive Movement. He was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, founded by members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It combined aspects of a European spa, a hydrotherapy institution, a hospital, and a high-class hotel. Kellogg treated the rich and famous, as well as the poor who could not afford other hospitals. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, he "developed numerous nut and vegetable products to vary the diet of the patients, including a flaked-wheat cereal called Granose and cornflakes. Although cornflakes were not new, they had never before been presented as a breakfast food [...] Kellogg was [also] a cofounder of the Race Betterment Foundation, an organization that promoted eugenics and racial segregation."

Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.