Marjorie Merriweather Post

[CaptainCrunch]

Ok, I love history and I'm fascinated by historical figures, and after watching an episode of Foods that built America I had to dig in on Marjorie Merriweather Post.

She was the loan heiress of the fortune of CW Post, the man who stole the cereal receipe from John and will Kellog while staying at John Kellog's sanitarium and build Grape Nuts and Post cereals into a multi million dollar empire that change the way that people viewed breakfast as a meal.

At the age of 59 in 1914 CW Post having suffered a life time of stomach illness and convinced he was dying of stomach cancer took his own life, leaving his vast fortune of 33 million dollars and the company to his only child Marjorie Post. By the way 33 million in 1914 was equivalent to about $863 million today.

Now to put things into perspective, back in 1914, woman didn't have the vote, and while some woman would get jobs their intent was to marry and leave the workforce.

Marjorie Post was different. She took control of the post cereal company and became a modern American visionary, instead of being satisfied with running the second biggest cereal company on the planet behind Kellogs, she began to expand into other food enterprises creating General Foods. She went out and purchased Hellmann's mayonnaise, Jell-O, Baker's Chocolate, and Maxwell House Coffee.

But by far her most brilliant aquisition involved inventor Clarence Birdseye, who had invented the modern frozen food technology that we see today and held all the patents to the proprietory equipment.

Birdseye was a outdoorsman who while in Canada learned how the natives preserved food. up until that point in America there were frozen food companies, but the technology didn't work that well, and even prisons refused to use frozen food as it was unfit to feed convicts.

Birdsong who realized that food had to be fast frozen to preserve its flavor and nutritional value designed the technology but his business had a bigger problem, it was impossible to ship his product because of a lack of infrastructure, and most American's didn't have freezers so they'd buy the frozen food and eat it the same day. Birdseye Foods was doomed to be a regional company and a novelty.

While on a voyage, Post learned about the frozen food and being a future visionary realized that frozen foods were the future, she visited Birdseye and negotiated a deal for the entire company and patents for $22 million dollars in 1922 which would be about $300 million dollars today.

Laughed at because of what was perceived to be a vast overpayment the deal was investigated by the US Senate, because you know at the time she was just a stupid woman who should leave the business dealings to the men folk.

Post understood something that was rare back then, that first of all you have to continue to expand your brand or you die. And instead of competition you buy your competition.

A strong believer in philanthropy, she funded a hospital in France in WW1, She financed the Salvation army and built feeding centers for the poor in New York.

When she died in 1973 she had increased her net work to about 6.1 billion dollars.

In an age of robber baron economics Post was more successful and aggressive then most and broke many glass ceilings that were considered impossible at the time. She's an amazing story.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Thanks, Cap, that’s great. My girls will love to learn of her!

[topfiverecords]

I love this stuff too, history of companies, inventors, products and people in significant business roles. I’m always seeking out these kind of documentaries. I’ll definitely check this out. Where did you watch it?

[CaptainCrunch]

On the history channel.

There's two to check out, the Foods that built America, and the Cars that built America. Both amazingly well done.

In the food that makes America, it follows the story of Heinz, The Kellog and Post Wars, the chocolate Bar wars with Hersey and Mars, Coca Cola and the sad story of John Pemberton (Future article there). The fast good industry with the brothers that founded McD, and oh Colonel Sanders straight up murdering a guy.

Things that amazed me is that a lot of people give Ford credit for the Assembly Line, but Heinz did it first, and maybe better, he was also way ahead of the game in terms of electrification.

Hersey and his insistance on building a utopian town around his factory. How much John and Will Kellog hated each other and how Will destroyed not only his brother, but had a serious war with the Post cereal empire.

These food innovators never got the same kind of credit as some of the other railroad and oil giants at the time, but the empires that they built and the struggles they went through were unbelievable.

the car one is even more facinating. I would love to see them do one on the real well known monsters of industry that built the railroads, and bought in the industrial revolution in the States.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Apparently there is a second season of Foods that will come out. I really enoue stage first but missed the cars one