They sent the young man to the Michigan State Normal College in Ypsilanti, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York. The Whites wanted a first-rate physician to run medical and health programs for their denomination and they found him in John Harvey Kellogg. By the time he was 16, Kellogg was editing and shaping the church’s monthly health advice magazine, The Health Reformer. He was swimming in a river of words and took to it with glee, discovering his own talent for composing clear and balanced sentences, filled with rich explanatory metaphors and allusions. They hired John, then 12 or 13, as their publishing company’s “printer’s devil,” the now-forgotten name for an apprentice to printers and publishers in the days of typesetting by hand and cumbersome, noisy printing presses. Impressed by young John Harvey Kellogg’s intellect, spirit and drive, Ellen and James White groomed him for a key role in the Church. The Kellogg family moved to Battle Creek in 1856, primarily to be close to Ellen White and the Seventh-day Adventist church. Such evils, she taught, led to the morally and physically destructive “self-vice” of masturbation and the less lonely vice of excessive sexual intercourse. She warned against indulging in the excitatory influences of greasy, fried fare, spicy condiments and pickled foods against overeating against using drugs of any kind and against wearing binding corsets, wigs, and tight dresses. She told her Seventh-day Adventist flock that they must abstain not only from eating meat but also from using tobacco or consuming coffee, tea, and, of course, alcohol. When it came to diet, White's theology found great import in Genesis 1:29: “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed to you it shall be for meat.’” White interpreted this verse strictly, as God’s order to consume a grain and vegetarian diet. In May of 1866, “Sister” White formally presented her ideas to the 3,500 Adventists comprising the denomination’s governing body, or General Conference. The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creekįrom the much admired medical historian (“Markel shows just how compelling the medical history can be”-Andrea Barrett) and author of An Anatomy of Addiction (“Absorbing, vivid”-Sherwin Nuland, The New York Times Book Review, front page)-the story of America’s empire builders: John and Will Kellogg. During the 1860s, inspired by visions and messages she claimed to receive from God, she developed a doctrine on hygiene, diet and chastity enveloped within the teachings of Christ. Many of Ellen White’s religious experiences were connected to personal health.
Eventually, Seventh-day Adventism grew into a major Christian denomination with churches, ministries and members all around the world. One key component of the Whites' sect was healthy living and a nutritious, vegetable and grain based-diet. Its founders, the self-proclaimed prophetess Ellen White and her husband, James, made their home in the Michigan town starting in 1854, moving the church’s headquarters in 1904 to Takoma Park, outside of Washington, D.C.
#Battle creek sanitarium movie#
The popular singer and movie star Bing Crosby once crooned, “What’s more American than corn flakes?” Virtually every American is familiar with this iconic cereal, but few know the story of the two men from Battle Creek, Michigan, who created those famously crispy, golden flakes of corn back in 1895, revolutionizing the way America ate breakfast: John Harvey Kellogg and his younger brother Will Keith Kellogg.įewer still know that among the ingredients in the Kelloggs' secret recipe were the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist church, a homegrown American faith that linked spiritual and physical health, and which played a major role in the Kellogg family’s life.įor half a century, Battle Creek was the Vatican of the Seventh-day Adventist church.
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