Sylvester Graham

minister, dietary reformer
Spouse	Sarah Earl
Signature

Sylvester Graham (July 5, 1794 – September 11, 1851) was an American

Early life

Graham was born in 1794 in Suffield, Connecticut, to a family with 17 children. His father was 72 years old when Graham was born and his mother was mentally ill. His father died when Graham was two, and he spent his childhood moving from one relative's home to another.^[1]: 15 One of his relatives ran a tavern where Graham was put to work. His experience with drunkenness there led him to hate alcohol his whole life and forswear drinking, which made him an exception among his peers at the time.^[1]: 15

He was often sick, and missed a great deal of schooling.

The expulsion caused Graham a

In 1830, Graham accepted a position at the Philadelphia Temperance Society.[4]^: 30 He left six months later to focus on preaching health.^[4]: 30

Graham's appointment and conversion to vegetarianism came as the

Like other members of the temperance movement, Graham viewed physical pleasure and especially sexual stimulation with suspicion, as things that excited lust leading to behavior that harmed individuals, families, and societies.[5] Graham was strongly influenced by the Bible and Christian theology in his own idiosyncratic way. He believed that people should eat only plants, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and believed that plague and illness were caused by living in ways that ignored natural law.^{[1]: 21–22, 27} He urged people to remain calm, and not allow worry or lust to shake them from living rightly – perhaps one of the first people to claim that stress causes disease.^[1]: 19

From these views, Graham created a theology and diet aimed at keeping individuals, families, and society pure and healthy – drinking pure water and eating a vegetarian diet anchored by bread made at home from flour coarsely ground at home so that it remained wholesome and natural, containing no added spices or other "stimulants" and a rigorous lifestyle that included sleeping on hard beds and avoiding warm baths.

As a skilled and fiery preacher, his peculiar message, combining patriotism, theology, diet, lifestyle, and messages already prevalent from the temperance movement, captured the attention of the frightened public and outraged bakers and butchers, as well as the medical establishment.[1]^{: 19, 21 [5][2]} When the cholera epidemic reached New York in 1832, people who had followed his advice appeared to thrive, and his fame exploded.^[4]: 29 He published his first book in 1837, Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, which included a history of bread and described how to make Graham bread. It was reprinted in 2012 by Andrews McMeel Publishing, as a selection of its American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection. His lectures in New York and Boston that year were thronged; the Boston lecture was disrupted by a threat of riots by butchers and commercial bakers.^[4]: 33

Grahamism

As his fame spread, "Grahamism" became a movement, and people inspired by his preaching began to develop and market

Grahamite boarding-houses were established in the 1830s.[7] The Grahamites applied dietetic and hygienic principles to everyday life including cold baths, hard mattresses, open windows, a vegetarian diet with Graham bread and drinking cold water.^[7][8] Animal flesh was banned from Grahamite homes but eggs were allowed to be eaten at breakfast and were an important component of Grahamite diets.^[7]

American Physiological Society

In 1837, Colonel John Benson, Graham and William Alcott founded the American Physiological Society (APS) in Boston to promote Grahamism.^[9][10][11] Alcott was first President of the Society.^[12] After a year, the Society was reported to have had 251 members, including 93 women. It lasted just three years.^[9]

Laura J. Miller commented that the Society was "the most visible association promoting natural foods principles until the American Vegetarian Society was founded in 1850".^[13] Many of the APS members suffered from chronic disease and became vegetarian. It has been described as "likely the first exclusively vegetarian organization in the United States".^[10] It was also the first American natural hygiene organization.^[10] A notable member of the APS was Mary Gove Nichols, who gave health lectures to women.^[10]

In 1837, Graham and David Cambell founded The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity.^[14] It was "designed to illustrate by facts, and sustain by reason and principles the science of human life as taught by Sylvester Graham".^[15] It was edited by Campbell, Secretary of the APR (1837–1839) and five volumes were published.^[12][16] In 1840, the journal merged with the Library of Health, edited by Alcott.^[17][18]

American Vegetarian Society

In 1850, Alcott, William Metcalfe,

Graham died of complications after receiving opium enemas, as directed by his doctor, at the age of 57 at home in Northampton, Massachusetts. His early death was the source of criticism and speculation.^[21] Historian Stephen Nissenbaum has written that Graham died "after violating his own strictures by taking liquor and meat in a last desperate attempt to recover his health".^[22]

Russell Trall, who had visited Graham, noted that he had strayed from a strict vegetarian diet and was prescribed meat by his doctor to increase his

After his death, vegetarians distanced themselves from Grahamism.[21] However, his vegetarian message was disseminated far into the 20th century.^[23]

Food historians cite Graham as one of the earliest food faddists in America.^[23][24][25]

Selected works

Of his numerous publications, the best known are:

• Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making (1837, and reissued in 2012 by Andrews McMeel Publishing)
• Lectures on the Science of Human Life (Boston, 1839), of which several editions of the two-volume work were printed in the United States and sales in England were widespread
• Lectures to Young Men on Chastity.^[2]
• A lecture on epidemic diseases generally: and particularly the spasmodic cholera (1833)
• A lecture to young men on chastity: intended also for the serious consideration of parents and guardians (1837)

See also

• Graham bread
• Graham cracker
• Graham flour
• James Caleb Jackson, the farmer, journalist, abolitionist, and doctor who invented the first manufactured breakfast cereal
• Isaac Jennings, physician who pioneered orthopathy
• Maximilian Bircher-Benner, the Swiss doctor who developed muesli
• Popular Health Movement
• Roman Meal, the later whole grain American bread company

References

Further reading

• Smith, Andrew F. Ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and drink in America. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2004).
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Graham, Sylvester". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 318.
• Burrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, (1999).
• "Recent Deaths"; New York Daily Times; September 18, 1851; page 2. (Accessed from The New York Times (1851–2003), ProQuest Historical Newspapers, September 19, 2006)
• Nissenbaum, Stephen, Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform. Praeger, (1980).
• Sokolow, Jayme A. Eros and Modernization: Sylvester Graham, Health Reform, and the Origins of Victorian Sexuality in America. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, (1983).

External links

• Works by Sylvester Graham at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Sylvester Graham at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Wikiquote has quotations related to Sylvester Graham.

American Cyclopædia article about Sylvester Graham

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