Uncommon Grounds Part 5

Post's extraordinary inventiveness did not come without cost, however. By 1885 he had developed neurasthenia, a fas.h.i.+onable "disease" of the era. Named and popularized by Dr. George Beard, neurasthenia supposedly involved an exhaustion of the body's limited supply of "nervous energy." Many overworked businessmen and oversensitive upper-cla.s.s women believed they suffered from this ailment. "The combined effects of work with stimulants and narcotics," Post said later, "produced a nervous breakdown."

After a brief recovery, Post took his wife, Ella, and young daughter, Marjorie, to California in 1888, then to Texas, where he took to a wheelchair owing to his supposedly weak nerves, while simultaneously managing a woolen mill, selling land and homes, and representing several electrical motor manufacturers. He also invented a player piano, an improved bicycle, and "Scientific Suspenders," which could not be seen when worn under a coat.

Despite his entrepreneurial fervor, Post hadn't yet made a decent living, and the financial strain caused digestive disorders and another breakdown in 1890. He moved his family to Battle Creek, Michigan, to seek care at the famed Sanitarium, or "San," of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.

Kellogg had turned the San into a national phenomenon. A diminutive, bearded dynamo, he made himself the impresario of health faddism, and one of his particular dislikes was coffee. "The tea and coffee habit is a grave menace to the health of the American people," he intoned, causing arteriosclerosis, Bright's disease, heart failure, apoplexy, and premature old age. "Tea and coffee are baneful drugs and their sale and use and their sale and use ought to be prohibited by law ought to be prohibited by law." He even alleged that "insanity has been traced to the coffee habit."

Mind Cure and Postum Post's nine months at the San failed to cure his indigestion or nervous disorder. "I think you should know," Dr. Kellogg gravely informed Ella Post, "that C. W. has very little time left. He is not going to get well." In desperation Ella took up the study of Christian Science with her cousin, Elizabeth Gregory. Mrs. Gregory told the ailing Post that he should simply deny his illness, that it was all in his mind, and that he could eat whatever he pleased. Obeying her suggestion, he began to feel better, left the San, and moved in with his new healing guru.

By 1892 Post had recovered sufficiently to open his own Battle Creek alternative to Kellogg's Sanitarium, which he christened La Vita Inn. Gregory provided mental treatments for a slight extra charge. A couple of years later Post published a book, The Modern Practice: Natural Suggestion, or, Scientia Vitae The Modern Practice: Natural Suggestion, or, Scientia Vitae, which he reissued the next year with the catchier and more egotistical t.i.tle I Am Well! I Am Well! In it Post claimed miraculous cures for himself and those who stayed at his inn, espousing "New Thought" or "mind cure." All disease was simply the result of "wrong thinking." In it Post claimed miraculous cures for himself and those who stayed at his inn, espousing "New Thought" or "mind cure." All disease was simply the result of "wrong thinking."

In 1895 Post first manufactured Postum, a grain-based coffee subst.i.tute that bore a suspicious resemblance to Kellogg's Caramel Coffee (served at the San).23 In October 1896 he transferred $37,000 of the inn's a.s.sets to provide start-up capital for Postum Ltd. When his new drink proved profitable, Post abandoned his therapeutic practice at the La Vita Inn and modified his views to fit his new product. In In October 1896 he transferred $37,000 of the inn's a.s.sets to provide start-up capital for Postum Ltd. When his new drink proved profitable, Post abandoned his therapeutic practice at the La Vita Inn and modified his views to fit his new product. In I Am Well! I Am Well! he had written that all disease stemmed from "mental inharmony" and could be cured through right thinking. Soon, however, he was advertising an easier method: "Remember, you can recover from any ordinary disease by discontinuing coffee and poor food, and using Postum Food Coffee." he had written that all disease stemmed from "mental inharmony" and could be cured through right thinking. Soon, however, he was advertising an easier method: "Remember, you can recover from any ordinary disease by discontinuing coffee and poor food, and using Postum Food Coffee."24 Post was a natural salesman. A tall, slim, square-shouldered man with chiseled good looks, he impressed both men and women with his charismatic, persuasive presentations. In 1895 he took a portable stove along with Postum samples to Michigan grocers. At each store he would prepare a pot, boiling the prescribed twenty minutes, all the while praising the drink's medicinal and mouthwatering properties. "When well brewed," he proclaimed, "Postum has the deep seal brown of coffee and a flavor very like the milder brands of Java."

The first Grand Rapids grocer Post visited wasn't moved, since he had a large supply of Kellogg's Caramel Coffee on hand, gradually turning stale. Post convinced the grocer to take Postum on consignment, promising that advertising would create a demand. Then the industrious entrepreneur visited the editor of the Grand Rapids Evening Press Grand Rapids Evening Press, brewed more Postum, and served it. The editor remained dubious until he noticed Post's stationery, with a red dot in one corner and the legend below, "It makes red blood." Impressed by Postum's health claims, he gave Post $10,000 worth of advertising credit.

By mid-1895 Post was spending $1,250 a month on advertising. In 1897 the figure had risen to $20,000 a month. Over his career he spent well over $12 million to promote his products, 70 percent in local newspapers, the balance in national magazines. Post remained convinced that such gigantic advertising outlays were justified, creating demand for a ma.s.s-produced and widely distributed product. Through economies of scale he could lower the cost of goods to the consumer despite his ad expenditures.

Within a few years, the nondescript barn in which Post first brewed Postum was surrounded by pristine white factory buildings, known as the White City. The most impressive building served as his "temple of propaganda," as one journalist put it, where Post's advertising men dreamed up new slogans for him to approve or amend. It was, according to the writer, "the most unique and sumptuously furnished office building in the world."

Post's Fierce Attacks Post believed in appealing directly to the consumer rather than relying on salesmen to convince grocers and wholesalers to stock his product. With such "pull" advertising, consumers would demand demand his products. his products.

The Postum ads "must use plain words, homely ill.u.s.trations, and . . . the vocabulary of the customer vocabulary of the customer," Post emphasized. One of his best-known advertising lines, "If Coffee Don't Agree, Use Postum Food Coffee," drove the coffee men and and grammarians wild, but it sold Postum. At the end of every ad Post added a tag line: "There's a Reason." It was never clear what this sentence meant. Regardless, the phrase found its way into the popular culture of the time. grammarians wild, but it sold Postum. At the end of every ad Post added a tag line: "There's a Reason." It was never clear what this sentence meant. Regardless, the phrase found its way into the popular culture of the time.

By May 1897 sales were booming, largely due to scare ads that depicted harried, desperate, and dissipated people hooked on caffeine. They warned of the hazards of "coffee heart," "coffee neuralgia," and "brain f.a.g." Abstaining from coffee and drinking Postum would effect the promised cure.

An interviewer told Post, "Your advertising . . . has this element of combat in it. It always . . . goes straight for the other fellow's eyes." Indeed, one Post headline blared, "Lost Eyesight through Coffee Drinking." Another announced, "It is safe to say that one person in every three among coffee users has some incipient or advanced form of disease." Coffee contained "a poisonous drug-caffeine, which belongs in the same cla.s.s of alkaloids with cocaine, morphine, nicotine, and strychnine." One ad featured coffee spilling slowly from a cup, accompanied by an alarming text: "Constant dripping wears away the stone. Perhaps a hole has been started in you. . . . Try leaving off coffee for ten days and use Postum Food Coffee."

Other ads resorted to personal intimidation. "Is your yellow streak the coffee habit?" Post's copy asked. "Does it reduce your work time, kill your energy, push you into the big crowd of mongrels, deaden what thorough-bred blood you may have and neutralize all your efforts to make money and fame?"

When he wasn't frightening his readers, Post b.u.t.tered them up, appealing to their egos. He addressed an ad to "highly organized people," telling them that they could perform much better on Postum than on nerve-racking coffee. Post also addressed the modern man, a.s.serting that Postum was "the Scientific Way To Repair Brains and Rebuild Waste Tissues." Coffee was not a food but a powerful drug. "Sooner or later the steady drugging will tear down the strong man or woman, and the stomach, bowels, heart, kidneys, nerves, brain, or some other organ connected with the nervous system, will be attacked."

Post has been given credit for first adapting patent medicine come-ons-with their exaggerated health claims, appeals to sn.o.bbery and fear, bogus scientific jargon, and repet.i.tive incantations-for a beverage, thus paving the way for modern consumer advertising. In fact, he may have learned from Coca-Cola, first offered in 1886 as a "brain tonic," and also destined to play an important role in coffee history.

Tapping the Paranoia Post, a man of his times, tapped into a fin-de-siecle American fear. The pace of change-with telegraphs, electricity, railroads, ticker tapes, and economic booms and busts-seemed overwhelming. In addition, the typical American diet, heavy with grease and meat, was guaranteed to cause indigestion-dyspepsia was the most frequent medical complaint of the age. This heavy food was usually washed down with an ocean of poorly prepared coffee. By the turn of the twentieth century, the typical U.S. citizen used an average of twelve pounds of coffee annually-nothing compared to the Dutch, the world leaders at sixteen pounds per capita, but a great deal of coffee nonetheless. People frequently sought drug-laced patent medicine remedies for their stomach problems.

Post's new national product advertising, cleverly adopting much of the scientific patter and overblown claims of the patent medicines, was extraordinarily effective. Regional coffee advertisers, with the exception of the Ariosa and Lion brands, could not compete. Their local messages, stressing familiar themes such as aroma and good taste, were no match for Post's sophisticated pitches. Worse, in the face of the Postum onslaught, many coffee ads became defensive, saying that their their coffee (as opposed to others) lacked poisonous substances and tannins. coffee (as opposed to others) lacked poisonous substances and tannins.

Post further infuriated coffee men by writing inflammatory, pseudo-scientific letters directly to consumers. "Coffee frequently produces indigestion and causes functional disturbances of the nervous system," he wrote in one such letter. He a.s.serted that caffeine attacked "the pneumogastric nerve (the tenth cranial or wandering nerve, the longest and most widely distributed nerve of the brain)," often leading to paralysis. "Coffee is an alkaloid poison and a certain disintegrator of brain tissues."

The fact that Post himself continued to drink the evil brew did not soften his attacks on coffee. According to his daughter, Marjorie, Post would drink coffee "for a few days and be sick, and he'd drink Postum for a few days and be well, and then he'd go back to coffee." He even did so in public. One newspaper reporter noted that at a dinner, Post imbibed "oh, horrors, some of that terrible, nerve-destroying beverage, the deadly coffee," despite being "the champion of the coffeeless nerve."

Finding that Postum sales were seasonal-peaking in the winter-Post invented Grape-Nuts cereal in 1898 to round out the year, calling it "the Most Scientific Food in the World." Postum sales swelled, by 1900 reaching $425,196, nearly half of which was pure profit. In 1908 Postum accounted for over $1.5 million in sales, though it was topped by Grape-Nuts and Post Toasties by that time.

Monk's Brew and Other Ploys Post sold Postum boxes for 25 cents retail and a case of a dozen boxes to grocery wholesalers for $2, leaving a slim profit margin for retailers. The product was in such demand, however, that merchants had little choice but to carry it. Inevitably, compet.i.tors sprang up, offering a similar coffee subst.i.tute at a substantially reduced price. Post responded to these challenges by creating a new drink, Monk's Brew, pricing it at only a nickel a package, and marketing it aggressively in towns where underpriced compet.i.tors were making inroads. Once Monk's Brew wiped out the competing brands, Post withdrew it from the market. "The imitators were ruined," Post chortled. "It was one of the most complete ma.s.sacres I have ever seen." The wily Post took the returned Monk's Brew and repackaged it as Postum-quite legitimately, since it was was precisely the same product. precisely the same product.

Although Post rolled in money, he was stingy with his own employees. The packing room women received 0.3 cents for each box of Postum they filled but were fined a full 25 cents for each box they accidentally tore. Even though they were paid on a piecework basis, workers' pay was still docked when they showed up late for work. In addition, Post was rabidly antiunion, spending much time and money in his latter years writing and distributing right-wing diatribes against the evils of organized labor.

Over time Post left the day-to-day manufacturing process to his managers, while he pursued a restless, nomadic life among homes in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., Texas, California, New York City, London, and at his married daughter's home in Greenwich, Connecticut. He conducted much of his business by mail. While delegating most aspects of his fabulously successful enterprise, however, Post continued to pay personal attention to advertising copy. He often kept a piece of copy in his pocket for weeks, adding a new touch daily, aware that each word would reach some 30 million readers. "I have never been able to get anybody to write our advertising better than I do myself," Post observed, "and have never been able to teach anyone to write it my way."25 He observed with satisfaction that dozens of Postum compet.i.tors had fallen by the wayside. "It is fairly easy to make a good palatable and pure food and quite another thing to sell it." Post was among the first advertisers to approach his subject psychologically. "Observe the acts of men day by day," he said, "their habits, likes, dislikes, methods, hopes, disappointments, bravery, weakness, and particularly study their needs."

Post solicited testimonial letters by placing ads in popular magazines, promising "Many Greenbacks." Post selected the best and rewrote them to make them more punchy. "I was a coffee slave," began one such edited letter. "I had headaches every day." When the woman quit coffee and imbibed Postum, all her troubles vanished. "The rheumatism is gone entirely, blood is pure, nerves practically well and steady, digestion almost perfect, never have any more sick headaches."

A nurse from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, wrote, "I used to drink strong coffee myself, and suffered greatly"-until she switched to Postum, of course. "Naturally, I have since used Postum among my patients, and have noticed a marked benefit where coffee has been left off and Postum used. I observe a curious fact about Postum used among mothers. It greatly helps the flow of milk."

A St. Joseph, Missouri, man attested, "About two years ago my knees began to stiffen and my feet and legs swell, so that I was scarcely able to walk, and then only with the greatest difficulty, for I was in constant pain." His problem? Coffee. The solution? Postum.

The independent Post eventually fired his advertising broker and in 1903 created the Grandin Advertising Agency, named after Frank C. Grandin, his employee in charge of advertising. Grandin's only client was Postum. Later Post acquired his own newspaper in Battle Creek, which he used as a platform for disseminating his rather quirky views, as well as advertising Postum, Grape-Nuts, and Post Toasties.

The Coffee Merchants React C. W. Post had ama.s.sed a fortune more quickly than any other American of his era. At the beginning of 1895 he had just made his first batch of Postum. Seven years later he was a millionaire.

By 1906 resentment over the success of Postum had reached fever pitch among coffee men. William Ukers, editor of the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, wrote a nasty editorial upon the marriage of Marjorie Merriweather Post. "It is interesting to note," wrote Ukers, "[that] it was announced . . . the fond father had settled $2,000,000 on his daughter and had carefully drilled her in business methods. . . . But what's $2,000,000 to Post, who every year spends a million and a half in advertising alone? My, what a commentary on the gullibility of the American public!"

Many coffee advertis.e.m.e.nts of the era only made matters worse. "I TOLD YOU TO BRING ARBUCKLE'S PACKAGE," one ad read, showing a wife socking her husband on the jaw and spilling a bag of coffee. "Be real angry if they send you a subst.i.tute," read the ad copy, "which is not as good, and may in time ruin your digestion and nerves." Such a come-on may have been good for Ariosa in the short run, but it conveyed the impression that most other coffee was harmful. Another ad for Dern Coffee a.s.serted that "if coffee makes havoc with your nerves and digestion, it is because you are not using a fresh roasted, thoroughly cleansed, correctly cured coffee." Consequently, Dern Coffee "gives you the strength and aroma of the coffee without its nerve-destroying qualities."

Similarly, many defensive articles on coffee wound up d.a.m.ning it. A May 1906 piece in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Tea & Coffee Trade Journal by John G. Keplinger t.i.tled "The Healthfulness of Coffee" began with the a.s.sertion that "almost any nonsense makes an impression on the public mind if only reiterated often enough in print." But then Keplinger proceeded to admit that "without doubt coffee has been the cause of much discomfort, headache, sour stomach, blurred vision, etc." The reason? Coffee was harmful, according to this author, if diluted with milk and sugar; it should only be drunk black. by John G. Keplinger t.i.tled "The Healthfulness of Coffee" began with the a.s.sertion that "almost any nonsense makes an impression on the public mind if only reiterated often enough in print." But then Keplinger proceeded to admit that "without doubt coffee has been the cause of much discomfort, headache, sour stomach, blurred vision, etc." The reason? Coffee was harmful, according to this author, if diluted with milk and sugar; it should only be drunk black.

Apparently unaware that he failed to practice what he preached, Keplinger went on to advise coffee advertisers to emphasize positive attributes, rather than stating that their their brand of coffee did not produce headache, constipation, dyspepsia, or nervous trouble. He then offered sample advertis.e.m.e.nts of which he approved. The very first headline was: "Is Coffee Harmful?" His other ads approached the absurdity of vintage patent medicine claims. "Coffee is a valuable remedial agent, or rather a preventive, when there are epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera, erysipelas, scarlet fever and the various types of malarial fever." Another headline suggested that "Good Coffee Soothes the Nerves" because it is "a nonreactive stimulant, as has been proved time and again by the sphygmograph and as a brain stimulant it may be termed an intellectual drink." brand of coffee did not produce headache, constipation, dyspepsia, or nervous trouble. He then offered sample advertis.e.m.e.nts of which he approved. The very first headline was: "Is Coffee Harmful?" His other ads approached the absurdity of vintage patent medicine claims. "Coffee is a valuable remedial agent, or rather a preventive, when there are epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera, erysipelas, scarlet fever and the various types of malarial fever." Another headline suggested that "Good Coffee Soothes the Nerves" because it is "a nonreactive stimulant, as has been proved time and again by the sphygmograph and as a brain stimulant it may be termed an intellectual drink."

One of the favorite ploys of coffee boosters throughout the first part of the twentieth century was to cite anecdotal stories to ill.u.s.trate the drink's beneficial effects on longevity. On her ninety-second birthday, for instance, Mrs. Hannah Lang nimbly performed a set of folk dances. "It is the proud boast of Mrs. Lang that she has never been sick a day in her life. . . . About the only health rule she follows is to drink four cups of strong coffee every day." Mrs. Christine Hedin of Ironwood, Michigan, celebrated her hundredth birthday by "drinking coffee all day long," as was her normal habit (from four to ten cups daily). A centenarian Frenchman was told that coffee, which he drank to excess, was a poison. "If it is poison," he said, "I am a fine example of the fact that it is a very slow poison."26 In July 1906 Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Tea & Coffee Trade Journal editor Ukers offered a call to arms: editor Ukers offered a call to arms: Here and there manufacturers and dealers are waking up to the fact that the subst.i.tute beverage-makers have stolen a march on them and now they are determined to regain the lost ground. . . . The Postum Company certainly have had a wonderful opportunity and have made the most of it. The retail coffee dealers of the country did nothing to upset their plans. . . . The advertising of this subst.i.tute for coffee has attacked coffee strenuously and bitterly and with consummate skill, and the result is that thousands of people who have been in the habit of drinking coffee regularly have given it up.

Frustrated and baffled, the coffee men even considered hiring Post clandestinely to write copy for them, though the plan never materialized, which was just as well, said Post. "Could I advertise coffee as I advertise Postum? No! I believe in Postum, and have no such belief in coffee."

It would take another decade or two before coffee advertisers learned Post's lesson that a positive image was at least as important as taste.

The Collier's Libel Flap A prominent national periodical, Collier's Weekly Collier's Weekly, pointedly refused questionable patent medicine ads after printing Samuel Hopkins Adams's widely read 1905 muckraking series, "The Great American Fraud," which lambasted misleading ads and contributed to the pa.s.sage of landmark food legislation the following year. Yet, as one outraged reader complained later that year, Collier's Collier's ran Post's ads, which invariably touted medicinal cures. Stung, the magazine's advertising manager wrote to Post, explaining that he could no longer print such ads. In 1907 the magazine published an editorial criticizing Grape-Nuts advertising for claiming that the breakfast cereal could cure appendicitis. "This is lying, and potentially, deadly lying." The article called Postum testimonials by physicians and health officials "mythical." ran Post's ads, which invariably touted medicinal cures. Stung, the magazine's advertising manager wrote to Post, explaining that he could no longer print such ads. In 1907 the magazine published an editorial criticizing Grape-Nuts advertising for claiming that the breakfast cereal could cure appendicitis. "This is lying, and potentially, deadly lying." The article called Postum testimonials by physicians and health officials "mythical."

Post responded with a venomous $18,000 article-advertis.e.m.e.nt campaign run in newspapers across the country in which he a.s.serted that the author of the Collier's Collier's article had "curdled gray matter." Post had the nerve to a.s.sert that it was article had "curdled gray matter." Post had the nerve to a.s.sert that it was he he who had refused to advertise in the magazine and that he had been attacked as a result. Moreover, he defended his testimonials. "We have never yet published an advertis.e.m.e.nt announcing the opinion of a prominent physician or a health official on Postum or Grape-Nuts when we did not have the actual letter in our possession." who had refused to advertise in the magazine and that he had been attacked as a result. Moreover, he defended his testimonials. "We have never yet published an advertis.e.m.e.nt announcing the opinion of a prominent physician or a health official on Postum or Grape-Nuts when we did not have the actual letter in our possession."

In 1907 Collier's Collier's filed a libel suit against Post. When it finally came to trial three years later, Post had to defend his earlier writings, such as filed a libel suit against Post. When it finally came to trial three years later, Post had to defend his earlier writings, such as I Am Well! I Am Well! in which he claimed miraculous healing powers for, among other things, a molar abscess and a wheelchair-bound invalid. "And now you've reached the point where you propose to relieve pains, not by the use of mental suggestion, but by Grape-Nuts and Postum?" the prosecuting attorney asked. "At fifteen cents a pound?" Post: "Yes." The lawyer got Post to admit that he gave prizes for good testimonials and that he did not have time to investigate whether all were genuine. in which he claimed miraculous healing powers for, among other things, a molar abscess and a wheelchair-bound invalid. "And now you've reached the point where you propose to relieve pains, not by the use of mental suggestion, but by Grape-Nuts and Postum?" the prosecuting attorney asked. "At fifteen cents a pound?" Post: "Yes." The lawyer got Post to admit that he gave prizes for good testimonials and that he did not have time to investigate whether all were genuine.

In his final arguments the plaintiff's attorney dramatically pointed at Post and begged the jury, "Help us to make this man honest." They complied, finding Post guilty of libel and fining him $50,000. Eventually the trial verdict was reversed by the New York Court of Appeals, but Post had learned his lesson. From then on he moderated his claims. Within a few years Postum was advertised to cure constipation rather than brain fatigue or appendicitis.

Dr. Wiley's Ambivalence "If some isolated case is found where a man has sold roasted peas and chicory as coffee, a terrible howl goes up," editor William Ukers observed in spring 1906. "And yet when Millionaire Post proceeds to offer burnt cereals as coffee n.o.body says a word. And where is Dr. Wiley all this time?" Harvey Wiley, who was then lobbying hard for the new pure food act that would pa.s.s soon, had become an enormously influential spokesman for truth in advertising and labeling. Wiley mounted a moral moral crusade against fraud and vice. "The injury to public health," he said, "is the least important question . . . [and] should be considered last of all. The real evil of food adulteration is deception of the consumer." crusade against fraud and vice. "The injury to public health," he said, "is the least important question . . . [and] should be considered last of all. The real evil of food adulteration is deception of the consumer."

Wiley's obsession with deceit rather than health issues was reflected in his legislation. The Pure Food and Drugs Act did not make poisonous substances illegal; it simply said they had to be identified on the label. Caffeine was not placed on the list of poisonous substances that had to be so labeled. With twelve pounds consumed by every man, woman, and child, coffee was the most popular beverage in America; most coffee men therefore must have felt they were relatively safe and hoped that Wiley would direct his attention to the mislabeling of products such as Postum.

Eventually he did, forcing Post to remove the word coffee coffee from his label and advertising. But the pure food law also caused trouble for coffee men. If government agents found chicory or other subst.i.tutes in coffee, they prosecuted. If they found "black jack" beans-that is, discolored or moldy from blights or improper processing-being imported, they put a stop to it. Over the next few years, scores of coffee prosecutions cleaned up the coffee and coffee-subst.i.tute industry. from his label and advertising. But the pure food law also caused trouble for coffee men. If government agents found chicory or other subst.i.tutes in coffee, they prosecuted. If they found "black jack" beans-that is, discolored or moldy from blights or improper processing-being imported, they put a stop to it. Over the next few years, scores of coffee prosecutions cleaned up the coffee and coffee-subst.i.tute industry.

Though such enforcements were salutary, other prosecutions seemed merely bureaucratic, malicious, or stupid. Although Brazilian and Central American beans had been widely misrepresented as Java coffees, this term was traditionally and correctly applied to coffee coming not only from the island of Java itself but any of fourteen nearby islands. Nonetheless, the Board of Food and Drug Inspection ruled the same year that coffee grown in Sumatra had to be labeled Sumatra coffee rather than Java. No one in the industry could see the harm in such long-standing practices, but the government did.

Since Harvey Wiley had championed the pure food law that had helped police their industry, Ukers and other coffee experts wanted to believe that Wiley was on their side. Yet in 1910 the crusading chemist got carried away in a speech reported by the newspapers. Wiley a.s.serted that "this country is full of tea and coffee drunkards. The most common drug in this country is caffeine."

Soon after the pure food law pa.s.sed, Wiley inst.i.tuted an attack on Coca-Cola. He disapproved of caffeinated beverages but felt that coffee and tea were safe from legal a.s.sault since they naturally naturally contain caffeine, just as peaches and almonds naturally contain hydrocyanic acid. Coca-Cola, however, was consumed regularly by both children and adults, and caffeine was deliberately added to it. Wiley therefore persuaded his reluctant superiors to allow him to seize forty barrels and twenty kegs of Coca-Cola syrup that had crossed the state line between Georgia and Tennessee. contain caffeine, just as peaches and almonds naturally contain hydrocyanic acid. Coca-Cola, however, was consumed regularly by both children and adults, and caffeine was deliberately added to it. Wiley therefore persuaded his reluctant superiors to allow him to seize forty barrels and twenty kegs of Coca-Cola syrup that had crossed the state line between Georgia and Tennessee.

Bringing Coca-Cola to trial in 1911 at Chattanooga, Tennessee, the government charged that the drink was adulterated, defined by the pure food law as containing a deleterious added ingredient. The government consequently had to prove that caffeine was both harmful and an added ingredient under the law. Coffee men must have watched the dramatic trial with mixed feelings. On the one hand, they squirmed when expert witnesses attacked caffeine as poisonous. On the other hand, they recognized that the popular soft drink was beginning to erode their own market.

Despite their impressive credentials, most expert witnesses relied on flawed experiments highly colored by their own opinions. Harry and Leta Hollingworth's groundbreaking double-blind experiments on caffeine's effects on humans-still-cited cla.s.sics of the literature-were the exception. The experiments indicated that caffeine, in moderate amounts, improved motor skills while leaving sleep patterns relatively unaffected.27 Coca-Cola eventually won the case, though not on any scientific grounds. All of the testimony proved irrelevant. Judge Sanford issued his opinion from the bench, ordering the jury to return a verdict in favor of Coca-Cola. Without deciding whether caffeine was a poison, Sanford said that it was not not an added ingredient under the law, but had been an integral part of the formula since the drink was invented. The trial had an impact on Dr. Wiley as well. His superiors, looking for any excuse to ditch the bullheaded chemist, accused Wiley of having illegally paid a witness too much for his testimony. Wiley resigned in March 1912, at the height of his national popularity. an added ingredient under the law, but had been an integral part of the formula since the drink was invented. The trial had an impact on Dr. Wiley as well. His superiors, looking for any excuse to ditch the bullheaded chemist, accused Wiley of having illegally paid a witness too much for his testimony. Wiley resigned in March 1912, at the height of his national popularity.

That same year the coffee men, hopeful that Wiley would support them, paid him to deliver the keynote address at the National Coffee Roasters a.s.sociation on the topic "The Advantages of Coffee as America's National Beverage." In his opening remarks the truculent chemist told them that pure water water should be the national drink. In his rambling speech he reserved his primary venom for Coca-Cola, but he also lambasted coffee and caffeine. The southern soft drink was "a first artificial cousin of coffee, because the dope that men put in Coca-Cola is the dope the Lord puts in coffee-caffeine." He went on to say, "I would not give my child coffee or tea any more than I would give him poison." should be the national drink. In his rambling speech he reserved his primary venom for Coca-Cola, but he also lambasted coffee and caffeine. The southern soft drink was "a first artificial cousin of coffee, because the dope that men put in Coca-Cola is the dope the Lord puts in coffee-caffeine." He went on to say, "I would not give my child coffee or tea any more than I would give him poison."

Wiley shamefacedly admitted that, like C. W. Post, he drank coffee himself. "I know it is harmful, that it makes many dyspeptics, and many other nervous wrecks by the hundreds of thousands, yet I sit down every morning and drink my coffee. I like it."

The Birth of Decaf Owing to the very public contemporary controversy over caffeine, entrepreneurs began to look for a naturally caffeine-free coffee. Four varieties were identified, mostly in Madagascar. Unfortunately, the drink produced from their roasted seeds was bitter and unpalatable. The famed agronomist Luther Burbank opined that a decent-tasting hybrid was certainly desirable and might indeed be possible, but it would involve years of experiments in the tropics. "It would be absolutely impossible for me to pay any attention to the coffee plant, as it would require removing to another climate." He added another important question: "Would coffee be used, except for the exhilaration accompanying the caffeine? I think it would, but this is for someone else to decide."

Soon Burbank's question could be answered with a qualified yes. Convinced that his father, a professional coffee taster, had died prematurely as a result of too much caffeine intake, Ludwig Roselius, a German merchant, succeeded in extracting caffeine from green beans by superheating them with steam, then flooding them with the solvent benzol. He patented his process and incorporated his company in 1906. Within a few years his decaf coffee was available in Germany as Kaffee Hag; in France as Sanka (sans caffeine); and in the United States, from the Merck drug company, as Dekafa. Compet.i.tors sprang up on both sides of the Atlantic. Robert Hubner, another German, introduced his Hubner Health Coffee in 1911 to the American market, claiming to extract the caffeine through a pure-water process without using a chemical solvent. The next year two brands of "instant" coffee-the condensed particles of a regular brew-went on sale.28 Post's Last Act The decaffeinated and instant coffees made only a small dent in regular coffee consumption and did not unduly disturb the coffee men. At least they were coffee coffee, unlike Postum, whose ads continued to malign their product. C. W. Post regularly appeared in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Tea & Coffee Trade Journal as the Antichrist of Coffee. as the Antichrist of Coffee.

In January 1914 Post suffered a nervous and physical collapse. The newspapers reported that he had fled to his Santa Barbara ranch "for a complete rest," along with his personal physician and his wife. In the pages of the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, editor William Ukers couldn't resist pointing out that Post, who warned constantly of "coffee-slugged nerves," had succ.u.mbed to a nervous breakdown himself. "We would not appear to gloat over his misfortune," Ukers wrote, doing just that. "Indeed, if his breakdown is in any measure due to his drinking Postum all these years, he has our deep sympathy." Ukers wished the millionaire a speedy recovery, suggesting that a nurse "slip him a cup of coffee now and then during his convalescence."

In March, Post's doctor diagnosed him with appendicitis-ironic, since only four years earlier Post had declared repeatedly during the Collier's Collier's trial that Grape-Nuts prevented or cured appendicitis. Admitting that he needed an operation must have created a crisis of faith for the man who had written, "Sickness, Sin, and Disease are creations of the human intellect, and exist only in a mesmeric or abnormal state." trial that Grape-Nuts prevented or cured appendicitis. Admitting that he needed an operation must have created a crisis of faith for the man who had written, "Sickness, Sin, and Disease are creations of the human intellect, and exist only in a mesmeric or abnormal state."

Post took a private train from California to Minnesota, where Mayo Clinic doctors would operate on him. After routine, successful surgery, Post returned to Santa Barbara, where he fell into a deep depression, seldom leaving his bed. "There is a taste of Heaven in perfect health," Post once observed, "and a taste of h.e.l.l in sickness." On May 9, 1914, Post sent his wife to conduct some business. He told his nurse, "I am very nervous. My mind is perfectly clear but I cannot control my nerves." Then, at the age of fifty-nine, C. W. Post, the multimillionaire health guru, dismissed his nurse, placed a shotgun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Some believed that his wife, nearly thirty years younger than Post, had been unfaithful and that Post had committed suicide upon discovering it. More likely, the man who was worth $20 million upon his death chose to exit the world due to a bruised ego. Mental discipline, Postum, and Grape-Nuts had not made him well, as his book t.i.tle so brazenly had proclaimed him to be. Post died, but his fortune, and Postum's anticoffee advertising, survived him. His daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post, and her second husband, the financier E. F. Hutton, were to continue the business and expand it substantially-creating General Foods and, ironically, purchasing Maxwell House Coffee in 1928. Post must have rolled over in his grave-or perhaps laughed with glee that his daughter was making money from the drug drink he secretly enjoyed.

PART TWO.

CANNING THE BUZZ.

The premium Arbuckle brand, Yuban, shown here in a 1916 ad, could have revived the ailing coffee giant's fortunes. But because it refused to pay for a national campaign, Arbuckles' faded from view, eventually selling Yuban to General Foods.

7.

Growing Pains.

[By 1915], the sheer excitement of expanded consumption, the new rituals of buying and selling-universalized by name brands, national trademarks, and chain stores-became characteristic of everyday life in which millions, regardless of place or position, shared. Materialism became Americanism.

-Thomas J. Schlereth, Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life, 1876-1915

Although many consumer products-Ivory Soap, Coca-Cola, Listerine-claimed a national market with the help of sophisticated advertising strategies, coffee was difficult to distribute widely. Once roasted, it staled quickly, thus discouraging aggressive national campaigns. Nevertheless, a few visionary coffee companies-Folger's, Hills Brothers, Maxwell House, Chase & Sanborn, Arbuckle Brothers-learned Postum's advertising lessons, while hundreds of other coffee roasters struggled to survive in an increasingly compet.i.tive, fractious market before the onset of World War I.

Brand Proliferation The battle for coffee market share was waged primarily on a regional level in the pre-World War I era. Even so, a coffee marketing revolution would take place in a remarkably short period of time with branded coffee rapidly replacing the bulk coffee of the traditional country store.

Looking back over a thirty-year career, retailer J. C. Reid observed in 1915, "I have seen the transition or partial transition from selling crackers, rice, currants, raisins, spaghetti, macaroni, rolled oats, corn meal, borax, baking soda, coffee, etc., out of a box, barrel or sack to being sold in . . . packages under trade-mark brands." True, he noted, there was a trade-off. Consumers got a little less for their money than when they purchased in bulk, but they received similar quality and quant.i.ty, protected by a moisture-proof package. Coffee no longer smelled (and tasted) of the pickle barrel sitting next to the bulk bin, and the blend's flavor was generally consistent in every package.29 Many grocers were unhappy that their customers could buy the same brand of packaged coffee at a competing store. One grocer told Reid that he pushed his bulk coffee because he could get it fresh-roasted in small batches from his local roaster and blend to suit his customers-snaring a 40 percent profit, much more than the net from branded coffee. Even this grocer had to admit, however, that the percentage of coffee he sold by brand was increasing.

Another contemporary grocer favored brands, though. "Quality talks," he wrote. "Best results are obtained by handling a good, advertised line in package or cans. [I] am now selling about twice as much since settling down to one line. Our coffees now run uniform, and when we find a blend a customer likes, we have no more trouble."

In 1915 a survey of some 5,500 coffee drinkers revealed that 86 percent bought their coffee prepackaged. Together they listed over a thousand thousand different brands. A concurrent survey conducted by the National Coffee Roasters a.s.sociation came up with 3,500 American coffee brands. different brands. A concurrent survey conducted by the National Coffee Roasters a.s.sociation came up with 3,500 American coffee brands.

Whether coffee came in a package or not, the American consumer continued to ruin the brew by boiling it. Now, however, they could do it conveniently with a pumping percolator. While percolation percolation literally refers to a simple drip method, in North America it came to refer to a pot with a central tube and gla.s.s cover. When the water heated sufficiently, it perked up through the tube, spraying the coffee back over the grounds repeatedly. In the early twentieth century these pumping percolators were electrified and became standard kitchen appliances. Because the percolators produced an overextracted brew-leaching unpalatable components from the grounds-economical housewives were almost sure to get a bitter cup, either too weak or too strong, depending on the amount of coffee and water they used. literally refers to a simple drip method, in North America it came to refer to a pot with a central tube and gla.s.s cover. When the water heated sufficiently, it perked up through the tube, spraying the coffee back over the grounds repeatedly. In the early twentieth century these pumping percolators were electrified and became standard kitchen appliances. Because the percolators produced an overextracted brew-leaching unpalatable components from the grounds-economical housewives were almost sure to get a bitter cup, either too weak or too strong, depending on the amount of coffee and water they used.

In 1908 German housewife Melitta Bentz began a revolution in coffee brewing when she punched holes in the bottom of a tin cup, lined it with her son's blotter paper, and created a superior once-through drip brewing method that quickly spread through Europe and created a dynasty for the Melitta brand. The same year in the United States I. D. Richheimer introduced his drip Tricolator, a pot with a filtered midsection; and three years later Edward Aborn invented a superior drip brewer called the Make-Right, but neither of them achieved widespread popularity. It would take the rest of the century for most Americans to learn the virtues of drip brewing.

A & P Grinds Its Own Although American brands were proliferating, they faced stiff compet.i.tion from price-cutting chain stores and door-to-door peddlers.30 By far the greatest threat came from the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, known as the A & P. Founded in 1859 by George Francis Gilman, the company initially sold animal hides. Yet within a few years, under the co-direction of clerk and subsequent partner George Huntington Hartford, it was christened the Great American Tea Company, specializing in tea, with over a dozen stores in Manhattan. Soon they added coffee. Gilman and Hartford eliminated middlemen, buying coffee and tea on the docks straight off the clipper s.h.i.+ps. In 1869 the Great American Tea Company became the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, ostensibly in honor of the completion of the transcontinental railroad that year. It also signaled the company's plans for expansion beyond the East Coast of the United States. In 1871, in the aftermath of the Chicago Fire, the company sent staff and food, staying to open stores in the Midwest. By far the greatest threat came from the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, known as the A & P. Founded in 1859 by George Francis Gilman, the company initially sold animal hides. Yet within a few years, under the co-direction of clerk and subsequent partner George Huntington Hartford, it was christened the Great American Tea Company, specializing in tea, with over a dozen stores in Manhattan. Soon they added coffee. Gilman and Hartford eliminated middlemen, buying coffee and tea on the docks straight off the clipper s.h.i.+ps. In 1869 the Great American Tea Company became the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, ostensibly in honor of the completion of the transcontinental railroad that year. It also signaled the company's plans for expansion beyond the East Coast of the United States. In 1871, in the aftermath of the Chicago Fire, the company sent staff and food, staying to open stores in the Midwest.

In 1878 Hartford officially took over the operation, while Gilman retired. Hartford expanded, supervising over two hundred stores by 1901, in addition to sending over 5,000 peddlers in standardized red-and-black A & P wagons to deliver directly to the home. Gradually, under the direction of George H. Hartford's sons George L. and John, the company offered other groceries as well. Aping Arbuckle, the A & P offered premiums and trading stamps to lure consumers. By 1907 A & P's sales had reached $15 million a year.

The older, more conservative brother, "Mr. George," as he was known by employees, minded the books. He also cupped the coffee and tea samples every afternoon at 3:00, continuing this task into his nineties. The flamboyant "Mr. John" drove the company's marketing and expansion. It was he, for instance, who sent out red and gold coaches drawn by a team of eight horses decorated with spangled harnesses and gold-plated bells. The local citizen who came closest to guessing the correct weight of the team won $500 in gold.

In 1913 John Hartford introduced the company's first "Economy Store," which was strictly cash-and-carry-no deliveries, no phone orders, no premiums. By cutting out wholesalers, the A & P could sell quality food at low prices with no frills. In an incredible entrepreneurial burst, John Hartford opened 7,500 such stores (approximately seven a day) between 1914 and 1916-and then weeded out over half of them. Seeking a kind of brand recognition for the stores themselves, he standardized their architecture and layout so that he could reputedly find the coffee in any store blindfolded. Each store required only one employee-manager. At a time when most city dwellers spent nearly half their salaries on food, the new A & P's were wildly successful.31 After a run-in with Cream of Wheat, which refused to sell to A & P if the chain sold it below the retail price, John Hartford increasingly relied on the firm's own brands, some known as Ann Page products. Through a wholly owned subsidiary, the American Coffee Corporation, he placed his own coffee buyers in Brazil, Colombia, and elsewhere, purchased directly, roasted the beans, and provided grinders in each store, where he sold Eight O'Clock Coffee, along with Red Circle and Bokar, his premium grade.

The Premium Peddlers While the A & P wagon men gradually gave way to that firm's economy chain stores, other door-to-door salesmen, particularly those of the Jewel Tea Company, challenged branded coffee. In the late nineteenth century quite a few small-time businessmen eked out a living by delivering bulk-roasted coffee by horse-drawn wagon. These wagon men plied their trade primarily in major cities, where deliveries could be made close to one another. In 1899, when Frank Skiff, having saved $700, quit his regular sales job to deliver tea, coffee, and spices on his own, he was just one of several hundred such peddlers serving Chicago and its suburbs. Nor was his Jewel Tea Company unusual in offering premiums to customers, who earned a certain number of coupons with each purchase and could eventually trade these for selected household goods.

The next year Skiff's brother-in-law, Frank Ross, joined him at Jewel. Then in 1901 the enterprising Ross had a fateful encounter with a Mrs. Scannon, who answered the door with a hot tea kettle in hand. Ross barely got to begin his sales pitch. "Get off my porch or I'll scald your eyes out!" she threatened. It turned out that Mrs. Scannon had saved coupons for nearly a year in order to earn a coveted rug. But just when she was ready, her wagon man went out of business. Consequently, she held a low opinion of such schemes.

Thinking quickly, Ross yelled from the safety of the sidewalk, "What would you say if I told you I'd leave these beautiful Haviland plates today and you could be using them while you traded them out?" Thus began the phenomenally successful "advance premium" program. In 1916, fifteen years after offering its first advance premium, the Jewel Tea Company, now selling a variety of household goods, went public with a $16 million capitalization. The company boasted 850 thriving wagon routes serving 2 million families, a huge coffee roasting plant in Chicago, and an elaborate sales hierarchy based on the front-line wagon men who visited each customer every two weeks. About half of the company's income stemmed from coffee sales.

The company's success inspired imitation and compet.i.tion. By the time Jewel offered common stock to the public, there were four hundred similar firms; ten of them, like Jewel, had gone national. The Interstate Grocer Interstate Grocer estimated in 1915 that the "peddlers," as retailers contemptuously called the wagon men, had snagged 60 percent of their coffee business. estimated in 1915 that the "peddlers," as retailers contemptuously called the wagon men, had snagged 60 percent of their coffee business.

The coffee roasters were just as unhappy as the retail grocers, since the Jewel Tea Company and its imitators roasted their own coffee, thus capturing a major portion of the trade.

The Inst.i.tutional Niche Those who retailed their coffee directly to consumers received the greatest publicity and battled for grocery or pantry shelf s.p.a.ce. But other regional roasters specialized in providing coffee for hotels, hospitals, restaurants, private clubs, and steams.h.i.+p lines. Known as inst.i.tutional roasters, they too were fiercely compet.i.tive. Frederic A. Cauchois of New York, for example, provided his freshly roasted Private Estate Coffee daily in dated bags by a wagon route. Any beans that remained after two weeks were taken back in exchange for fresh product. Cauchois preached the drip brewing method and provided his clients with fine j.a.panese paper filters and urns that were inspected once a week. By 1904 he had established roasting plants in Philadelphia, Was.h.i.+ngton, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, in addition to New York City.

Other inst.i.tutional roasters maximized profits by selling all coffee grades in bulk. Eastern European immigrant Philip Wechsler thrived by loaning money to others who wanted to open restaurants, hotels, cafeterias, and luncheonettes, taking a brokerage commission, charging 6 percent on loans, and encouraging the new businesses to buy his coffee.

In Chicago, Harry and Jacob Cohn, two Lithuanian immigrants, founded their own coffee companies in the first part of the century. Older brother Harry founded Superior Tea & Coffee Company in 1908 with his cousin Walter Katzoff. After working at Superior for a while, Jacob Cohn started Continental in 1915. While his older brother specialized in home deliveries, Jacob chose the inst.i.tutional route, delivering to restaurants and cafeterias. He sold restaurant owners brewing equipment virtually at cost and gave them free urn bags and cleaners. Superior, too, eventually switched to restaurant service, and the companies became fierce inst.i.tutional compet.i.tors, expanding from the country's center in an effort to best each other. Meanwhile, in California, Roy and Frank Farmer started Farmer Brothers.

s.e.xy Coffee?

The stodgy coffee men were slow to learn from the razzle-dazzle salesmans.h.i.+p of compet.i.tors such as Jewel and Postum. By 1907 it was clear that advertising and salesmans.h.i.+p had become increasingly important components of any thriving American business. The Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Tea & Coffee Trade Journal ran an editorial about the difficulties in locating good salesmen. "There are men with the indescribable knack which enables them to sell anything from a gold brick to a cake of soap, but there is no outward sign by which they may be told." ran an editorial about the difficulties in locating good salesmen. "There are men with the indescribable knack which enables them to sell anything from a gold brick to a cake of soap, but there is no outward sign by which they may be told."

Yet an article a few years later in the same journal criticized exactly such a coffee salesman, who admitted that he knew nothing about his product. "I have never made a cup of coffee in my life. . . . What I do is sell labels, cans, [and] canisters-but most emphatically do I not sell coffee." A former insurance salesman, this man knew human nature. "I pick up a label," he continued, "and tell about it being a thing of beauty and a joy forever, and I get the name on the dotted lines and get out." If a dealer had the temerity to request a sample of the coffee, the salesman would "gently but firmly insinuate that it is presumptuous on his part to request to see samples of my world-renowned and old-established brands."

It is of course understandable that true coffee men would be horrified by such a cavalier att.i.tude. Without a decent product, this flash approach would not produce a loyal customer. Yet in this infancy of modern capitalism, the coffee men needed to embrace the new hucksterism in order to sell their brown beans.

Most coffee roasters struggled to understand new marketing methods. They observed, for instance, that milk sales went up at a Boston sales counter when the drink was poured by a s.e.xy young woman. "She was a comely, buxom la.s.s with brown hair, liquid brown eyes and a complexion which would make a ripe peach want to hide itself," a coffee journal reported. Yet few coffee ads attempted any form of s.e.x appeal for the traditional, dignified beverage. One that did, albeit in an awkward, school-boyish fas.h.i.+on, was widely criticized. A 1912 ad for Satisfaction Coffee depicted a can with female legs fleeing from a pursuing male. "Worth running after any time," read the text. "Always pure. Never sold in bulk." This ad was, noted a trade journal, "in questionable taste."

In 1909 Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung arrived at Clark University in Ma.s.sachusetts to deliver lectures that had a profound effect on the American psyche. Soon coffee men were wondering how to "get into people's minds" to influence their buying decisions. Five years later Dr. Hugo Muensterberg, a Harvard psychology professor, lectured on the topic "Applying Psychology to Business." He made extraordinary-and frightening-claims. "Business men will eventually realize that customers are merely bundles of mental states and that the mind is a mechanism that we can affect with the same exact.i.tude with which we control a machine in a factory."

When advertising experts from outside the industry tried to tell the roasters what to do, the coffee men didn't listen. At their 1915 convention the roasters heard from "sales counselor" St. Elmo Lewis, who told them that a negative, defensive campaign never worked. "You won't get far by calling the subst.i.tuters liars." Instead he wanted the roasters to promote cooperative advertising. They should create a substantial ad fund to bring the industry out of the "stone age of advertising."

The next year H. H. Clark, an advertising man, wrote an article for a coffee trade journal emphasizing that the retailer could no longer be held responsible for pus.h.i.+ng a particular brand. "It is sold to the consumer not by a man behind the counter, but by a chap sitting in some office possibly a thousand miles removed from the actual sale-plotting the advertising." Clark pointed out that American per-capita consumption had dropped from nearly thirteen pounds a year in 1901 to less than ten pounds. He too exhorted them to band together for cooperative advertising.

Clark pointed to Postum's success. C. W. Post had begun with all the odds against him, trying to sell a coffee subst.i.tute universally despised as the "war coffee" of the 1860s. Yet Post had succeeded through consistent, persistent advertising. Clark then outlined a specific campaign, including a seal of quality from the National Coffee Roaster a.s.sociation to be sold ten labels for a penny to raise funds for cooperative advertising that would include billboards, streetcar placements, dealer displays, newspaper ads, and direct-mail fliers.

Only the bigger roasters with broader vision and an ambition to achieve national distribution actually mounted effective ad campaigns. These roasters and their brands-Hills Brothers, MJB, Folger's, Cheek-Neal's Maxwell House, Chase & Sanborn, Arbuckle-were destined to dominate the U.S. coffee trade.