John Harvey Kellogg

John Harvey Kellogg

But revivalism did more than recruit for the existing churches. It created new ones. Thus one baptist, William Miller, was inspired by the Second Great Awakening to conduct a personal study of the scriptures for two years, and in 1818 declared that 'all the affairs of our present state' would be wound up by God in a quarter of a century, that is in 1844. He recruited many thousands of followers, who composed a hymn-book, The Milennial Harp, survived 'The Great Disappointment' when nothing happened in the appointed year, and even the death of their founder. In 1855 they settled a Battle Creek, took the tittle Seventh-Day Adventists six years later, and eventually, with 2 million worldwide members, became the center of a vast vegetarian breakfast-cereal empire created by John H. Kellogg, first president of Battle Creek College.

The way in which the Adventists popularized cereals throughout the world was typical of the creative (and indeed commercial) spirit of the sects which sprang out of the Second Great Awakening. This kind of intense religion seemed to give to the lives of ordinary people a focus and motivation which turned them into pioneers, entrepreneurs, and innovators on a heroic scale. Kellogg himself was the protege of Ellen G. Harmon, a simple teenager who conceived her vision of sanctified breakfast-food while in a religious transport. And what could be more American than cornflakes, a nutritious food with moral overtones made from the Indian crop which saved the lives of the Pilgrim Fathers?

Somewhere over the Rainbow
Judy Garland