Illinois Hall of Fame: The Post Family

By Mark Rhoads

Charles W. Post is shown at right with his only daughter Marjorie Merriwether Post in 1888.  The father and daughter were two of America's most successful food marketing pioneers. Charles W. Post was born in Springfield, Illinois on Oct. 26, 1854.  He was an inventor, entrepreneur, adventurer, industrialist, and philanthropist who invented farm machinery and cereals such as Post Toasties, Grape-Nuts, Post Raisin Bran, and other popular breakfast products sold by the Post Cereal Company that he founded.  He made a personal fortune of $5 million in five years, which was considerable in the 1890s for the food industry. Charles attended the Illinois Industrial University in Urbana that later became the University of Illinois.  Still in his teens, he joined the Illinois Governor's Guard, later called the Illinois National Guard.  With a friend and business partner Charles Moody, Charles travelled the Oklahoma Territory, Kansas, and the Southwest looking for business opportunities.  On November 4, 1874 Charles married his childhood sweetheart Ella Merriweather and the couple lived in her hometown of Pawnee, Illinois also in Sangamon County and a short distance from Springfield. 

Charles rounded up investors for his farm machinery businesses in the late 1870s.  Companies he founded included Post Capitol City Cultivators in Springfield and Illinois Agricultural Works.  Between 1879 and 1897, Charles W. Post invented and received patents for inventions such as the Mechanical Seed Planter, the Steam Pump, two types of Cultivators, The Sulky Plow, The Harrow, the Haystacker, and various cooking utensils.  Post changed fashion for men when he received a patent on his particular invention of elastic suspenders in 1893.  He had other patents on a two-wheel bicycle and the perforated paper rolls that coded musical compositions for player pianos. In 1895 Post might have been experiencing a nervous breakdown due to a dispute with a banker in Springfield who induced his parents to put up collateral for a note connected to his business.  The demands of business and his success also took a toll on his health and that of his wife. In about 1895, Charles was admitted as patient at a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan so that he could be treated for poor health problems and stress.  The Kellogg family had a stake in the sanitarium and they were already in the cereal business in Battle Creek and Post decided to learn more about that business even while he was a patient.  The Post family moved for a while to a ranch near Fort Worth, Texas and the town of Post, Texas is named for him.  Back in Michigan, he started his second career in breakfast foods which was even more successful that his farm machinery businesses in Illinois had been. Charles died in 1914 at age 60.

The daughter of Charles W. Post was Marjorie Merriweather Post who is pictured at right in the 1950s.  Majorie was one of the most successful and wealthiest American business women of the 20th Century and she was also the founder of General Foods Corporation in 1929. 

Like her father Charles, Marjorie Merriweather Post was also born in Springfield, Illinois on March 15, 1887.  She was the only child of Charles who later invented a coffee subsitute called Postum and many other inventions.  She was also his sole heir.  Her father died in 1914 leaving Marjorie his fortune including the Post Cereal Company.  But Marjorie would greatly expand on her father's fortune in the 1920s.  Marjorie was married four times.  Her second husband was financier E.F. Hutton who helped her launch Birdseye Frozen Foods and other brands that became part of General Foods, which she and Hutton founded in 1929.  Majroie divorced Hutton in 1935.  The couple had one daughter, actress Dina Merill.

From 1935 to 1955, Marjorie was married to her third husband Ambassador Joseph Davies, a Washington attorney.  Davies was for a time US ambassador to the Soviet Union under FDR just before America entered World War II.  Even though the USSR was a wartime ally of the United States, some diplomats thought Davies was a little too enthusiastic in favor of brutal dictatorship of Marshall Josef Stalin.  Davies wrote the controversial book called Mission to Mosow that was also made into an embarrasingly pro-Soviet movie starring Walter Huston as Davies.  On trips to Russia with her husband the ambassador, Marjorie Post purchased a number of valuable Russian Imperial Faberge eggs and assembled one of the finest such collections of jewel-decorated eggs in the world.  Her fourth husband was an heir to the May Department Store chain but that marriage was brief.  In the 1950s Marjorie became a socialite and art collector.  She mostly lived at Mar-A-Largo in Palm Beach, Florida and at Hillwood, her estate in Washington, DC, which is now a museum that houses her art collection.  She made contributions to cultural centers such as Wolf Trap Barns in Virginia and the C.W. Post College in Long Island, New York.  Marjorie died in 1973 at the age of 86.

The company that Marjorie Merriweather Post founded in 1929, General Foods Corporation, went through a long evolution of mergers and acquisitions to the present time.  Sixteen years after her death, another complex series of mergers culminated in 1989 with a huge corporate conglomerate of Post products, Oscar Mayer, Phillip Morris, Nabisco, R.J. Reynolds, Standard Brands, Lifesavers candy, Planters Peanuts. Maxwell House Coffee, Altoids, Tang breakfast drink, Grey Poupon mustard, Del Monte canned products, products of Beatrice Foods, A-1 Steak Sauce, Chicago-based Kraft Foods and other product lines.  The conglomerate by 1990 was called Kraft General Foods, International.

By Mark Rhoads

Charles W. Post is shown at right with his only daughter Marjorie Merriwether Post in 1888.  The father and daughter were two of America's most successful food marketing pioneers. Charles W. Post was born in Springfield, Illinois on Oct. 26, 1854.  He was an inventor, entrepreneur, adventurer, industrialist, and philanthropist who invented farm machinery and cereals such as Post Toasties, Grape-Nuts, Post Raisin Bran, and other popular breakfast products sold by the Post Cereal Company that he founded.  He made a personal fortune of $5 million in five years, which was considerable in the 1890s for the food industry. Charles attended the Illinois Industrial University in Urbana that later became the University of Illinois.  Still in his teens, he joined the Illinois Governor's Guard, later called the Illinois National Guard.  With a friend and business partner Charles Moody, Charles travelled the Oklahoma Territory, Kansas, and the Southwest looking for business opportunities.  On November 4, 1874 Charles married his childhood sweetheart Ella Merriweather and the couple lived in her hometown of Pawnee, Illinois also in Sangamon County and a short distance from Springfield. 

Charles rounded up investors for his farm machinery businesses in the late 1870s.  Companies he founded included Post Capitol City Cultivators in Springfield and Illinois Agricultural Works.  Between 1879 and 1897, Charles W. Post invented and received patents for inventions such as the Mechanical Seed Planter, the Steam Pump, two types of Cultivators, The Sulky Plow, The Harrow, the Haystacker, and various cooking utensils.  Post changed fashion for men when he received a patent on his particular invention of elastic suspenders in 1893.  He had other patents on a two-wheel bicycle and the perforated paper rolls that coded musical compositions for player pianos. In 1895 Post might have been experiencing a nervous breakdown due to a dispute with a banker in Springfield who induced his parents to put up collateral for a note connected to his business.  The demands of business and his success also took a toll on his health and that of his wife. In about 1895, Charles was admitted as patient at a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan so that he could be treated for poor health problems and stress.  The Kellogg family had a stake in the sanitarium and they were already in the cereal business in Battle Creek and Post decided to learn more about that business even while he was a patient.  The Post family moved for a while to a ranch near Fort Worth, Texas and the town of Post, Texas is named for him.  Back in Michigan, he started his second career in breakfast foods which was even more successful that his farm machinery businesses in Illinois had been. Charles died in 1914 at age 60.

The daughter of Charles W. Post was Marjorie Merriweather Post who is pictured at right in the 1950s.  Majorie was one of the most successful and wealthiest American business women of the 20th Century and she was also the founder of General Foods Corporation in 1929. 

Like her father Charles, Marjorie Merriweather Post was also born in Springfield, Illinois on March 15, 1887.  She was the only child of Charles who later invented a coffee subsitute called Postum and many other inventions.  She was also his sole heir.  Her father died in 1914 leaving Marjorie his fortune including the Post Cereal Company.  But Marjorie would greatly expand on her father's fortune in the 1920s.  Marjorie was married four times.  Her second husband was financier E.F. Hutton who helped her launch Birdseye Frozen Foods and other brands that became part of General Foods, which she and Hutton founded in 1929.  Majroie divorced Hutton in 1935.  The couple had one daughter, actress Dina Merill.

From 1935 to 1955, Marjorie was married to her third husband Ambassador Joseph Davies, a Washington attorney.  Davies was for a time US ambassador to the Soviet Union under FDR just before America entered World War II.  Even though the USSR was a wartime ally of the United States, some diplomats thought Davies was a little too enthusiastic in favor of brutal dictatorship of Marshall Josef Stalin.  Davies wrote the controversial book called Mission to Mosow that was also made into an embarrasingly pro-Soviet movie starring Walter Huston as Davies.  On trips to Russia with her husband the ambassador, Marjorie Post purchased a number of valuable Russian Imperial Faberge eggs and assembled one of the finest such collections of jewel-decorated eggs in the world.  Her fourth husband was an heir to the May Department Store chain but that marriage was brief.  In the 1950s Marjorie became a socialite and art collector.  She mostly lived at Mar-A-Largo in Palm Beach, Florida and at Hillwood, her estate in Washington, DC, which is now a museum that houses her art collection.  She made contributions to cultural centers such as Wolf Trap Barns in Virginia and the C.W. Post College in Long Island, New York.  Marjorie died in 1973 at the age of 86.

The company that Marjorie Merriweather Post founded in 1929, General Foods Corporation, went through a long evolution of mergers and acquisitions to the present time.  Sixteen years after her death, another complex series of mergers culminated in 1989 with a huge corporate conglomerate of Post products, Oscar Mayer, Phillip Morris, Nabisco, R.J. Reynolds, Standard Brands, Lifesavers candy, Planters Peanuts. Maxwell House Coffee, Altoids, Tang breakfast drink, Grey Poupon mustard, Del Monte canned products, products of Beatrice Foods, A-1 Steak Sauce, Chicago-based Kraft Foods and other product lines.  The conglomerate by 1990 was called Kraft General Foods, International.