John Harvey Kellogg (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) was an American businessman, inventor, and physician. He was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, founded by members of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. The sanitarium combined aspects of a European spa, a hydrotherapy institution, a hospital and high-class hotel, and treated both the rich and famous, as well as the poor who could not afford other hospitals. Kellogg was an advocate of theological modernism and the Progressive Movement. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, his "development of dry breakfast cereals was largely responsible for the creation of the flaked-cereal industry." However, popular misconceptions falsely attribute various cultural practices, inventions, and historical events to Kellogg.
John Harvey Kellogg was born in 1852 in Michigan to John Preston Kellogg and Ann Janette Stanley. His father was a member of various revivalist movements and established a broom factory in Battle Creek where John Harvey left school at the age of 11 to work. He began working for Ellen G. White and her husband James Springer White, rising from errand boy to editor, and following their recommendations for a vegetarian diet. Kellogg hoped to become a teacher but was convinced by his family to attend medical school at Russell Trall's Hygieo-Therapeutic College and later the University of Michigan and Bellevue Hospital Medical College. In 1876, he became the director of the Western Health Reform Institute, which he renamed to the Battle Creek Medical Surgical Sanitarium. Kellogg married Ella Ervilla Eaton and they fostered and legally adopted eight children. Kellogg died in 1943 and left his estate to the Race Betterment Foundation.
John Harvey Kellogg was brought up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and held a prominent role as a speaker at church meetings. Kellogg rejected Christian fundamentalism and promoted the tenets of theological modernism. He rejected many traditional tenets of Nicene Christianity, viewing the atonement of Jesus as his exemplary life on earth rather than the Cross. Kellogg defended "the harmony of science and the Bible" throughout his career, attempting to reconcile science and medicine with religion, and emphasizing the presence of God within God's creation of living things. Kellogg's views on indwelling divinity were seen as evidence of panentheistic tendencies by some of his co-religionists.
John Harvey Kellogg was the chief medical officer of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was operated based on the Seventh-day Adventist Church's health principles, including promoting a vegetarian diet, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and exercise. Kellogg was a strong advocate of nuts, and he developed various vegetarian food products, including Nuttolene and Protose. He believed that most disease could be alleviated by a change in intestinal flora and advocated for the frequent use of enemas to cleanse the bowel and replace intestinal flora with yogurt. The sanitarium also promoted breathing exercises, mealtime marches, and phototherapy. Kellogg was a skilled surgeon who provided free services to indigent patients and had many notable patients, including William Howard Taft, Amelia Earhart, and Thomas Edison. Overall, Kellogg's work at the Battle Creek Sanitarium was focused on promoting a healthy lifestyle through diet, exercise, and hygiene practices. He believed that natural remedies could alleviate most diseases and that enemas and yogurt could help promote healthy intestinal flora. The sanitarium's practices were based on Seventh-day Adventist health principles and also included breathing exercises, mealtime marches, and phototherapy. Kellogg was a skilled surgeon who provided free services to indigent patients and treated many notable patients throughout his career.