Sylvester Graham

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Sylvester Graham, lithograph around 1865

Sylvester Graham (born July 5, 1794 in Suffield , Connecticut , USA , † September 11, 1851 in Northampton , Massachusetts ) was an American preacher and early advocate of a vegetarian reform diet in the USA. He was close to the so-called natural hygiene movement, which generally rejected methods of conventional medicine .

Life

Sylvester Graham was born in 1794 to a pastor who was 70 years old at the time and who died two years later. His mother was probably sick, or at least he grew up with relatives. He worked as a teacher, but left the service early due to massive health problems.

At the age of 32, Graham decided in 1823 to become a Protestant minister and he began an education at Amherst College , which he dropped out. In 1826 he married Sara Eads, a nurse whom he had met as a patient. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church and a little later Graham became a preacher of that church fellowship. He was posted to Newark , New Jersey . Around 1830 he joined the abstinence movement and became a member of the Pennsylvania Temperance Society . He was now giving lectures on the dangers of alcohol, hygiene and healthy living in general.

Graham considered a vegetarian diet to be an effective remedy for alcoholism , but above all for sexual appetite. Although he recognized alcohol as having medicinal benefits, he believes that alcohol should not be misused in social drinking. He also believed that an unhealthy diet leads to excessive sexual desire, which imbalances the body and causes disease. In 1833 he published the book Lecture on Epidemic Diseases Generally and Particulary the Spasmodic Cholera . In it he advocated the theory that unbridled sexuality, "immoral" lifestyles and the consumption of chicken produced cholera . Graham's Journal of Health and Longevity appeared from 1837 to 1839 . In it he also published a treatise on bread and bread- making .

With his theories he succeeded in winning over a crowd of supporters, the so-called grahamites . Nevertheless, many contemporaries ridiculed him for his unshakable and fanatical enthusiasm. According to newspaper reports, numerous women fainted during his lectures whenever he publicly expressed his views on sexuality, especially masturbation , and his aversion to wearing corsets .

In 1829, as part of a diet , he developed the graham bread, which is still known today, made from finely ground whole wheat without the usual additives such as toxic bleaching agents. Another invention was the graham crackers , biscuits made from whole grain cereals. The diet was purely vegetarian and based primarily on fresh fruit and vegetables and whole grains . Meat and spices were taboo. Butter was allowed in small quantities, as was completely fresh milk , cheese and eggs . In his opinion, doing without meat and spices has a dampening effect on the libido . In the United States in the 1830s, the diet found supporters primarily among Puritans . A few restaurants even specialized in the graham diet, including New York and Boston .

In 1837 he was threatened by angry butchers and bakers who tried to prevent him from speaking in Boston because of his diet recommendations.

In 1850 he was one of the founders of the American Vegetarian Society , which was formed on the model of a vegetarian association in England. Although Graham undoubtedly followed his own diet and life rules, he died in Northampton in 1851 at the age of 57.

effect

Graham also influenced other American personalities, including publisher Horace Greeley and naturopathic doctor John Harvey Kellogg , best known today as the founder of Kellogg’s company and the inventor of corn flakes , and who shared Graham's stance on sex, alcohol and meat consumption. Theodor Hahn expressed his ideas about nutrition in Switzerland and Germany .

Today Graham is best known in the USA as the inventor of the graham cracker , although the biscuits sold under this name in supermarkets do not necessarily meet his specifications, since light wheat flour is used and a relatively large amount of sugar is added.

Especially in southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria ( graham rolls ) , graham bread and rolls made from whole-grain meal have held up.

literature

  • Sylvester Graham: The Physiology of Digestion and Nutrition in Healthy and Sick Days. With special reference to meat and vegetable foods. According to the German Uebers. from Lectures on the science of the human life (1839) arr. by E. Weilshäuser ed. by Theodor Hahn . Paul Schettler, Cöthen 1880
  • Sylvester Graham: The daily bread as a natural means to maintain healthy and to restore disturbed digestion. With additions by Theodor Hahn. Paul Schettler, Cöthen 1881
  • Andrew F. Smith (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and drink in America . New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2004)
  • GRAHAM, NEW YEARS . In Encyclopædia Britannica (Vol.V12, p. 318)
  • Edwin G. Burrows, Mike Wallace: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 . New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, (1999)
  • Stephen Nissenbaum: Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform . Dorsey PR 1988, ISBN 0-534-10915-2

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Graham, New Years Eve
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American preacher and early advocate of a vegetarian reform diet in the United States
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1794
PLACE OF BIRTH Suffield , Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1851
Place of death Northampton , Massachusetts