Kellogg, W. K.

Extract

Kellogg, W. K. (07 April 1860–06 October 1951), founder of the Kellogg Company and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, founder of the Kellogg Company and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, was born Willie Keith Kellogg in Battle Creek, Michigan, the son of John Preston Kellogg, a broommaker and a leader of the newly established Seventh-day Adventist church, and his second wife, Ann Janette Stanley. Believing that Christ’s second coming was imminent, Kellogg’s parents provided only a scant education for most of the seven of their eleven children who survived infancy. By the time he was in his early teens, Kellogg, who legally changed his name to Will Keith and who preferred to be called W. K., had begun working as a traveling salesman of brooms, and by age nineteen he was manager of a broom factory in Dallas, Texas. Returning to Michigan in 1880, Kellogg completed a three-month business course at Parson’s Business College in Kalamazoo and went to work for his older brother, the flamboyant physician, author, and inventor Dr. ...