Pictures

These are some random pictures I found of Kellogg related things

Kellogg had the Kellogg High school built in 1932. Providing jobs for thousands of local construction workers during the depression.

Corn Flakes was the very first cereal produced my Kellogg, when the business was originally founded as the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes Company in 1906.

 The main problem I've been having with doing a city like Battle Creek isn't that there is not enough information but that there is almost too much. There is information about Battle Creek for years and years involving a ton of different topics. I maybe changing my topic because it maybe easier to shuffle through information on a town that only started because of a single industry as opposed to an industry that keep a city afloat during the depression that was already established.

Possible Paper Topic

I'm thinking about possible using Battle Creek as my research paper city and the effect the cereal company's, mainly Kellogg and how it affected the city during the great depression.

I found an short article online about it.

"As the speculators were converging on the “Health City” looking for easy money, W. K. Kellogg was working for his brother at the San.  He, too, had dreams of starting his own company, building on the expertise he had gained in managing the San’s complex business operations.  In 1902 he was finally ready to “go out for himself” when a disastrous fire destroyed the San.  Unable to walk away from his brother and the institution to which he had devoted almost a quarter of a century, W. K. stayed and supervised the rebuilding of the San.  It was not until 1906 that he was able to realize his dream and start the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company.

Through the use of sophisticated advertising techniques, technical advances in manufacturing and packaging and a shrewd sense of the public taste, Kellogg soon built a thriving company.  As the company expanded and his personal fortune increased, W. K. became increasingly mindful of the obligations which wealth imposed.  In 1925 he decided to “invest his money in people” and asked three friends to organize the Fellowship Corporation to study the needs of children in the community.  This was the beginning of one of the most far reaching philanthropic efforts in the nation, known since 1930 as the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

Many feel that the citizens of Battle Creek escaped the worst effects of the Depression, partially due to the creative work of W. K. Kellogg, the Kellogg Company and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.  In 1930 the Kellogg Company adopted a six-hour work day and added a fourth shift, to increase the factory’s work force by 25%, while still keeping wages relatively stable.  Work on the W. K. Kellogg Junior High School and Auditorium began in 1932, to create construction jobs for local men. 

In addition, since cereal was a relatively inexpensive, good tasting and filling food, Battle Creek’s cereal companies were busy during the 1930s, keeping thousands of local men and women employed during the 1930s."

from http://www.heritagebattlecreek.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=61

I can't decide if using a bigger industrial city like Battle Creek will work well for the type of research paper that were doing. It maybe easier to find a city, like the coal mining towns that there is really only one industry or company that makes the city thrive.

First Post......

My name is Jason Allen and I'm a Junior with History as my major. I transferred to MSU from LCC and this is my first semester at MSU. The area of history I'm most interested in is European history with no particular specific time period. I'm also thinking about minoring Italian and concentrating on Italian history. The majority of my experience with history is through textbooks, though I have traveled to Italy. I've had mostly American history courses, though have had British, African, and General World History courses also.