Ferdinand Schumacher: The king of Oatmeal

Ferdinand Schumacher (1822–1908) was born in Celle, Hanover, Germany. He came to Akron in 1851 and there he started a small grocery on Howard Street. Ferdinand did not like to see his customers buying such deluxe and fancy foods. He thought it was a little sinful. Back in Germany in the grocery business, he used to sell a lot of oats, good solid grain that grew good solid people, and cost very little. America ought to be eating it. So, he put in a stock. German and Irish immigrants were his initial customers, since they were accustomed to eating oats and unused to the high cost of American meat.

The Quaker Oats Company traces its history back to 1854 when Ferdinand Schumacher built his first hand-operated mill in Akron. His mission was to introduce steel-cut oats to the American table at a time when oats were considered an inappropriate food for anything but horses.

He perfected two revolutionary milling processes—steel cut oats and rolled oats—and popularized the new breakfast product "oatmeal". During the Civil War, Quaker Oats' popularity mushroomed because of its ease of preparation on the battlefield.

By 1886 Ferdinand Schumacher was known as, “the king of Oatmeal”. He brought the world the cereal, “shoot form guns”, a process done only at the Akron plant.  Through various mergers and acquisitions, Schumacher's company became the "Quaker Oats" Company and the Akron headquarters continued to grow through the 1940's. For a number of years before the turn-of-the-century, Quaker Oats was the biggest industry and the largest single employer of the City.
Ferdinand Schumacher: The king of Oatmeal

Founder of Quaker Oats :Henry Parsons Crowell (1855 to 1944)

Henry Parsons Crowell was born in 1855 and his father was a successful shoe manufacturer.

Henry Parsons Crowell was a philanthropist and founded Quaker Oats. He was an extraordinary Christian businessman who funded many Christian initiatives, including the Moody Bible Institute, despite having to overcome a childhood deadly disease.

In 1881 Harry Crowell then 26-y old purchased a bankrupt mill in Ravenna, Ohio. Crowell became the outright leader when Schumacher, humbled by a devastating mill fire in 1886, joined the Quaker group.

Crowell wasn’t a Quaker, and neither were the two men he bought the mill from. But all three understood the power of reputation.

Oats were then sold in bulk by grocers, who kept them in barrels. Whereas Schumacher had succeeded by selling large volumes of commodity oats, Crowell believed in the future food would be sold by differentiating itself with intelligent marketing. Expanding the market for Quaker’s product beyond traditional oatmeal-eating Scots, Irish, and Germans would require an unprecedented appeal directly to the consumer, making the case for oats as a better way to eat breakfast. Crowell recognized that the group’s oats needed to be separated from the commodity crops that grocers scooped out of bulk barrels.

He quickly gained acceptance from the public in part because of his method of packaging the oats in a two-pound paper package with cooking directions.

Crowell succeeded in business through new techniques of marketing, advertising, and merchandizing. Because of his innovations, the Quaker Oats Company became an industry leader.

The “Quaker” name, chosen to convey the brand’s “frugality, thrift, neatness, orderliness and—above all—its integrity” was Crowell’s chief asset in the merging of the various mills.
Founder of Quaker Oats :Henry Parsons Crowell (1855 to 1944)

Henry D. Seymour of Quaker Oats

William Heston moved who had learned the miller’s trade under tutelage of Schumacher in Akron, moved to Ravenna. Heston and four others organized the Quaker Mill Company in Ravenna. His partners were Henry D. Seymour, Francis B. King, John B. King and Henry H. Stevens.

The company came into being on May 3, 1877. Henry D. Seymour and William Heston registered the Quaker trademark on September 4 1877. Seymour said he came up with the idea after reading an article about Quakers in an encyclopedia.

He was struck by the similarity between the religious group’s qualities and the image he desired for oatmeal.

Not long afterward, Seymour also Heston sold their oat-making venture to an entrepreneur and philanthropist, Henry Parson. In 1888 Quaker Oats combined with other Midwest oat companies to form The American Cereal Company.
Henry D. Seymour of Quaker Oats

Henry Parsons Crowell (1855–1944)

Henry Parsons Crowell was born on January 27th, 1855. He was the son of a Cleveland grocer and he attended the Greylock Institute (Williamstown, MA), but withdrew after contracting tuberculosis in 1873.

Henry Parsons Crowell was known internationally as founder of the Quaker Oats Company. In 1881 Crowell bought an oat mill in nearby Ravenna, Ohio, that had the latest technology for processing oats (including a patent on a device for cutting oats) so that they could be cooked in mush less time than previous methods.

The mill became the first in the world to maintain under one roof operations to grade, clean, hull, cut, package and ship oatmeal to interstate markets in continuous process that in some aspect anticipate the modern assembly line.

Another asset of the Ravenna oat mill was trademark: the figure of a man dressed in old-fashioned Quaker garb and holding a scroll bearing the word “PURE”. In 1877 it became the first registered trademark for a breakfast cereal.

Crowell liked the trademark and promptly named his company Quaker Mill. His shrewd business sense and marketing genius brought him to the highest levels in business. Crowell served as president and chairman of the board of the Quaker Mill, and its successor corporations American Cereal and later Quaker Oats through 1942.
Henry Parsons Crowell (1855–1944)