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Charles William (CW) Post (Wikipedia)
Commonly known as "C. W.," Charles William Post was born in October, 1854 in Springfield, Illinois.
He graduated from public schools in Springfield, and then enrolled at Illinois Industrial University, where he remained for two years before leaving without a degree.
After a brief stay in Independence, Kansas, Post returned to Springfield, where he remained for over a decade working as a salesman and manufacturer of agricultural machinery.
During this interval Post invented and patented several farm implements, including a plow, a harrow, and a hay-stacking machine.
Charles William (CW) Post (Wikipedia)
In November 1874, Post married Ella Letitia Merriweather; they had one daughter, Marjorie. Ella supported her husband throughout his career and cared for him when he was ill. As Post became wealthier and began spending more time away from Ella, who was often ill, his relationship with her waned.
Against her wishes, Post separated from her in 1904 and married his second wife, Leila Young, his 27-year-old secretary, in November 1904. Marjorie, who remained close to her father, later said that her mother died of "a broken heart" after Post divorced her and married his secretary. In a deceitful attempt to have his daughter become closer with his secretary (soon to be wife), C. W. hired her to be a travel companion for Marjorie. When Marjorie realized the ruse, she deeply resented Leila.
Post suffered a mental breakdown in November 1885, the result of the stress and overwork as a farm implement manufacturer. He made a break with his previous life, moving to Texas in 1886, where he met a group of real estate developers in Fort Worth who were attempting to establish a new community on the eastern outskirts of a town called Riverside. In 1888, Post began his own real estate development in Fort Worth on 200 acres he had obtained, mapping the land for streets and homes and constructing two mills.
Charles William (CW) Post (Wikipedia)
The stress of this work again proved too much for Post's constitution, and a second breakdown followed in 1891. Post began a period of extensive travels in search of a cure and developed a particular interest in the chemistry of digestion.
After a period travelling in Europe, Post visited the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a facility operated by John Kellogg (brother of Kellogg Company founder Will Kellogg).
Post has been accused of stealing several of Kellogg's recipes, including Kellogg's Caramel Coffee Cereal (Post's Postum), Cornflakes (Toasties), and Malted Nuts (Grape-Nuts).
In 1895, Post founded Postum Cereal Co., with his first product, Postum cereal beverage. Post's first breakfast cereal premiered in 1897, named Grape-Nuts cereal because of the fruity aroma noticed during the manufacturing process and the nutty crunch of the finished product.
In 1904, he followed up with a brand of corn flakes, first called Elijah's Manna, before being renamed Post Toasties in 1908. The British government refused to allow Post to market his cereal in the United Kingdom using the name Elijah's Manna, stating that it was sacrilegious.
Charles William (CW) Post (Wikipedia)
Post was a staunch opponent of the trade union movement and was remembered by the National Association of Manufacturers as one who "opposed bitterly boycotts, strikes, lockouts, picketing and other forms of coercion in the relations between employer and employee."
Post was also a leading public advocate of the open shop system. However, as compensation, Post paid the highest wages, and provided bonuses and benefits. Near Battle Creek, he had model homes built that were sold to employees under certain conditions.
At the end of 1913, the chronically ill Post's health deteriorated to the point that he canceled public appearances. In early March 1914, he was believed to be suffering from appendicitis, was rushed to the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, to be operated on by William and Charles Mayo, regarded as the nation's preeminent surgeons at the time. They operated successfully on Post, but his abdominal pain persisted. He returned to his home in Santa Barbara.
On May 9, 1914, despondent over his ongoing stomach illness and its symptoms, Post committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot. He was 59 years old. His 27-year-old daughter, Marjorie, inherited his company along with most of his vast fortune, one of the largest in the early 20th century.
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
Born on March 15, 1884, in Springfield, Illinois to Charles William Post and Ella Letitia Merriweather, Marjorie spent her childhood on a Battle Creek, Michigan farm.
By then her entrepreneurial father had converted to Christian Science after a long illness, believing that positive thinking and healthy foods were keys to wellness. Since he considered coffee unhealthy, he created a non-caffeinated drink made from roasted wheat bran and molasses, which he named Postum.
As a child Marjorie remembered helping her father paste labels on the jars of his experimental drink. C. W. began advertising his other plant-based foods, Grape-Nuts (1897) and Post Toasties (1904) in newspapers and magazines; by the turn of the century, sales approached a million dollars.
NOTE: Edith Wharton was born in 1862.
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
C. W. then did something Marjorie considered even less “sensible” when he divorced her mother Ella and married his secretary, Leila Young.
A year later, 18-year-old Marjorie announced she intended to wed Edward Close, a young attorney from Greenwich, Connecticut. Their wedding on December 5, 1905, made headlines. One of the New York papers predicted that the Closes “will occupy a prominent position in the younger set for the bride is twice a millionaire. And the bridegroom is a descendant of one the oldest families in the metropolis.”
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
As a wedding gift C.W. presented the newlyweds with a large check and built them an 11- bedroom house in Greenwich, The Boulders.
At first all seemed well as Marjorie and Ed settled into marriage, followed in 1908 by the birth of their daughter Adelaide, and in 1909, Eleanor.
But tensions already clouded the marriage. Ed disapproved of Marjorie’s belief in Christian Science and disdained her fondness for a lavish lifestyle.
Marjorie was no happier with Ed, for she found Greenwich society stuffy and thought Ed drank too much.
By then, too, C. W. realized that despite his hopes, Ed had no real interest in leading the Postum Cereal Company.
On May 9, 1914, C. W. committed suicide, convinced he was terminally ill. The 27-year-old heiress never got over her father’s death.
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
Fortunately, C. W. already had capable managers who continued to run the Postum Cereal Company profitably until the start of World War I.
After the United States entered the war, Ed was drafted, and Marjorie began rolling bandages for the Red Cross. Hoping to make a more significant contribution, she funded an Army hospital ship bound for France. On July 30, 1917, as she and nine-year old Adelaide watched the camouflaged ship leave the harbor, it was inadvertently rammed by the S.S. Panama. Doctors, nurses, soldiers, and the crew were rescued from the sinking ship, but all the medical supplies were lost.
Marjorie would not be deterred. Eight days later she funded a second set of supplies, which were transported on the S. S. Finland to Savenay, France. There her donation helped establish the Number 8 Base Hospital, which became the largest Red Cross facility in wartime Europe.
In 1957, France presented Marjorie with its highest civilian award, the French Legion of Honor [which Edith Wharton also won]. The establishment of the Army hospital also reflected Marjorie’s rapidly evolving personal philosophy: Women, especially wealthy ones, could exercise power by using their money for politically redeeming purposes.
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
Shortly afterwards, Ed returned from Europe, where he received a Medal of Honor from France. Nevertheless, his marriage to Marjorie foundered and ended in divorce.
Several years earlier, she had been introduced to the newly-widowed legendary stockbroker, Edward Francis (E. F.) Hutton. Although short in stature, he was handsome, a dashing dresser and gifted raconteur.
After they married in July 1920, he became the president of the Postum Cereal Company. Three years later Marjorie delivered her third daughter, Nedenia, the future movie star Dina Merrill.
In winter, the Huttons resided in Florida, where they were considered glamorous pacesetters for the “nouveau riche” society then rising in Palm Beach. After living there in several luxurious “cottages,” Marjorie decided to build a larger home where she could entertain in grander style.
Ultimately, she chose 17 acres in a patch of jungle between Lake Worth and the Atlantic. After the plot was cleared of jungle growth, architect Marion Wyeth designed the floor plan with all rooms leading to a central courtyard.
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
Still, she wanted to create a home more unique than the other palatial mansions then rising along the shore. Through a suggestion from her friends, showman Florenz Ziegfeld and his actress wife Billie Burke, she engaged Joseph Urban, a Viennese architect and set designer, who enhanced Wyeth’s design by creating a crescent-shaped Hispano-Mooresque structure topped by a solitary tower. A large, circular patio served as the centerpiece for the 115-room estate. Named Mar-a-Lago from the Latin meaning “from sea to lake,” the Huttons’ new home was completed in 1927 at a staggering price of $2.5 million.
Meanwhile, during the boom years of the Roaring Twenties, E. F. made drastic changes to C. W.’s old company. In 1923, he moved the headquarters of the Postum Cereal Company from Battle Creek to Manhattan and began diversifying its products.
Among the companies he acquired were Jell-O, Swans Down Cake Flour, Minute Tapioca, Baker’s Chocolate, Hellman's mayonnaise, and Log Cabin Maple Syrup. To reflect that expansion, E.F. changed the corporate name to the Postum Company.
Although Marjorie knew her father disapproved of coffee, E. F. added a competitor, Sanka. Still more upsetting was E. F.’s 1927 acquisition of Maxwell House Coffee since she had been raised with the idea that “coffee was just like taking dope.”
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
A few months later Marjorie made her own contribution to the Postum Company. One day while she and E. F. sailed their yacht, the Hussar, to Gloucester, Massachusetts, their cook served them a delicious roasted goose. When she asked where he bought it, the cook said it came from a frozen food company owned by Clarence Birdseye.
In that era, frozen foods were generally of poor quality, so out of curiosity the heiress visited Birdseye at his company, General Seafood Corporation. There she learned that Birdseye had perfected a quick-freeze method for fish he had observed in Labrador practiced by the Inuit.
Marjorie remembered the hours her mother Ella spent canning foods on the Battle Creek farm and was convinced that Birdseye’s frozen foods would be a welcome product for the Postum Company.
“I’m speaking for the housewife here,” she told her husband. “Frozen foods will reduce her work considerably. It’s an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.”
E. F., however, claimed the idea was impractical since grocers would have to install freezers in their stores to sell it. “Believe me, Ned, they’ll buy the appliances. They’ll do it,” Marjorie insisted. Months passed as E.F continued to ignore his wife’s pleas.
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
Finally in 1929 he agreed to buy Birdseye’s General Seafood Corporation, even though the price had nearly doubled to $22 million. After the sale in July 1929 the name Postum Company seemed inadequate, so E.F. had it changed on the New York Stock Exchange to the General Foods Corporation.
Four months later in October, the stock market crashed. By then, the high cost of building Mar-a-Lago and disagreements over Birdseye’s frozen foods had already strained the Huttons’ marriage. Appalled by the onset of the Great Depression — with the rising unemployment of millions of workers, reports of men jumping from skyscrapers, and the rise of Hoovervilles, or tent cities, in big cities — Marjorie became so distressed that she resolved to help.
Among her efforts was sponsorship of a charity ball at Madison Square Garden and leadership of a gifts campaign of the Salvation Army Women’s Emergency Aid Committee. She also stood at rush hour on the corner of Park Avenue and 46th Street to collect money from workers returning home for the Gibson Unemployment Relief Committee.
The heiress also put her jewelry in a safe and used the saved insurance money to create the Marjorie Post Hutton Canteen for women and children
Biography (from Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 14, 2023)
E. F., however, thought little of her charitable acts, disapproved of Roosevelt’s relief efforts, and even criticized the president in an essay in the Detroit Free Press for “adopting as his own the rabble-rousing battle cry of ‘soaking the rich.’”
Marjorie was aghast. That, combined with her discovery that her husband was sleeping with her French maid, finally ended the marriage.
In 1935, Post married her third husband, Joseph E. Davies, a Washington, D.C., lawyer. They had no children and were divorced in 1955. From November 1936 to June 1938, in a crucial period leading up to World War II, Davies served as the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, ruled at that time by Joseph Stalin. Post accompanied Davies to Moscow, and they acquired many valuable Russian works of art from Soviet authorities at very reasonable prices.
Post's final marriage, in 1958, was to Herbert A. May, a wealthy Pittsburgh businessman and the former master of fox hounds of the Rolling Rock Hunt Club in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. That marriage ended in divorce in May 1964 and she subsequently reclaimed the name Marjorie Merriweather Post.
Over the next four decades of her life until her death in 1973, Marjorie became one of America’s leading philanthropists who supported institutions such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Boy Scouts of America, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the future Kennedy Center for the Arts.
Jewelry
Some of Post's jewelry, bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is displayed in the Harry Winston exhibit.
Pieces in the collection include the Napoleon Diamond Necklace and the Marie Louise Diadem, a 275-ct diamond-and-turquoise necklace and tiara set that Napoleon I gave to his second wife, Empress Marie Louise; the Marie Antoinette Diamond Earrings, a pair of diamond earrings set with pear shapes, weighing 14 ct and 20 ct, once belonging to Marie Antoinette; the Blue Heart Diamond, a 30.82-ct heart-shaped blue diamond ring; and an emerald-and-diamond necklace and ring, once belonging to Habsburg aristocrat and one time emperor of Mexico, Maximilian.
Jewelry collection
Russian Art
According to the Hermitage Museum Foundation, Post was a Russophile. During the 1930s, the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin began selling art treasures and other valuables seized from the Romanov family and former Russian aristocrats after the Russian Revolution to earn hard currency for its industrialization and military armament programs. Critics have claimed that these items were expropriated; however, the transactions by Post and her third husband, Joseph E. Davies, were from the recognized governmental authority. Neither Post nor Davies were involved with the original seizing of the items.
Allegations later surfaced that many works of art from the Tretyakov Gallery and other collections were either donated or offered at nominal prices to the couple, who were both art collectors. Davies is also alleged to have purchased art expropriated from Soviet citizens well after the Russian Revolution, including victims of Stalin's Terror at discount prices from Soviet authorities.
Many of the items, which remain under the control of the Post estate or its agents, can be viewed at Hillwood, her former estate. Hillwood has operated as a private museum since Post's death and displays her French and Russian art collection, featuring the work of Fabergé, Sèvres porcelain, French furniture, tapestries, and paintings.
Homes
Over the years, Post acquired several grand estates, which she ran meticulously.
In the mid 1950s, she settled on a rotation among three residences:
the luxurious Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida;
the rustic Camp Topridge located north of Saranac Lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains;
and Hillwood, her primary home, in Washington, D.C.
For a video, see:
From Hillwood (https://hillwoodmuseum.org/museum)
During the second decade of the twentieth century, Post's taste for collecting was shaped. A young woman of great wealth living in New York, married to Edward Bennett Close and a mother of two, Post began to furnish her elegant new interiors according to the most current trends in design.
She developed a preference for the arts of late 18th-century France, in particular the neoclassical style of Louis XVI—a style that was in vogue among New York’s fashionable society. The elements of harmony, balance, delicate decoration, and superb craftsmanship that defined this period continued to guide Post’s collecting taste for the rest of her life.
Sir Joseph Duveen
Few influences played a more critical role in the development of Post’s collecting tastes than Sir Joseph Duveen, a British art dealer whose clients included Henry Clay Frick, J. P. Morgan, Andrew Mellon, and John D. Rockefeller. Duveen introduced Post to the arts and culture of 18th century France.
Though she avoided his enticements to develop a taste for the Old Masters, it is through Duveen that Post carved a niche for herself among the discerning collectors of European works of art through her purchases of furniture and tapestries.
From Hillwood
Frozen Peas to Fabergé
During Post’s second marriage to financier E.F. Hutton, the Huttons epitomized the Roaring 20s lifestyle and Post grew ever more socially practiced, hosting a stream of charity and philanthropic events in New York and Palm Beach.
She further refined her collecting tastes during the 1920s, turning her attention to the acquisition of fine Sèvres porcelain, outstanding examples of French furniture, and a collection of gold boxes that proclaimed her taste for the jeweled object and, later, Fabergé.
In the 1920s Post built and decorated her legendary and multiple residences, including a fifty-four-room New York apartment; her Palm Beach estate, Mar-A-Lago; Camp Hutridge (later Topridge) in the Adirondacks; and her well-appointed four-masted yacht, which Post decorated to perfection.
In the 1930s Post accompanied her third husband, Joseph E. Davies, to the Soviet Union, where he served as ambassador. During these years, the Soviet government was nearing the end of its efforts to sell treasures it had seized from the church, the imperial family, and the aristocracy in an effort to finance the new government's industrialization plan. Exploring commission shops and state-run storerooms, Post discovered that the fine and decorative arts of imperial Russia appealed to her taste for finely crafted objects and ignited a new collecting passion and pioneering effort in the field of Russian art.
From Hillwood
At Spaso House, the American embassy in Moscow, Post welcomed the role of diplomatic hostess and sharpened the skills that prepared her for the world of politics, diplomacy, and philanthropy that awaited her in Washington, D.C.
Following her divorce from Davies in 1955, Post purchased Hillwood, which remained her Washington residence for the rest of her life. The mandate for her architects and designers was to refurbish the 1920s neo-Georgian house into a more stately dwelling that could function both as a well-staffed home and as a place to showcase her collections.
Post promptly became one of Washington’s top hostesses and her legendary parties were inseparable from the political, business, and social fabric of Washington, D.C. With her full-time live-in and local staff, she organized memorable spring garden teas for hundreds of Washington guests, and invitations to formal dinners at Hillwood were highly-prized.
From Hillwood
In addition to spending the spring and fall at Hillwood, Post maintained an estate in Palm Beach, Mar-A-Lago, where she spent the winter and a camp in the Adirondacks, Camp Topridge, where she entertained guests throughout the summer. Travel between these three diverse properties was facilitated by her well trained staff and private airplane, the Merriweather.
Post's patriotism and passion continued to guide her life of philanthropy at Hillwood. Crowning a fifty-year commitment to supporting American soldiers and veterans of war, in the 1960s and 1970s Post opened Hillwood to Vietnam veterans, including wounded Marines and Navy corpsmen from Bethesda Naval Hospital, and patients from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, for tea on the Lunar Lawn and live entertainment, allowing them an afternoon of respite and leisurely enjoyment.
The effect of her generosity on Washington continues to be felt today. She gave generously and often anonymously and was active in group efforts to raise money for the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center, and the Washington Ballet Guild, among many others—with Hillwood as her final and lasting legacy.
Hillwood
In addition to the building itself—and the beautifully designed gardens surrounding it—the mansion houses an extensive collection of 18th- and 19th-century European fine and decorative art, carefully acquired throughout the life of its owner, Marjorie Merriweather Post.
To experience the exquisite beauty of the furniture and appointments at Hillwood is to begin to appreciate Post’s discerning eye and her desire to create a museum where others could share her fascination with the artistry of the 18th and 19th centuries. . . . it was through dealers here and abroad that her taste was honed as her acquisition of furniture, tapestries, and porcelain increased—a passion that continued with each new home.
She began acquiring French tapestries in 1919, then antique furniture. Working with some of the best-known designers and dealers played a significant role in her knowledge and appreciation of 18th- and 19th-century art and cultural treasures as her collection continued to grow.
Hillwood French Drawing Room
The painted and gilt wood paneling was brought from a Parisian mansion dating to King Louis XVI.
Hillwood Dining Room
The crown jewel of the room is the table, with a mosaic top containing eleven different stones; it sat up to 30 guests. Commissioned in 1927 from the hardstone workshop in Florence, the table was originally designed for Mar-A-Lago in 1927. A provision in her will called for its move to Hillwood following her death.
Hillwood Library
Hillwood Breakfast Room
The design of this space recalls the breakfast room in Post’s New York City apartment and the bronze metalwork that lines the space comes directly from that fashionable Upper East Side residence.
A green chandelier from a bedroom used by Catherine the Great in the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo ties the breakfast room to the magnificent Russian collection.
Hillwood Marjorie's Bedroom
The dressing room served as Post’s morning office. There she took her breakfast, discussed menus with the butler and correspondence with her secretary, and otherwise ordered her day.
This room has an extensive system of closets. Slightly altered from their original size, the hallway contains built-in display cases used to showcase pieces of Post’s jewelry and other fashion accessories. In two closets are a showcase of vintage gowns from the apparel and accessories collection.
Mar-a-Lago
After inheriting her father's estate, Post built Mar-a-Lago between 1924 and 1927 at the cost of $7 million. She furnished it with unusual and intriguing pieces, including a Spanish rug dating to the 1500s and the stone-inlaid dining table which seats 30 and weighs 2,000 pounds. The table now resides at Hillwood, where the dining room floor had to be shored up to accommodate its weight.
In 1936, while living in Moscow as the wife of Joseph Davies, the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, she purchased national treasures formerly owned by the Russian aristocracy and ecclesiastical vessels and garments—items being sold to fund the industrial revolution.
Among them were gem-encrusted gold chalices and other sacred vessels from Moscow and St. Petersburg that had been washed in silver to disguise the fact that they were gold and, therefore, likely to be melted down for the military treasury.
While in Moscow, she became fascinated with Russian icons, many of which were gold-framed and studded with gems. Fortunate to be there when they were being sold off at a pittance, she purchased several, as well as various heavily-embroidered religious vestments.
According to Wilfried Zeisler, Deputy Director and Chief Curator at Hillwood,
“These religious objects were first to be sold by the Soviet authorities. By acquiring them, Post preserved them for future generations to enjoy, as she did for many other works now in our collection.”
Homes
Her life in Europe ended in 1939 when war broke out, but that did not dampen her enthusiasm for collecting. From amassing Fabergé eggs of all sizes, many of which are displayed in the Icon Room on the second floor of Hillwood, it was a natural transition to small gold, silver, enameled, and bejeweled treasures: pocket and wrist watches, enamel pendants, snuff boxes in various sizes, presentation boxes, and small colorful figurines.
After her divorce from Davies in 1955, Post acquired Hillwood on 25 acres of parkland in northwest Washington and launched a two-year renovation of the estate. She began displaying the collections at Hillwood in 1957 as an educational resource and opened the museum to the public in 1977.
According to Elizabeth Axelson, Marketing, Communications, and Digital Engagement Manager,
“She always intended that her acquisitions should be on view to the public and appreciated for what they were: the expression of the talents of some of the most talented artists of cultures and techniques that were centuries old.”
Homes
Personally, she admired strong women, among them Marie Antoinette of France and Catherine the Great of Russia. So when she could, Post collected portraits of these women as well as small trinkets and jewelry believed to have been owned by them. Acquiring those portraits led to a more extensive collection, which includes Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra.
She was interested in the story behind her acquisitions, too. A roll-top desk once belonging to Marie Antoinette resided in her bedroom, and her collection of jewels and jewelry includes not only pieces she chose for their sheer beauty but also gem-encrusted items of historic significance. Notable among them is the 1894 nuptial crown of Nicholas and Alexandra, designed in silver and velvet with 1,535 diamonds.
Her collection of apparel includes Russian and French reception and evening gowns from the early 20th century as well as some of her own more cherished ensembles.
Videos
Houses and Collections of MM Post
First Penthouse
What Happened to the many mansion of MM Post
Hillwood and gems
PBS—about Marjorie Post's Russian art collection
Next Week:
Allison Pataki's The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post
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