Marjorie Merriweather Post was an American business-woman and philanthropist.
Background
He was born on March 25, 1887 in Springfield, Illinois, United States, the only child of Charles William Post, an inventor and salesman, and Ella Letitia Merriweather; both were descendants of colonial settlers. The Posts moved in 1891 to Battle Creek, Michigan, where C. W. Post was treated for a digestive ailment at Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's sanitarium. Kellogg's dietary innovations inspired Post to develop an alternative to coffee by mixing bran, wheat berries, and molasses to create a drink called Postum. Through his clever advertisements and development of other products, namely Grape Nuts and Post Toasties, C. W. Post had grossed $10 million by 1903.
Education
Although Marjorie Post attended the Battle Creek public schools and Mount Vernon Seminary in Washington (1901 - 1904), it was her "extracurricular activities" that shaped this chubby-cheeked adolescent into her later role as society's grand dame. Towing along with her father, the young tycoon attended board meetings of the Postum Cereal Company, toured factories, went to Europe annually to observe dietary innovations, and even went disguised as a boy to a boxing match. On these trips C. W. 's maxim "Do not let money possess you. Do good with it" took hold in his pupil's mind.
Career
Her father's suicide in 1914 upset her tranquil world as a Greenwich, Connecticut, matron; she inherited the Postum Cereal Company and several million dollars. Close assumed his wife's place as the company's director, but he maintained a passive role, retaining all the old hands and investing surplus funds in tax-exempt bonds. Marjorie Post Close occasionally visited the company's office in New York City, but she left Battle Creek to its own devices.
Her second husband E. F. Hutton had the aggressiveness needed to further the fortunes of the Postum Company. When Hutton made the Postum Company a publicly traded corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1922, his wife still retained a majority interest in the company plus $10 million for the 200, 000 shares she relinquished. Under Hutton's leadership, the company acquired fifteen grocery and food manufacturers including Jell-O, Baker's Chocolate, Log Cabin Syrup, Maxwell House Coffee, and Hellmann's Mayonnaise. But it was Marjorie Post Hutton's insistence for three years, over her husband's objections, that led the Postum Cereal Company to purchase a frozen food concern run by Clarence Birdseye for $22 million. In 1929, the Postum Cereal Company was renamed General Foods Corporation, and it developed into the largest food business in the United States.
During the Depression she subsidized a soup kitchen run by the Salvation Army in New York City, earning her the title "Lady Bountiful of Hell's Kitchen. " She also served on the women's council of the United States Flag Association and received its Cross of Honor in 1932.
After the divorce she became director of the General Foods Corporation, a position she held until 1958 when she was named director emerita. Following a series of ministrokes, Post died at her Hillwood estate.
Achievements
Politics
She supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal policies.
Personality
Post had matured from a shy, midwestern girl into a self-assured woman. Pictures record her blossoming from a comely, placid matron into a vibrant woman sporting the stylish bobbed hair of the roaring twenties.
At the age of seventy, Marjorie Post was renowned for her beauty, organization, and tremendous energy.
Quotes from others about the person
Life magazine profiled "Lady Bountiful" at seventy-eight and wrote that she resembled "a Dresden doll but gives the strong impression of being woven of steel wire. Her step is firm, her stamina is discouraging. She comes into a room and everyone else looks exhausted. "
Connections
A year after her parents divorced, in 1905, Marjorie Post wed Edward Bennett Close, a New York lawyer with ties to old society. They divorced in 1919. In 1921, Post wed the Gatsbyish, self-made New York stockbroker Edward Francis Hutton. Their daughter became the actress Dina Merrill. Marjorie Post's charity work contributed to the breakup of the Huttons' marriage in 1935.
Later in 1935, Post married for a third time, to Joseph E. Davies, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and in 1936 Roosevelt named Davies the U. S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, a post he held from 1936 to 1938. In 1938, Davies became ambassador to Belgium, where the couple resided for a year while World War II was impending. The couple then returned to Washington; their marriage slowly deteriorated and they finally divorced in 1955.
Post was married again in 1958, to Herbert Arthur May, head of Westinghouse Corporation. When the Mays divorced in 1964, Post resumed her maiden name.