Christianization

In 1835 Graham furthered his development of a unified theory of diet, publishing A Defence of the Graham System of Living. Poor diet was endemic in America, a result of the malevolent effects of “Luxury, soft enervating Luxury,” which had “lulled her victims into a fatal security” that would ultimately lead to self-destruction. Graham warned that the effects of a pernicious diet went further than just the individual. The nation itself was at risk of becoming degraded by overindulgence and luxury that had “destroyed our health, perverted our morals, debased our intellects, and, in its prevalence[,] . . . may foresee the downfall of a people, once famed for their intelligence, their virtue, and their freedom.” American opulence created moral and social ills, Graham argued, including “our diseases, our deformities, our poverty, and our slavery.”   

The city brought forth “the noxious effects of impure air, sedentary habits, and unwholesome employments,” all of which pulled individuals further from physical and mental health. The growing metropolises of antebellum America were fi lled with a variety of urban amusements that Graham viewed as threatening vices. Saloons, brothels, and dining establishments with their alcohol, sex for gratifi cation, and overly taxing foods all provided services that Graham warned against as causing moral and physical failure. These distractions not only led individuals to falter but also ensured that they would remain disconnected from their natural physical state.  

Graham’s attacks resonated in the rapidly developing industrial capitalist society of the Northeast, which freed individuals from the rigors of farm life yet at the same time destabilized the very social structures that had previously provided stability and comfort. The ascendance of the self-made man was contrasted among concerned politicians with the foppish aristocrats who purportedly composed the European ruling class, described by John Adams in 1819 as “producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly.”  Free individuals had the opportunity and ability to create their own identities and build their own lives; however, with this freedom came the opportunity to fail as well as succeed. The same stark choice, according to proto-vegetarians, applied to dietary practices, which could influence and even dictate moral and physical well-being.  

Animal foods were primarily to blame for personal vice, according to Graham, causing “a coarseness and ferocity of disposition” that rendered   “the temper irritable and petulant; the passion of anger is either induced or strengthened by its use.” Meat consumption made humans no better than the violent members of the animal kingdom that fed on the flesh of other animals. This distinction helps explain Graham and his followers’ lack of interest in animal welfare. Meatless dietary reform was predicated on the notion that humans had the ability and responsibility to use logic and analysis to make the best possible choices. Instinct and desire dictated the actions of lower animals rather than rationale and self-control. Evils such as poverty and slavery could only exist in a society where humanity exhibited animalistic qualities of cruelty and aggression.  

With the success of Graham’s lectures came a growing community of both devoted minions and frustrated critics. Detractors argued that Graham was antiscientific, a proud, vain, and demagogic speaker who offered exaggeration and blustery language rather than empirical proof. To his followers, Graham was a prophet who gave practical advice for improved health, spirit, and intellect.  

By the mid-1830s a distinct community was created by adherents to Graham’s diet. Known as Grahamites, these individuals attempted to apply Graham’s dietetic principles to everyday life. Many followers simply applied Graham’s principles to their own kitchens, baking Graham bread, drinking cold water, and eating a vegetable diet, particularly in places like the South where few other Grahamites existed. Others—mainly urban and northeastern residents—crafted a Grahamite community through building and living in public institutions aimed at gaining converts and saving lost carnivores. The boardinghouse, with its promises of room, board, and kinship, became the center of urban Grahamite living.

Asenath Nicholson—an abolitionist, writer, and former teacher— opened her first Graham boardinghouse in New York City at 118 Williams Street in 1835, following it up three years later with another home at 21 Beekman Street. The so-called Temperance Boarding House offered Grahamites the basics of boardinghouse living—a place to sleep, three meals a day, and social interaction—with the added supplies necessary to live a Graham-endorsed life. A vegetable diet was offered; and breakfast, dinner, and supper were served in a communal dining area to encourage interaction among the faithful. Cold baths, hard mattresses, and Graham bread were mandated in order to encourage health, circulation, and proper digestion. 

Located in an area filled with reform organizations—the American Anti-Slavery Society’s offi ces were down the block at 48 Beekman— Nicholson’s temperance boardinghouse served as a meeting place for New York’s reform-minded citizens. While dietetics may have been a central fi xation of the home’s residents, an all-encompassing attitude toward social reform prevailed. According to William Tyler, a professor of Latin and Greek at Amherst College and a resident of the Graham House on William Street, “the Boarders in this establishment are not only Grahamites but Garrisonites—not only reformers in diet, but radicalists in Politics. Such a knot of Abolitionists I never before fell in with.”

Most important, the boardinghouse ensured interaction between Grahamites, who shared experiences, meals, and ideologies. Grahamites were no longer content to share their dietary theories solely in lecture halls. Reformers also desired to live in communities of like-minded individuals within the urban landscape. The boardinghouse provided inhabitants meatless fare and the opportunity to discuss the important issues of the day—dietetics, slavery, suff rage, and temperance.  

Sylvester Graham himself was not directly involved in the day-to-day operations of the boardinghouses he inspired. As much as Graham was responsible for the spreading of early proto-vegetarianism, practitioners morphed the ideology into a variety of life experiences. As Nicholson noted, while Graham served as an inspiration, his lectures and writings were merely “a starting point to be enlarged and improved as practice might suggest.” Graham’s dietary principles served as the backbone for boardinghouse life; how these ideals were enacted depended on a variety of local forces including geography, economics, and demographics. Despite this disconnect, during the 1830s and 1840s proto-vegetarians were largely labeled Grahamites, by themselves and others, because of Graham’s prominent public persona.  

But why the need for Grahamite boardinghouses in cities rather than the private practice of a Grahamite lifestyle? Urban areas, stricken with perceived vice and degradation, were seen as both morally and physically dangerous by reformers. New York City, with its commercial sex districts and visible brothels, was seen as particularly threatening to young, middle-class men living on their own, renting rooms throughout the city. One publication remarked on the Beekman Street home’s demographics, finding it “truly surprising to see how many temporary sojourners in the city, from different parts of the country, take lodgings at the Graham House, in order to be accommodated with the plain mode of living they practise at home.”  

Nicholson recognized the existence of these threats, believing that a Graham lifestyle provided moral clarity to her boarders and encouraged positive dietary habits by creating a small community of Grahamite practitioners.  Noting that “flesh-eating produces a moral obtuseness and irritableness of spirit,” Nicholson offered Graham bread, fresh vegetables, and cold baths in order to produce a “firmness of nerve, and clearness of intellect” to better prepare her residents for the dangers of city life. The proof of the diet’s success, Nicholson pointed out, was in the level of health of the houses’ residents, who exhibited “not a shadow of cholera . . . and the prevailing influenza, which has taken the lives of many.” With a proper, natural diet and a little exercise and fresh air, boardinghouse residents were able to overcome any illnesses that might appear. 

All boardinghouses had house rules prescribing meal times, visitor policies, and cost. Nicholson’s Grahamite home was guided by a litany of regulations, thirteen principles of the natural life inspired by Graham and his lectures. Visitors agreed to abide by these rules in order to remain in good standing as residents of the boardinghouse. Democratic principles allowed for some amendment of the regulations, relying on boarder votes to change prescribed dinner and supper times. Feather mattresses were banned, as Graham lectured that soft beds diminished “physiological powers.”  Exercise was mandated for residents, either a thirty-to-sixty-minute walk or a slow horse ride, though guidelines encouraged residents to avoid “all violence and excess” in their efforts. Lastly, during a time when regular bathing was rare, residents were required to take a daily sponge bath and at least one full bath per week.

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In 1835, Nicholson authored the first American vegetarian cookbook, Nature's Own Book.[5] Nicholson stated that "good bread, pure water, ripe fruit, and vegetables are my meat and drink exclusively." The book utilized some recipes with dairy, but Nicholson personally advocated against its use.[6]

Nicholson also authored, Kitchen Philosophy for Vegetarians.[7] The book was published by William Horsell in 1849. A review in the Vegetarian Advocate, noted that "butter and eggs are excluded" from the recipes.[8] The Vegan Society have cited the book as the first vegan cookbook.[9]

William Alcott was one of the founding and leading members of the APS and lent credibility to the growth of the meatless cause. He began advocating for a vegetable diet by the early 1830s, the heyday of Grahamism. Unlike Graham, however, Alcott was a formally trained physician, graduating from Yale University in 1836. He began publishing a series of treatises attacking such vices as alcohol, tobacco, and sexual intemperance. Alcott’s advocacy of a meatless diet gained mass exposure for the first time in a letter supporting the Graham system, which he published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in May 1836.  A war of words had broken out in the journal between Sylvester Graham and Thomas Lee, superintendent of the McLean Asylum in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Lee claimed that Grahamism was “destructive in its operation,” a cause of insanity and “emasculation.” Graham, charged Lee, was “an intolerable impostor.” Further, Lee claimed, Graham believed that it would be better for a patient to starve to death rather than dine on flesh foods. Graham, in response, defended himself and his dietary system, accusing Lee of being driven by “a morbidly excited imagination” and producing a “most dangerous article to be thrown before the public.” Graham concluded that Lee was threatened by new ideas, part of a medical establishment apt to treat its patients with “flesh, wine and opium.”  A month later, William Alcott entered the fray. Writing to the journal in defense of the Graham system, Alcott emphasized his own credentials as a trained medical professional. Alcott claimed that doctors like Lee were driven by “prejudice” and “supposed facts.” Medical doctors were usually reasonable and rational. When it came to the Graham system, however, established medicine was “exceedingly lame” in its observations. Alcott argued that millions of laborers worldwide—particularly in northern Europe—had subsisted on vegetable diets for years and did not go insane. The letter closed with Alcott’s own conversion story, claiming to have “abstained suddenly, about six years ago, from animal food, and from all fermented, narcotic, and alcoholic drinks; and have confi ned myself, to this hour, to vegetable food and water.” The results were immediately observable to himself and those around him, causing “great gain” in mind and body. Alcott ended his missive by asking the public at large to judge whether or not he—a medical doctor, aft er all—was in the throes of insanity. 

This debate illustrated a larger change for proto-vegetarianism as the movement began shifting. Graham and his followers were harsh critics of doctors and established medical science. However, in the late 1830s food reformers began emphasizing meatless fare’s legitimacy based on the scientific principles of physiology. Proto-vegetarians during this period defi ned themselves by proclaiming their medical expertise rather than their perspectives as outsiders. Organizations such as the American Physiological Society used medical credentials to support their controversial calls for dietary reform.  

The closing of the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity at the end of 1839 enabled Alcott’s Library of Health to emerge as the new public voice of meat abstention in the United States. Although not an official voice of the APS, Library of Health frequently reported on its activities. Originally published in 1837, Alcott’s journal was similar to the Graham Journal in structure. However, Library of Health touted its writers’ credentials as medical experts, advocating a vegetable diet as one component of healthy living. The journal hoped to take advantage of Alcott’s medical pedigree, assuring readers that “we began the following volume with the full intention of striking a heavy blow at quackery. . . . Quackery is not confined to the venders of nostrums, nor to any one class of citizens; it is rife everywhere.” Library of Health sought to distance itself from the claims of pseudo-science and religious heresy that traditionally followed meat abstainers, arguing that dietary reform “is indeed nothing less than the application of Christianity to the physical condition and wants of man.”

Library of Health featured medical experts in its defense of a meat-free diet, further diff erentiating itself from the Grahamites’ more personal notion of medical care, a view that attacked mainstream medical practitioners. Amariah Bringham, superintendent of the Retreat for the Insane in Hartford, Connecticut, argued that flesh foods caused “an inflammatory fever of an unusual character for children” and that “infants who are accustomed to eat much animal food become robust, but at the same time passionate, violent and brutal.” Alcott noted the efforts of one medical doctor who opposed the use of emetics to induce vomiting. The doctor’s opinion was reached through years of observation, viewing irritated, expanded stomachs that suffered from poor digestion for years afterward.  Reuben Mussey, a medical doctor, dietary and health reformer, and future president of the American Medical Association, frequently contributed to the journal. Mussey was regarded for his work exposing the poisonous nature of tobacco, which he claimed caused dizziness, stomach pain, and swollen feet. Another medical expert reported that hot drinks and foods made individuals more apt to catch a cold because extreme temperatures acted as a stimulant on the body. Alcott emphasized scientific credentials in appealing to the masses, subtitling a treatise on the merits of a vegetable diet “ As Sanctioned by Medical Men .”

 Library of Health warned against the perils of dietary intemperance in all its forms. Poisoned cheese was widely available in the marketplace; an article claimed that small amounts of arsenic were used to tenderize curds, an assertion similar to Graham’s criticisms of the bread making industry. Late, heavy suppers were described as being “prejudicial to health,” leading to digestive problems and poor sleep. Condiments and sweets were condemned, as were complex, diversified diets; simplicity was far more advantageous and less stimulating. These criticisms were similar to Graham’s but were expressed through the language of medical expertise. Through 1839, the journal dealt with dietary issues in a generalized manner, rather than advocating the specific advantages of a meatless diet.

In April 1837, the fi rst issue of the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity became available to the public. The journal served as a catalyst for a significant shift in the development of proto-vegetarianism. The new journal promoted Sylvester Graham’s diet as well as his writings, lecture tours, and other public appearances, helping to expand the diet’s prominence and reputation. Graham regularly contributed to the journal, providing both new essays as well as excerpts from his previously published books and pamphlets. However, the journal—despite bearing the name of the movement’s founder—was published independently of Sylvester Graham, who was not directly involved in its production. Thus while the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity helped further expose the masses to Sylvester Graham and his ideology, it also emphasized that the actions of individuals helped determine its success. The journal helped further develop a nationwide community that, for the time being, bore Graham’s name. However, the journal relied on the work of other writers, editors, and reformers to accelerate the spread of meatless dietetics.  

The publisher of the new journal was David Cambell, owner of the first Graham boardinghouse in Boston. The journal quickly spread its reach throughout the United States. During its first three months of publication, only thirty-eight local agents were listed as selling the Graham Journal in twelve states. By October of the same year, 108 agents were selling the journal in fift een states, as far west as St. Louis; south to Macon, Georgia; and throughout all of New England. 123 In 1839, its final year of publishing, New Jersey was added to this list of states, and the journal was sold by a total of 140 agents.  

The journal featured a wide variety of articles and followed a similar structure in each of its biweekly issues. It opened with a series of letters and endorsements, offering the familiar conversion narrative structure of redemption. Nathaniel Perry of Boston, writing in the first issue, recollected that soon after marrying he “began to indulge in what is called by most people, good living,” consisting of “roast and fried meats, of all kinds, and poultry with their rich gravies.” Meat and alcohol led to a battle with rheumatism, constant headaches, canker sores, and tooth decay.  

Perry hit bottom when a dyspeptic stomach left him unable to attend to his business dealings or even leave his house. After hearing Graham lecture in Boston, Perry “became interested in the principles he taught; and finally adopted them in diet and regimen.” The results were nearly immediate, Perry reported, with all maladies gone within a month. He slept soundly, and at fifty years of age could attest to “good health,” “the keenest relish for my food,” and an “elastic, energetic, untiring” ability to labor.  Both lay Grahamites and professional medical doctors wrote testimonials, attempting to lend populist and professional credibility to the cause. 

In each issue Sylvester Graham himself was represented by an article, often a summary, excerpt, or reworking of themes and arguments made in lectures and published works on the science of human life or bread making.  The journal also included articles focused on anatomy and the inner workings of the human body as proof of the benefits of a meatless diet. Charts, figures, and drawings frequently accompanied these articles, attempting to make scientific arguments accessible to the average reader.  

In a series of articles appearing in the journal, William Beaumont—a famed U. S. army surgeon—wrote on his observations of human digestion. Beaumont’s research was based on fi rsthand observation of Alexis St. Martin, a patient who had been accidentally shot in the stomach. This wound caused a fistula, an observable hole in St. Martin’s stomach leading to the digestive track. Beaumont placed various foods on a string in order to observe how food stuff s were broken down, leading to the observation that stomach acids helped digest food into various nutrients. Beaumont’s experiments illustrated that vegetables were easily broken down by stomach acid, in contrast to various meat products, which were “partly digested,” observable proof of Grahamites’ claims that meat was difficult to break down into digestible matter.  

Issues also included recipes, further linking Grahamites through common gastronomy. The recipes expanded the Grahamite diet beyond cold water and Graham bread, teaching meatless epicures how to properly prepare vegetables, bake pies, and prepare grains. By expanding the repertoire of meatless cookery, the Graham Journal ironically further shifted proto-vegetarianism away from Graham. The publication closed with an advertising section, offering information on where to buy the journal and find Grahamite boardinghouses, literature, and dietary products.  

Health advocates frequently wrote letters to the journal, though not always in support of meatless dietetics. One concerned reformer wrote with the desire to express a few “hasty remarks” regarding the journal’s advocacy for a vegetable diet. Not all advocates of dietary reform were followers of Graham, he argued. While admitting that Graham’s diet had beneficial effects, the writer said he would call “no man master” and was writing to the journal to “protest against the common notion that the efforts of the advocates of physiological reform are designed solely or mainly to bring about the disuse of animal food.” The writer believed that “there are far worse articles of food in common use than healthy flesh-meat. . . . A man may be a pure vegetable liver, and yet his diet be far less favorable to health than a diet of animal food might be.” The letter concluded with a call for further scientific study into the eff ects of all dietary practices, stating that “we do not aim at dietetic reform solely—we advocate physiological reform.”  The anonymous writer raised an important question for those interested in dietary reform to consider: Should the movement focus on a dogmatic dedication to a meatless diet or advocate for scientific study to continually redefi ne the most benefi cial diet?  

The fate of the journal at the end of 1839 seems to have offered an answer to the lingering question over the aims of dietary reformers, indicating that total dietary reform had become preferable to Grahamism. After three years of weekly publication, the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity ceased production, with its last issue dated December 14, 1839. The journal had originally planned to release a fourth edition, promising potential subscribers seven free issues for the remainder of 1839 when opening a new account for the coming year. This enticement to subscribe seems to indicate significant financial diffi culty for Cambell and the journal.

The fate of the journal at the end of 1839 seems to have offered an answer to the lingering question over the aims of dietary reformers, indicating that total dietary reform had become preferable to Grahamism. After three years of weekly publication, the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity ceased production, with its last issue dated December 14, 1839. The journal had originally planned to release a fourth edition, promising potential subscribers seven free issues for the remainder of 1839 when opening a new account for the coming year.  This enticement to subscribe seems to indicate significant financial difficulty for Cambell and the journal.  

In the October 12 issue, the journal announced a merger with the Library of Health, edited by William Alcott, second cousin of the young Louisa May Alcott. The Library of Health began publishing in 1837, the same year as the Graham Journal, and offered similar articles focusing on physiology, temperance, and a natural diet, though without the shadow of a singular, dominant, and emblematic leader to define the movement. Alcott himself was a regular contributor to the Graham Journal and a passionate advocate for a vegetable diet. However, he was also an experienced medical doctor, symbolically indicating a shift in meatless dietetics toward part of total dietary reform rather than a goal unto itself. Given the synergies between the two journals and the apparent financial difficulties Cambell faced, the merger was unavoidable. The effort to detaching the meat-free diet from Graham’s shadow had begun. In the process a new movement began to emerge, one indebted to Graham for its birth but dependent on separation to continue to grow.

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In twenty short years, meat abstention had moved from the domain of a small, localized religious movement focused on spiritual ascension to a growing community throughout the United States attached to the scientific and moral reform principles of Sylvester Graham. Originally the realm of the Bible Christian Church, meatless dietary reform evolved into an all encompassing ideology that sought to negotiate the challenges and tensions inherent in a rapidly modernizing industrial and urban environment.  However, both groups were interested in the total reform possibilities connected to abstaining from meat.  

By the 1830s, Grahamism became the most recognized lifestyle attached to meat abstention in the United States, eliciting praise from its adherents and harsh criticism from its opponents. Dietary reformers opened Grahamite boardinghouses in urban areas to serve as moral guardians while creating a larger community of interconnected dietary reformers. The printed word, meanwhile, supported the continued growth of this new community, conjoining Grahamites from disparate geographic regions while providing a forum to offer scientific proof of the diet’s success. The group’s existence, however, would be relatively short-lived. But as Graham’s failing health pushed him into quasi-retirement, his community of meat-abstaining followers did not disappear. Rather, they continued to grow and reinvent themselves