Graham, Sylvester:

$3,750 · Offered by William Reese Company

A TREATISE ON BREAD, AND BREAD-MAKING. The scarce first edition of this influential work on dietary reform. Sylvester Graham (1794–1851) was "Jacksonian America's most famous and unrelenting advocate of a vegetarian diet" (Green). His childhood was marked by poverty, instability, and poor health, all of which contributed to his lifelong belief in the connection between moral and physical well-being. After he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1826, he allied himself with the burgeoning temperance movement and established his reputation as a public reformer and lecturer while touring the American Temperance Society circuit. His rhetoric soon evolved to include instruction on vegetarianism. He was a charismatic and accomplished public speaker, but did not achieve prominence until the Cholera epidemic of 1832 thrust his concerns into the spotlight. As the disease ravaged urban populations, Graham's theory of dietary reform gained prominence. "A key component of Graham's meat-free diet was a reevaluation of the bread consumed by Americans to accompany nearly every meal. In the early nineteenth century most bread was baked at home and comprised of corn or rye meal. However, as the decades progressed, cities grew, and men and women joined the industrial workforce, more and more Americans purchased their daily bread from a local baker. Produced in mass batches, this bread differed in composition, often whitened through the process of bolting, which removed the outer casing f

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