A pioneer in the manufacture and mass marketing of breakfast cereals and other consumer products, Charles William Post (1854-1914) attempted to use his wealth to affect various aspects of early 20th-century American life.

Charles William Post, who preferred to be called C.W., was born on October 26, 1854 in Springfield, Illinois, his parents having migrated there from New England. The gift for language that would make Post's advertisements famous may have been nurtured by his mother, Caroline, whose poetry was published in several magazines. A restless, peripatetic nature passed from Post's father, Charles Rollin Post, who pursued a variety of occupations as he traveled throughout the country, including time at the California gold rush as a forty-niner.

Post's formal education ended at the Illinois Industrial College (later to become the University of Illinois), where he completed only a botany course and withdrew at the age of 15. In 1876 he borrowed...