Author Bibliography (in progress)
Graham, Sylvester (1794-1851)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Sylvester Graham 
was born on 5 July 1794 in Suffield, Connecticut and died on 11 September 1851 in Northampton, Massachusetts. Some controversy surrounded Graham's consumption of meat, ordered by his doctor, at the end of his life. He was a Presbyterian minster and preacher best known as a dietary reformer and promoter of the "Grahamite" diet that was widely adopted, especially in reform circles, in nineteenth-century America. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lydia Maria Child, for instance, were Grahamites. He joined the Philadelphia Temperance Society in 1830, motivated by the belief that consumption (food and drink) directly affects physical and spiritual health. He promoted the drinking of water and an "Edenic" plant-based diet based on hame-made bread made from coarsely-ground flour that contains no additives. As a consequence of the fame of this regime. his name was attached to products like "Graham bread" and "Graham crackers" that were marketed to his followers though he neither endorsed nor profited from them. Grahamism was promoted by the American Physiological Society (1837-1840), established by Graham, Colonel John Benson, and William Alcott; at the same time, with David Cambell, Graham founded The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity. In October 1839, William Alcott annouced the merger of Graham's journal with his Library of Health, “The New Arrangement” (The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity Vol. 3 no. 22 (1839): 355). Graham was a member of the group, including Alcott, William Metcalfe, and Russell Trall which, in 1850, founded the American Vegetarian Society in New York City.
was born on 5 July 1794 in Suffield, Connecticut and died on 11 September 1851 in Northampton, Massachusetts. Some controversy surrounded Graham's consumption of meat, ordered by his doctor, at the end of his life. He was a Presbyterian minster and preacher best known as a dietary reformer and promoter of the "Grahamite" diet that was widely adopted, especially in reform circles, in nineteenth-century America. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lydia Maria Child, for instance, were Grahamites. He joined the Philadelphia Temperance Society in 1830, motivated by the belief that consumption (food and drink) directly affects physical and spiritual health. He promoted the drinking of water and an "Edenic" plant-based diet based on hame-made bread made from coarsely-ground flour that contains no additives. As a consequence of the fame of this regime. his name was attached to products like "Graham bread" and "Graham crackers" that were marketed to his followers though he neither endorsed nor profited from them. Grahamism was promoted by the American Physiological Society (1837-1840), established by Graham, Colonel John Benson, and William Alcott; at the same time, with David Cambell, Graham founded The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity. In October 1839, William Alcott annouced the merger of Graham's journal with his Library of Health, “The New Arrangement” (The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity Vol. 3 no. 22 (1839): 355). Graham was a member of the group, including Alcott, William Metcalfe, and Russell Trall which, in 1850, founded the American Vegetarian Society in New York City.IMAGE: Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
PUBLICATIONS
The Aesculapian Tablets of the Nineteenth Century. Providence: Weeden and Cory, 1834.
A Defence of the Graham System of Living: Or, Remarks on Diet and Regimen. New York: W. Applegate, 1835.
Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life by Lewis Cornaro ... wherein is demonstrated by his own example, the method of preserving health to extreme old age. New York: Mahlon Day, 1833. With introduction and notes by Sylvester Graham.
A Lecture on Epidemic Diseases Generally, and Particularly the Spasmodic Cholera. Boston: D. Cambell, 1838.
Lectures on the Science of Human Life. 2 vols. Boston : Marsh, Capen, Lyon and Webb, 1839.
Lectures on the Science of Human Life: containing three lectures--eighth, the organs and their uses; thirteenth, man's physical nature and the structure of his teeth; fourteenth, the dietetic character of man. 1839, rpt. Battle Creek, MI: Office of the Health Reformer, 1872; rpt. New York: Wells & Co., 1877.
Lectures to Young Men on Chastity. Intended Also for the Serious Consideration of Parents and Guardians. Boston: G.W. Light, 1838. (Prefaced by a “testimonial” by William Alcott).
The Philosophy of Sacred History Considered in Relation to Human Aliment and the Wines of Scripture. Ed. Henry S. Clubb. London: Horsell & Caudwell, 1859.
A Treatise on Bread, and Bread-Making. Boston: Light and Stearns, 1837.
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