SYLVESTER GRAHAM AND BERNARR MACFADDEN: THE MOBILIZATION OF HISTORY AT THE NEXUS OF DIET, MORALITY, AND SEXUALITY IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Abstract

This paper explores the history of how food and diet have been discussed in the United States by considering two prominent health reformers: William Sylvester Graham and Bernarr Macfadden. A close analysis of the written work published by each of these individuals reveals that they often mobilized theories of history in order to support the dietary principles they promoted. While they lived and wrote during two different periods, Graham during the early nineteenth century and Macfadden during the twentieth century, their arguments about food both display how ideas about diet function at the nexus of food, morality, religion and sexuality.