The four were American Oats and Barley Oatmeal Corporation, German Mills Oatmeal Company, the John Stuart Mill of Cedar Rapids and the Quaker Mill of Ravenna, Ohio.
Ferdinand Schumacher (1822-1908) who emigrated from Germany to Akron, Ohio in 1851 opened a small grocery store there. Among the products he marketed were oats.
But to his surprise most customers, German and Irish immigrants considered oats unfit for human consumption; oats qualified as livestock feed and little else. He began the cereals revolution in 1854 with hand oats grinder in the back room of small store in Akron.
He advertised the article regionally like a exchange for morning meal hog meat. He improved manufactures techniques – (steel cutter, porcelain, ameliorated hullers), rolled into one with an inflow of German and Irish newcomers, swiftly boosted selling and yields.
In 1856, Schumacher purchased a mill and launched a second business with greater potential than the grocery, the German Mills American Oatmeal factory.
His German Mills American Oatmeal Company was the nation’s first commercial oatmeal manufacturer.
In 1877, Schumacher adopted the Quaker symbol, the first registered trademark for breakfast cereal.
German Mills American Oatmeal
