Artist: Joseph Allworthy (1892–1991)
Henry Parsons Crowell
CROWELL, HENRY PARSONS (1855–1944), inducted 1940
Best known as the founder of Quaker Oats, Henry Parsons Crowell was an imaginative businessman, designing clever and practical packaging—the first cereal box—and breaking new ground in national advertising. Crowell purchased the bankrupt Quaker Mill, already equipped with the first cereal trademark, in 1881, and he turned it into a thriving corporation with multiple divisions, including commercial animal feed. Born to a wealthy Cleveland family, Crowell contracted tuberculosis as a teenager and spent several years immersed in outdoor activities, including ranching in Iowa. His investment in Quaker eventually made Crowell one of the wealthiest men in America, and he diversified with the Perfection Stove Company and a Percheron horse breeding farm. In 1921, he purchased the 55,000-acre Wyoming Hereford Ranch. Crowell was known for donating seventy percent of his earnings for more than forty years to charity. A major supporter of the Moody Bible Institute, he established the Crowell Trust in 1927, to grant funds to organizations supporting the teaching and the expansion of Evangelical Christianity.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 73