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A pre-World War I ad introduced Washington's coffee to the public.

George Washington (c. 1872 - 1946) was an American inventor and businessman of Anglo-Belgian origin. He is best remembered for his invention of an early instant coffee process and for the company he founded to mass-produce it, the G. Washington Coffee Refining Company.

An emigrant from his native Belgium, he dabbled in several technical fields before hitting upon instant coffee manufacture during a sojourn in Central America. Based in New York and New Jersey, his company prospered and became an important military supplier during World War I. The company was sold to American Home Products in 1943, shortly before Washington's death.

Early life, personal life and family

George Washington was born in Kortrijk, Belgium in about 1872, to parents of English and Belgian ancestry. At least six siblings in the family also settled in different parts of the United States and Central America.[1] A number of accounts claim a relation to the President Washington, but this is not clearly explained.[2]

Washington came to reside in Brussels, before emigrating to the United States. Despite his birthplace, he noted himself a British subject on some of his early American patent applications, though sometimes he just noted his origin in the Kingdom of Belgium. He came to the New York area in 1895, and founded a company producing kerosene gas mantles.[3] At this time he lived in New Brighton on Staten Island, but his company, George Washington Lighting Company, was based in nearby Jersey City. Washington also had a camera company for a time. He tried his hand at cattle ranching in Guatemala in 1907, but in the meantime developed his instant coffee process.[4]

But he returned to New York City the following year, and after his coffee business was established, lived in Brooklyn, New York York City, with a second home at Bellport in Suffolk County. When his company's operations relocated to New Jersey, Washington moved to the former estate of Governor Franklin Murphy at "Franklin Farms" in Mendham[5], later a wartime refuge of Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky and his London students[6][7].

Washington set aside a large menagerie on his property in New Jersey, with deer, llamas and zebras among the hundreds of animals.[8]

He was a member of the Lotos Club, a literary gentlemen's club in New York City.[9]

Washington's name was briefly put forward for the 1920 presidential election in South Dakota's preference primary for the "American Party", although papers were filed too late to be valid.[10] There is no indication, however, that the nomination was serious. George Washington would not have been eligible for that office, in any case, as he was foreign-born. There have been several "American Party"s in history — in 1920, former Texas governor James E. Ferguson actually ran under that label.

That's the fellow. He has put one over on us. He has a barrel of money —- enough to run a slambang campaign. Why, don't you remember, he just bought that $100,000 mansion from Albert Feltman on Prospect Park West. He's learned a lot about politics by being a neighbor of Senator Calder and George Hamlin Childs. And when you come to think of it, that American Party stuff is good campaign dope this year, what with all the Bolsheviki and the Government after the Reds and the row about the League of Nations, and all that. We've been overlooking something for sure.

— Brooklyn politician (unnamed), The New York Times

Washington married Lina Van Neiuvenhuys, also from Belgium[11] and they had three children, George Washington Jr., Lina Washington and a Mrs. Herman B. Esslen.[12] George Washington Jr. served for a time as treasurer of his father's company, and, like his father, dabbled in invention, patenting a widely used photoengraving process for newspapers that was introduced by Fairchild Camera and Instrument in 1948.[13]

He died on March 29, 1946 at the age of 74, after an extended illness, and his funeral was held three days later.[14][15]

Invention and business

This advertisement compares instant coffee to the "purity" of white refined sugar.

George Washington held over two dozen patents, in the fields of hydrocarbon lamps, cameras and food processing. He was not the first to invent an instant coffee process (Satori Kato's work was a notablr precursor, among others), but his was the first effort that led to commercial manufacture.

He started selling the product in 1909, and the company was founded in 1910.[16] Washington's first production plant was at 147 41st Street in Brooklyn's Bush Terminal industrial complex. The company later moved operations to New Jersey, acquiring the land for the new plant at 45 Hannover Avenue in Morris Plains in 1927.[17]

Advertising for the product often emphasized its supposed convenience, modernity and purity. It was claimed to be better for digestion, and even that the "pure" coffee did not have the wakefulness effect of coffee from ground beans (a direct effect of caffeine content, present in both forms). After World War I ended, the American military's use of the coffee became another selling point.

But the early instant coffee was also often considered of poor quality, and of disagreeable taste. It was something of a novelty product, as used by the general public.[18]

The company sponsored a "Sherlock Holmes" radio series on NBC and the Blue Network from 1930 to 1935.[19]

Washington experienced some tax trouble with federal authorities, concerning the financial relationship between himself and his company. In November 1918, he contracted with the company for the use of his trade secrets in the manufacture of the coffee, and a month later gave a four-fifths stake in this to his immediate family. The Washingtons insisted that taxes needn't be paid on the family members' income, and the case went first to the Board of Tax Appeals, and then to the Circuit Court, which in 1927 ruled against the Washingtons by a two-to-one decision. A petition to the Supreme Court was not accepted.[20]

Military contracts

After World War I, the coffee was reintroduced to the public with the slogan, Went to War! Home Again.

Washington's at-that-time unique product saw major use as combat rations in World War I. Coffee consumption on the battlefield was seen as valuable since it gave soldiers a caffeine boost.[21] It was employed by the Canadian Expeditionary Force from 1914 until the American Expeditionary Force entered the war in 1917, and all production was shifted toward American military use.

American rations consisted of a quarter ounce (7 grams) packet of double-strength instant coffee, packed one per man in containers with multiple types of foods meant for twenty-four men in emergency conditions.[22]

During World War II, the U.S. military again relied on Washington, but this time in combination with other instant coffee brands that had emerged in the inter-war period, most notably Nescafé, as well as several new companies formed to meet the great military demand.[23]

Fate of company

G. Washington Coffee Refining Company was purchased by American Home Products in 1943, and George Washington retired. The purchase of the company, which was mostly held by the family, was in exchange for 29,860 shares (approx. $1.7 million) of American Home Products stock, at a time when American Home Products was in a period of intense buying, purchasing 34 companies in eight years.[24][25] Clarence Mark, general manager of G. Washington succeeded Washington in running the merged unit; the brand itself was discontinued by 1961, when Washington's New Jersey plant was sold to Tenco, by then a division of The Coca-Cola Company.[26]

Patents

References

  1. ^ "G. Washington, 74; Began Coffee Firm", The New York Times, March 30, 1946.
  2. ^ (1925). The Story of a Pantry Shelf: An Outline History of Grocery Specialties. New York, New York: Butterick Publishing Company. online here
  3. ^ "G. Washington, 74; Began Coffee Firm", The New York Times, March 30, 1946.
  4. ^ AP. "G. Washington Is Dead, Made Instant Coffee", The New York Herald Tribune, March 29, 1946.
  5. ^ "Coffee Company Builds New Plant", The New York Times, May 26, 1927.
  6. ^ Taylor, Merrily E. (1978). P. D. Ouspensky: A Biographical Outline. Informational brochure from Yale University Library.
  7. ^ Munson, Gorham (1950). "Black Sheep Philosophers: Gurdjieff—Ouspensky—Orage". Tomorrow 9 (6), 20–25.
  8. ^ "G. Washington, 74; Began Coffee Firm", The New York Times, March 30, 1946.
  9. ^ "G. Washington, 74; Began Coffee Firm", The New York Times, March 30, 1946.
  10. ^ "Presidency Candidate Found in Brooklyn", The New York Times, January 4, 1920.
  11. ^ "Mrs. George Washington", The New York Times, October 30, 1952.
  12. ^ "G. Washington, 74; Began Coffee Firm", The New York Times, March 30, 1946. "Mrs. Herman B. Esslen" not further identified in obituary.
  13. ^ "George Washington Jr. is Dead; Invented an Engraving Device", The New York Times, December 27, 1966.
  14. ^ "G. Washington, 74; Began Coffee Firm", The New York Times, March 30, 1946.
  15. ^ "Deaths", The New York Times, March 30, 1946.
  16. ^ "G. Washington, 74; Began Coffee Firm", The New York Times, March 30, 1946.
  17. ^ "Coffee Company Builds New Plant", The New York Times, May 26, 1927.
  18. ^ Talbot, John M. (1997). "The Struggle for Control of a Commodity Chain: Instant Coffee from Latin America". Latin American Research Review 32 (2), 117-135.
  19. ^ Haendiges, Jerry. "Sherlock Holmes episodic log". The Vintage Radio Place. Retrieved on March 27, 2007.
  20. ^ "George Washington Sues", The New York Times, May 26, 1927.
  21. ^ Talbot, John M. (1997). "The Struggle for Control of a Commodity Chain: Instant Coffee from Latin America". Latin American Research Review 32 (2), 117-135.
  22. ^ (1925). The Story of a Pantry Shelf: An Outline History of Grocery Specialties. New York, New York: Butterick Publishing Company. online here
  23. ^ Talbot, John M. (1997). "The Struggle for Control of a Commodity Chain: Instant Coffee from Latin America". Latin American Research Review 32 (2), 117-135.
  24. ^ "To Buy Coffee Company", The New York Times, April 8, 1943.
  25. ^ "Buy, Buy, Buy", Time, December 6, 1943.
  26. ^ Talbot, John M. (1997). "The Struggle for Control of a Commodity Chain: Instant Coffee from Latin America". Latin American Research Review 32 (2), 117-135.
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