Quick Facts
Biography
Austin Church (January 8, 1799 – August 7, 1879) was an American medical doctor and a pioneer manufacturer of bicarbonate of soda. He was one of the founders of the company that first made the product in America. His company was the first to use the Arm & Hammer trademark to sell this product as a baking soda.
Early life
Church, the son of Oliver Church and his wife Elizabeth (née Cone) Church, was born in East Haddam, Connecticut on January 8, 1799. His father was a school teacher. His mother and father died while he was still a child leaving him an orphan with little means. However, Church did finish high school and put himself through Yale Medical School to become a medical doctor. He began his medical career in Utica, New York in 1824. In 1826 he moved and practiced in Cooperstown, New York and in 1829 he moved to Ithaca, New York.
Career
Church began in 1834 to experiment with sodium carbonate and carbon dioxide for a yeast substitute for making bread rise in the baking process. This bicarbonate of soda became a replacement of the potash then used for baking purposes. Church gave up his medical practice and established a factory to make pearlash and saleratus in Rochester, New York. He partnered with his brother-in-law John Dwight in 1846 and first started manufacturing the baking soda from Dwight's farmhouse. Church and Dwight moved the business called John Dwight & Company to New York City just west of 10th Avenue at 25th Street. The product became the first commercially produced bicarbonate of soda manufactured in the United States.
Church and Dwight packaged the product themselves in one-pound (450 g) brightly colored bags for grocery store shelves. The sales increased from one ton of production in 1846 to over 10,000 tons a year some thirty years later. The factory that produced the baking soda was in Brooklyn where Church lived for twenty-five years. The main office of the company was on Front Street in Rochester, New York. Church and Dwight in the mid-1860s showed an interest in their sons becoming partners in their company, however a recent investor in the company objected. Church then resigned from the company and in 1867 founded Church & Company of Massachusetts with his sons. They adopted the Arm & Hammer trademark from the Vulcan Spice Mills company that was owned by one of Church's sons and used it to sell baking soda. It was the same product as Cow Brand. Dwight continued selling the original baking product under his Cow Brand trademark. Church and Dwight remained friends and competed for 29 years.
The two firms joined back together again in 1896 and became Church and Dwight Company. The Cow Brand and Arm & Hammer Brand were seen by the public as one and the same, so both logos were often used after the merger. One example was where they gave away recipe books with both trademarks on the cover. This new company was for fifty years one of the most well known grocery store supply vendors in the United States. Dwight was the first president of Church and Dwight Company and continued that position until his death in 1903.
Organizations
Church was known as a generous contributor to various charities across the country.
Family
Church married on May 3, 1827, the daughter of Elihu Dwight, a physician of South Hadley, Massachusetts, Nancy Dwight. They had two sons and two daughters. Nancy was the older sibling to John Dwight.
Later life and death
Church retired from the business of manufacturing bicarbonate of soda in 1876. He lived to celebrate his golden wedding anniversary in 1877. Church died in Brooklyn, New York, on August 7, 1879. His two sons, E. Dwight Church and James Austin Church, managed Church and Dwight Company after his death.