American dietary reformer, minister, and founder of Grahamism. Sylvester Graham was born in West Suffield, Connecticut, into a family with a long history of service in the ministry and as physicians. He worked in a variety of occupations, including farmhand, clerk, and teacher, before contracting tuberculosis in the 1820s. He attended Amherst Academy in 1823 to study for the ministry and was eventually ordained a Presbyterian minister. By 1830, he was serving in the Presbytery of Newark, New Jersey. In that year he was also made general agent of the Pennsylvania Temperance Society, with the aim of promoting abstention from alcohol.
By 1830 Graham had combined his ideas about sick¬ ness, temperance, and health into a system of health maintenance and personal hygiene that came to be called Grahamism. Graham advocated a diet including rough, stone-ground whole wheat and other cereals, fresh vegetables and fruits, and pure water. He also recommended cold showers, loose clothing, sleeping on hard mattresses, fresh air, and abstention from sex and alcohol. A practiced orator, Graham drew huge crowds to his lectures partly because of his speaking ability and partly because of his frankness in speaking about bodily functions. At one point, while lecturing in Boston, he was attacked by angry bakers who believed he was ruining their business with his opposition to factory-made breads.