Knox, Charles B. - Biography

Charles B. Knox

Source: History of the Mohawk Valley - Gateway to the West -1614-1925
Covering The Six Counties of Schenectady, Schoharie,
Montgomery, Fulton, Herkimer and Oneida.
Volume IV, Illustrated; Page 484
Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1925

Charles B. Knox image Rose M. Knox image

Charles B. Knox of Johnstown was a true business genius. He founded the Charles B. Knox Gelatine Company, Incorporated, of Johnstown, and built up a large industry on the foundations of a quality product, manufactured on hygienic principles and marketed along the most scientific lines of salesmanship and distribution. To his general business talents Mr. Knox added a genius for advertising, which has been excelled by but few American leaders of industry.
When Mr. Knox died in 1908, his wife, Rose M. Knox, succeeded to the management of the large and growing enterprise which her husband had already developed. Mrs. Knox then brought into the Knox establishment the unusual combination of a true home-lover and home-maker, an aptitude for business which has ever since continued to build up and develop the Charles B. Knox Gelatine Company, Incorporated--one of the truly great and important food industries of the United States.
The story of Mr. and Mrs. Knox, the industry which they developed, and the organization which they built up, is a true romance of American business. Mr. Knox was a knit goods salesman when he married. Mrs. Knox tells of those somewhat lean days in brief by saying that the total capital left her husband after paying the minister was eleven dollars. What those eleven dollars finally did is business history in the city of Johnstown.
As a knit goods salesman Mr. Knox's salary was very modest even for the period of 1890. Mr. and Mrs. Knox then lived in St. Johnsville. Mr. Knox was always seeking an opportunity to develop some commercial enterprise of his own. At this time he learned of a gelatine factory in Johnstown, which had discontinued operations. Mr. and Mrs. Knox had been business partners, from their wedding day. They took their savings, amounting to five thousand dollars, borrowed the balance needed and bought the abandoned manufacturing establishment.
This purchase of the gelatine business took so much of the family capital that Mr. Knox did not have enough money left to go out on the road as his own salesman. With characteristic resourcefulness, he secured a position as a glove salesman and thus was enabled to market Knox Sparkling Gelatine as a side line. Mr. Knox made his gelatine business a family affair. Often he took Mrs. Knox with him on his trips and, when she could not go, he had one of his two sons accompany him. In this way the Knox family became intensively schooled in the salesmanship side of their gelatine industry.
Concerning this unusual family schooling in family business affairs, Mrs. Knox says: "All through my married life and all through the boyhood of our two sons, we three were being brought up to be able to cope with life. We met businessmen and heard the discussions between them and my husband. To his wisdom and patience--for it would probably have been easier many times for him to just go his own way without explanation--we owed much happiness then, and later, safety."
Charles B. Knox was an unusual advertiser for his day. He realized that a food product had to have quality to sell in the open market but he also had a keen realization of the fact that, no matter how good the article, people must know about it before they will buy it. Mr. Knox had what has been fittingly described as "a keen sense of the situation". Knowing he had a worth-while product, Charles B. Knox set about to make Knox Sparkling Gelatine known the country over. He advertised it with dirigible balloons and airplanes when these air navigating machines were in their infancy. Mr. Knox's advertising methods were as varied as his grasp of this interesting and powerful manner of developing business. His methods and his results merit the attention of students of advertising and its professional followers.
When Mr. Knox died in 1908 the direction of his large business interest fell upon the shoulders of his wife, Rose M. Knox. Since that time Mrs. Knox has conducted and directed the Charles B. Knox Gelatine Company, Incorporated, in a manner which has given it a constant development and an increasing importance in the business world. Her son, James E. Knox, is now associated with her as vice president of the company and directs it jointly with his mother, who is still the acting president.
Mrs. Knox has made her business great and successful largely because of her interest in pure foods and their hygienic preparation as exemplified in Knox Sparkling Gelatine. Realizing the food and dietetic value of gelatine, she has successfully endeavored to make Knox Sparkling Gelatine the finest gelatine product on the market.
Mrs. Knox had written the first Knox recipe book many ears before, but after she had been conducting the Knox factory for a few years, experience taught her that she needed to create more recipes, more uses for the product that was growing in popularity to such an extent that she began in her experimental kitchen these new and attractive desserts and salads. New recipes were created to fill the ever increasing need of the housewives, and out of this experience came the famous little booklet, "Dainty Desserts for Dainty People", published for free distribution to help the housewife in her daily task. That booklet has gone through many editions and is recognized internationally today as the leading authority on the making of desserts, salads and gelatine candies. Mrs. Knox's next task was to build a new factory. The old one had grown inadequate for the needs of the growing business and besides Mrs. Knox had her own ideas as to what a modern food factory should be. In designing and laying out the new building, she kept the thought in mind that she must have a large airy, convenient kitchen on the upper floors, where the gelatine was to be handled, and the main floor was to represent the immaculate every-day home where cleanliness, order and system prevailed, and where one found comfort in his surroundings; with the instinct of a good housewife of experience, she proceeded to make it so.
When the new factory at Johnstown was built it was made as nearly fireproof as modern building construction permits. Not only the company's interest but the convenience and comfort of its employees were taken into consideration. There is not a nook in the large building except in the vaults, where the light of day cannot penetrate. Large windows on all four sides of the building and also in the portions connecting the rooms, arranged and shaded in a scientific way, give the best light and ventilation it is possible to obtain. The entire place is fitted up with indirect lighting which is so easy on the eyes.
In the erection of the building the Knox company has not only lived up to the present regulations required by the state board of health, but has anticipated future laws of sanitation. The concrete walls in all the rooms outside of the office have been painted cream, while the floors, of a composition soft and pliable under the feet, have a color scheme of cream and brown.
The employees of the packing department wear white coats and aprons. Realizing that gelatine is a dainty food product, the company has purchased and built various packing and filling machines so that at no time does the pure sparkling gelatine come into contact with hands. One has but to go through the building and see the gelatine packed to discern at once that the whole aim has been to have the home of Knox Sparkling Gelatine as clean and sanitary as it is possible to make it and not to have it exceeded in sanitation and equipment by any building constructed for the manufacture of a high grade food product.
Not only has Johnstown benefited through the publicity given to this model industrial plant but it has also become famous internationally directly through Knox advertising, and the people of the city are appreciative of the fact. The little package of gelatine and he millions of copies of the famous booklet, "Dainty Desserts for Dainty People", which have been sent out all over the world, have found their way into millions of homes, and on each package and booklet can be read the words, "Knox Sparkling Gelatine, Johnstown, New York". The product is widely advertised throughout the country and in every advertisement the fact that the gelatine comes from Johnstown, New York, is very apparent.
The Knox home stands amid beautiful landscaped grounds and although built in modern times, its pure Colonial architecture harmonizes pleasantly, in the mind of the visitor, with the historic surroundings, the tales and the aura of romance that will hang forever over Johnstown. (See Rose Knox link at the bottom of this page, color photo of "Rose Hill".)
The greenhouses on the estate have become famous for their rare orchids. In fact, these orchids are a matter of pride to the whole community, winning as they have every year, prizes in flower shows throughout the country.
Perhaps the best part of the homestead is the fact that it is a real home of kindly and gracious hospitality. Mrs. Knox, although a business woman, acknowledges that woman's first duty lies in her home and what is more, she practices what she preaches. Mrs. Knox is president of the Women's Clubs of Johnstown, an association which is doing a great work for civic and community advancement. One of its recent achievements consists in the securing of a state appropriation for parking and beautifying the state lands adjoining Johnson Hall.
Mr. and Mrs. Knox have always borne a large part in all progressive movements and in the civic and business and community life of the city of Johnstown. Their benefactions have tended materially to increase the graciousness of the life of culture and refinement with its background of historic associations, which so distinguishes the city of Johnstown at this day.