Box of Quaker Oats
Perhaps the image most associated with Quakers is the smiling gentleman in historic clothes on a Box of Quaker Oats.
However, there is no actual formal association between the Society of Friends and the well-known cereal.
The Quaker Mill Company
The Quaker Mill Company of Ravenna, Ohio, was founded in 1877, and that same year it registered the trademark on the Quaker name, the world's first trademark for a breakfast cereal. In 1901, the mill merged with three others and the Quaker Oats Company name came into existence.
The company chose to use the name 'Quaker' because Quakers had a well-earned reputation for honesty, integrity, and purity.
How the Quakers got their name
The Quakers got their name following the trial of George Fox for blasphemy in 1650 in Derby, England. Fox, who was one of several founders of the Society, is said to have told the judge after the guilty verdict that he should “tremble at the word of the Lord”.
In reply, the judge mockingly called Fox and his followers in court 'Quakers'.
It is also likely that Friends had been called 'Quakers' before this due to their ecstatic shaking when worshipping, but the judge's name-calling made sure the name stuck.
The image of William Penn
Apart from the name, the Quaker Oats Company uses Quaker imagery in its logo. The company has used the logo from its inception, a figure of a Quaker man depicted full-length, sometimes holding a scroll with the word 'Pure' written across it.
The company originally based the Quaker man upon William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, whom it described in 1909 as a “standard bearer of the Quakers and of Quaker Oats”. However, today, the Quaker Oats Company says of the logo:
“The 'Quaker man' does not represent an actual person. His image is that of a man dressed in Quaker garb, chosen because the Quaker faith projected the values of honesty, integrity, purity and strength.”
The gentleman on the box still smiles out at breakfast tables everywhere — dressed as a Quaker, but Quaker in name only.