Ancestors & Family

Charles Alfred Pillsbury

1842-1899 Pillsbury Company Founder

From his final speech to the business community as head of the Pillsbury company:

“There are many manufacturers and businessmen who are always looking to Wall Street for evidence of prosperity. They will always look in vain. Let them look to the agricultural and laboring communities. If prosperity and contentment are to reign there, then it must certainly bring prosperity to all.” -Minneapolis Tribune, August 1897

Along with a brand name, Charles A. Pillsbury gave his descendants an example of what it means to run a socially responsible business. He was a man  ahead of his time who prioritized the welfare of his employees and their communities, in line with today’s growing interest in considering social and environmental factors in making investments.

The company he started with his uncle and father became one of the largest flour milling firms in the world during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Even with his interest in marketing, he never could have anticipated the notoriety that came a century later when a Chicago ad agency created a company mascot, the ubiquitous giggling Pillsbury Doughboy.

Early Life

My great grandfather Charles was born in 1842 in the small town of Warner, New Hampshire. The oldest child of George and Margaret Pillsbury, he went to public school in Warner and later in Concord when his father was elected to serve in its voluntary state legislature. As a boy, he delivered papers to help his family, later working in the general store as a shopkeeper.

Charles was the first in his family to seek higher education. He saved enough to access a small “preparatory school” in the nearby town of New London, before being admitted to Dartmouth College. Like many in his class, he paid most of his tuition by teaching part-time for a teaching corps serving the small schoolhouses that dotted the landscape of western New Hampshire and Vermont.

Moving to Canada

After graduating college in 1863, he took a job in Montreal. For six years, Charles worked as a clerk for Buck, Robinson and Co., a produce commission company, helping growers sell and market their produce; eventually, he became a partner. There he met his future wife, Mary Ann Stinson. The two had four children, including two who died in childhood.

Minneapolis

black and white image of Saint Anthony Falls in 1860

Open to new opportunity—and accustomed to snow and cold— Charles and Mary agreed to accept an invitation from his uncle, John Pillsbury, to move to Minneapolis to take part ownership of a flour mill. Charles became its manager.

When the family started the business in 1869, their venture was largely viewed as a bad investment. The mill itself was struggling and flour milling was not known to be lucrative or stable. The family had little milling experience outside of Charles’ study of mills in Canada. But his uncle had made a good bet; Charles brought youth and an appreciation of the role of technology and marketing to the nascent company, along with an ability to develop a rapport with the people he employed and worked with.

Under his management, the struggling business grew. Within three years, it was breaking records for the most barrels of flour produced in one day.

Innovation and Expansion

You could say Charles was part of the high-tech generation of his era, always in search of new science and technology that would enable the mills to create a higher quality product and find better ways to use the wheat that came from growers across the upper Midwest. He sought technology that would also mean safer conditions and more—not fewer—jobs.

To this end, Charles made a thorough study of the methods of flour milling in search of better results and practices in flour processing. In pursuit of innovation, he observed flour mills in Europe, including those of Budapest and Hungary, which had the reputation of producing the finest flour in the "old world."

One change was to move away from buhr stones, a type of millstone grinding process so old it’s featured in the Bible. Observations of mills in Hungary as well as the work of a Wisconsin inventor showed that the use of steel rollers produced a much higher quality flour, as well as a higher volume, necessitating larger mills to meet the growing demand. This and other innovations, like grain elevators near train stops, created larger and improved grain storage to store wheat before shipping. This gave Midwest farmers better opportunities to grow and market their crops.

With these upgrades, Pillsbury also commissioned the first architect-designed mill, “A Mill,” the largest in the world at that time. This mill still stands on the Mississippi riverfront.

Still better tech and physical infrastructure was not enough to address one of a miller’s biggest problems, the danger of combustible grain dust. He saw this firsthand in the Great Mill explosion that occurred in a neighboring mill, where eighteen workers died and several nearby mills, including one of his, was destroyed. Charles soon added dust collectors and targeted ventilation that would reduce the risk of such fires.

Profit-Sharing

While new science could mitigate the danger, Charles also looked to improve the human element. He saw the need for all mill employees to be trained and alert to signs of risk, and have a greater stake in daily operations. Towards that goal, he created one of the first profit-sharing plans in the U.S., collectively paying more than $25,000 a year ($300,000 in 2023 dollars), on top of regular wages in bonuses.

Citizenship/Responsible Business

He served several terms in the State Senate, but declined to run for higher office. Charles’ idea of being a good citizen was less about politics and more about  what he could do as a business and community leader.

He was tireless in building his business, and that included a focus on what he could do for the people he employed and the communities in which they resided.

Along with profit sharing for his employees, he supported the creation of worker-owned cooperatives for the barrel makers, known as ‘coopers’ who made the thousands of wooden barrels needed by millers and other companies. Early on, he also established a library for the workers in the main mill.

He was also notable for his role in convincing railroad baron James J. Hill to settle the great Pullman strike of 1894. Hill as owner of the Great Northern Railway had reneged on an agreement with the union to rescind wage cuts for the workers.

Union leader and labor activist Eugene Debs appealed to Pillsbury to intervene. Debs knew he depended on rail transit and was a friend of Hill’s. Debs also knew Charles had a reputation for fair treatment of his own employees, many of whom lived on the East Side, close to the mills, the center of the union protests. Charles got Hill to sit down with Debs and make good on what they’d agreed to.

Nearing Retirement

In 1889, decades of twelve-hour days and six-day work weeks took a toll on his health. On the cusp of retirement, he and his wife Mary embarked on a long-planned trip to Asia, only to turn around when they reached California to tend to business problems at home.

Charles served as head of the Pillsbury Company until it was sold to an English business group in 1889. Even then, he remained heavily involved, acting as its general manager until his death the next year of heart trouble. The company’s legacy was preserved when his family regained ownership in the 1920s.

Much later, in 2001, the Pillsbury company was bought by General Mills, its friend and rival from the time they both started in the mid 1880s.

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Charles’ commitment to progressive business practices and community investment have been noted in every history written about the company he started.

He was featured in the 1897 book Progressive Men of Minnesota, biographical sketches of leaders in business and politics. The book described him as a man, “alive to the interests of his city,” who devoted a great deal of time to the promotion of its best interests—politically, economically, and educationally.

This characterization was echoed by my distant relations in the late 1800s when they wrote the first family genealogy. They described Charles as “popular with all classes, easily accessible, and democratic with his associations.”

More recently Lori Sturdevant, an editor of what became the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and author with my father of the book The Pillsburys of Minnesota, called Charles “the prototype for the 20th century Minnesota business leader. Sturdevant wrote, “His blend of business ambition and public service (...) set an example future Minnesota business leaders would try to emulate. His optimism, friendly approachability, and concern for the common good were qualities Minnesotans would come to expect and demand of their leaders.” As they continue to do.

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