9 Crystal White

Albert May Todd was born in June 1850 at the homestead of William Alfred and Mary May Todd in Nottawa, Michigan. The Todds had arrived in Nottawa in 1836, less than a year before Michigan statehood and the resulting flood of land purchases by new settlers like the Ranneys and speculators like the Hotchkisses. Nottawa is slightly less than forty miles west of the region around Allen where the Ranney brothers settled and a similar distance south of Kalamazoo. Alfred and Mary Todd had met and married in Marcellus, New York, about forty-four miles east of Phelps and Lyons. Albert was the youngest of ten children, and although the family was not exceptionally prosperous, his mother had received an unusually thorough education in the classics and tried to provide her children with an exposure to the arts and humanities like her own. Albert was remembered in the records of the local Union School as an apt pupil who added his own interest in science to his mother’s love of literature and art.

As a boy, Albert became familiar with the peppermint plants local farmers grew and with the stills they used to process mint hay into oil. He amused himself by tinkering with the stills to try to improve their yields and the quality of oil they produced. In the mid-1840s, after the advent of steam engines, Michigan farmers had begun steam-distilling peppermint, substituting large wooden vats with steam-tight covers for the copper kettles traditionally used to boil peppermint leaves. Superheated steam passed through the dried peppermint hay in these vats, carrying the essential oil away to condense in copper worm tubes.^[1] This innovation allowed steam boilers to be kept at full heat while “charges” of mint hay were packed into the vats and removed, resulting in much faster and more efficient distilling. Albert improved the placement of the steam jets to such a degree that he was later able to file a patent for his improvement.

In 1866, the Michigan peppermint harvest was half its normal level due to winterkilled roots, driving up prices.^[2] Recognizing an opportunity, in 1868 Albert and his older brother, Oliver, planted their first field of peppermint, at the same time the Michigan Ranney brothers and their friends such as H. H. Lawrence were shipping peppermint oil to Henry Ranney and his customers in New York and Boston, and the Hotchkiss brothers were competing with each other to buy Michigan oil for their own brands. The Hotchkisses’ ongoing battles over the quality of peppermint oil induced Leman Hotchkiss to begin advertising in the 1860s that he had developed a “process of rectifying this oil unknown to any other person.”^[3] Although this claim may have been greatly exaggerated or even untrue, Leman’s claim to have found a way to improve on the raw oil supplied by peppermint farmers may have stimulated Albert Todd’s interest in distilling and chemistry.

Albert extended his education beyond the homeschooling he received from his mother by attending the newly built Union High School in nearby Sturgis. The only member of his family to attend the school, located about ten miles from the family farm, Albert graduated first in his class in 1873 at the age of twenty-three and enrolled in Northwestern University to study chemistry the following fall. He self-financed his college attendance with the money he and Oliver shared from their peppermint oil earnings. Todd family tradition describes Albert as essentially a self-made man, paying his own way in college, his travels in Europe, and his subsequent business ventures. The evidence seems to support this portrayal, since Albert’s parents and siblings were never remarkable financially. The only Todd sibling who did moderately well financially was Albert’s partner in the early peppermint oil business, Oliver, who later moved to Kansas, Idaho, and Oregon, where he grew peppermint and distilled oil that Albert bought from him.^[4] Other evidence of Albert’s self-reliance includes the numerous intricately detailed ledger books he left, which document his rapid rise from small-scale peppermint farmer to local merchant, icehouse operator, peppermint oil broker, and ultimately the peppermint king he became.

Albert managed to complete two years of college work in a single year, but his health suffered, and so he left the university and used the money he had saved for tuition to fill a backpack and do a walking tour of Europe and England. He later recalled, “The foundation of my art collection . . . was made when during my first trip to Europe I undertook to obtain copies of the old masters.”^[5] He bought reproductions of famous artwork painted by gallery-certified copyists to begin his art collection. He also visited the peppermint fields of Mitcham, England, where he discovered peppermint farmers planting a superior variety of Mentha piperita called Black Mitcham.

After a summer abroad, Albert returned refreshed and healthy and immediately set to work on a number of projects. He partnered with Albert Drake, one of the officers of Sturgis’s Union School, in a dry goods mercantile business. Drake was an established merchant in Sturgis, and his esteem for Todd probably opened doors to business opportunities and credit. In spite of a decade-long recession in the 1870s, Todd expanded his ventures beyond peppermint distilling and dry goods. He built icehouses and cut ice on nearby ponds, which he sold to railroads for chilling meat and produce. He bought out his brother Oliver, who had decided to move westward, and opened the Steam Refined Essential Oil Works in Nottawa. Albert began buying oil from local farmers and redistilling it using a new steam process he had developed. Although only twenty-five years old, he had an edge on eastern businessmen such as Ranney, Hotchkiss, and Wells, who were the peppermint farmers’ previous customers. Albert was a local grower himself, and he was well known among the members of the local business community. Without a family fortune to fall back on, he seems to have rapidly expanded his enterprises through hard work, scrupulous attention to the details of his business, and possibly using capital provided by local businessmen and the good will of farmers who were eager to work with a trusted local rather than an increasingly unpleasant cohort of easterners, dominated in the 1870s by the constantly warring Hotchkiss brothers. Equally important, Albert had a technological advantage. He discovered that the yellow or light amber color of most American peppermint oil was caused by resins that damaged the oil’s flavor, and he developed a proprietary method to remove them. In 1875, he began marketing his Crystal White brand of peppermint oil and menthol crystals, identifying himself on the product labels as Albert M. Todd, Distilling Chemist.^[6] He bottled his oil in clear glass, to emphasize its unique purity.

The year 1876 was a busy and eventful one for Albert. In January, he married Augusta Mary Allman in Sturgis. He continued selling ice to the railroads and dry goods with Drake. In the summer and fall, he handled eleven thousand pounds of peppermint oil, which he estimated was “about half the crops of Mich and Indiana entire.”^[7] After the harvest, he spent ten weeks at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where he won a gold medal for Crystal White Peppermint Oil. He visited New York City after the exposition and met with Hiram Hotchkiss. Hiram wrote to his sons that he had “a long interview with Todd today who has returned from Philadelphia. He wants us to make him an offer for 2000 pounds oil of peppermint subject to approval.” Hiram instructed his sons to “telegraph me on Monday morning your best offer and I am to meet him at noon Monday. He says he is offered $2.50 and that he made some small sales in Philadelphia at $2.60. Don’t know whether he lies or not.”^[8] Hiram had trouble trusting anyone and tended to think anyone beside himself who did well in the peppermint oil business must be cheating. On Monday he wrote to his sons again, expressing his impression of his young rival: “I do not think Todd adulterates oil but I do think he is a poor judge of quality.”^[9] For his part, Albert was more generous with his assessment. He wrote his brother Oliver in January 1877 with a copy of his new business card and news of his activities, saying: “Of course you all know I was in Philada. Spent 10 weeks there and after a hard fought battle, was victorious.” Albert mentioned that he met Ohio governor Rutherford B. Hayes at the Exhibition and “had a pleasant chat with him. Enjoyed the Ex very much.” He told his brother he had begun shipping Crystal White peppermint oil to Europe. He said, “I am doing well but I tell you I haven’t left a stone unturned to push business to a successful issue. I have to fight men of ability—and experience, and withstand the assaults of jealousy.” Apparently Hiram Hotchkiss was not very good at hiding his feelings. Albert then turned away from the peppermint oil business and concluded, “I have made some fine additions to my library but do not have much leisure for improving myself mentally and I am afraid I do not improve morally or religiously as much as I ought. In the course of a couple months I hope to have some leisure for study and physical exercise.”^[10]

Before returning home to Michigan, Albert visited Hiram Hotchkiss’s sons in Lyons in January, but they were away when he called.^[11] He also called on the essential oil dealers Hale and Parshall in nearby Alloway and sold them a thousand pounds of peppermint oil.^[12] He sold some spearmint oil to the Hotchkisses, since very little (if any) spearmint was grown in western New York.^[13] Along with peppermint, spearmint oil would later become a very important product for the A. M. Todd Company.

Albert’s proprietary peppermint oil distilling and refining processes attracted attention, some of it unwelcome. In 1878, Albert wrote to an employee, instructing him to investigate a dealer named H. D. Cushman in Three Rivers, Michigan, who he discovered had “stolen and are using my crystalizing process . . . and is putting up a building for doing it more extensively.” Albert said Cushing had developed a glass bottle called a “menthol inhaler,” an innovation he thought was “all right, but I shall stop him from making any of the crystals themselves for I cannot give them what has cost me years of care and expense for nothing.” Albert wrote, “They have not yet I think got on to my refiners so I will get them patented & now instruct you to let no one in the refining room, nor give any one any information as to any parts of my business or apparatus either refiners or otherwise.” He remarked, “They are tenfold more vigilant & careful than we have been, and we will have to keep our business closer or it is lost.”^[14] He had been naïve and had not protected his innovations, but he learned this lesson well.

In 1880, Albert received a patent for his “Crystal White Steam Rectified” process for distilling peppermint oil. The process and the hardware he also patented became centerpieces of his essential oil business. Four decades later, a description of the still-unrivaled process continued to appear on the labels of A. M. Todd Company’s peppermint oil: “The ‘Crystal White Steam Rectified’ Oil of Peppermint is distilled from the finest plants of Mentha Piperita (when in full bloom), which are cultivated with scrupulous care in a soil and climate peculiarly adapted to their most perfect development.” The label then described the patented process: “The oil, after having been distilled from the plants by improved steam processes, is placed in a specially designed receptacle, and steam, which has passed through a second quantity of fresh Peppermint Leaves, is conveyed to the oil in a long pipe and blown through it by means of curiously constructed perforated cylinders and accessories invented especially for the purpose.” The label explained that only the best components of the oil were evaporated in the second refining process, while “the inferior parts, which in natural oil cause bitterness and rancidity, are separated and cast away. To make certain Absolute Perfection, this process is repeated.” The quality of Todd’s oil was thus based on a particular chemical process, rather than on the luck of finding an attractive blend of all the peppermint oils that brands like Hotchkiss and Todd were now understood to be buying from farmers in New York, Michigan, and elsewhere. Hiram Hotchkiss had claimed to be the ultimate judge of peppermint oil’s purity and quality and had further claimed there was something particularly special about Wayne County, New York, oil, even when most of his supply came from Michigan. Albert claimed also that in his patented process none of the peppermint oil’s “vitality is impaired, since steam heat only is applied; while under the usual process by direct heat, much of the vitality is lost.” Finally, like the Hotchkiss brothers, “To prevent adulteration, the Manufacturer places his Copyright Label upon each bottle and can, and over the cork, his seal; and all orders should be sent him directly at his factory.”^[15]

In addition to his focus on the chemistry of essential oils, Albert wanted to improve peppermint plants. Growing up in the peppermint country of southwestern Michigan, he understood the agricultural challenges facing peppermint farmers. In 1880, he imported a large supply of the Black Mitcham peppermint roots he had seen in England.^[16] He planted the new crop in Nottawa, and when local peppermint farmers saw the improved yields and quality of the oil they produced, he began selling peppermint roots. Hiram Hotchkiss had imported a shipment of Mitcham roots in 1845, but at the time he and E. C. Patterson had been more interested in reducing the planting of peppermint to try to corner the peppermint oil market than in shifting to a better peppermint plant. And unlike Hiram, Albert was a peppermint farmer as well as a processor and distributor. By 1900, Black Mitcham was the dominant commercial peppermint plant in the United States.^[17] In March 1884, Albert received another patent, for “An Improvement in Process of Producing Crystals from Oil of True Peppermint.”^[18] And in September 1884, he received a trademark for the term “Crystal White” in the category of “Essential and Volatile Vegetable Oils and their Products.”^[19] To emphasize the transparency of his oils, he continued packaging them in clear glass bottles. Menthol crystals never became as big a part of his business as oils. This may have been due to others figuring out his process before Albert could protect it but was probably mostly because menthol could be made much more easily and economically from a cheaper, lower-quality mint called Mentha arvensis, or Japanese mint.

In 1886, ten years after he made his name at the Centennial Exhibition, Albert published an article in the Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association entitled “The Oil of Peppermint.” He traced the history of the herb and its uses from ancient times and discussed current conditions in the peppermint oil industry. He mentioned that he had managed to get yields as high as eighteen pounds of oil per ton of mint straw but had also seen poor cuttings yield as little as 1.5 pounds per ton.^[20] He included historical details made available by his growing library of antiquarian texts, including many alchemical and natural history volumes that described the earliest medical uses of mint plants and the discovery of peppermint in seventeenth-century England. His article combined history with cutting-edge science, establishing Albert as one of the foremost authorities on the subject.

His focus on the scientific growing and distilling of essential oils was not merely a marketing technique. Albert had begun his peppermint career tinkering with stills to improve their efficiency. His interest in peppermint oil led him to study chemistry at Northwestern, and he called himself a manufacturing chemist. He pioneered the use of fractional distillation to separate the various constituents of peppermint oil, which gave him the unique ability to vary the blend of these constituents based on the flavor profile desired by a customer. The A. M. Todd Company retained this strategic edge into the twenty-first century and based its success on a technical ability pioneered by Albert to produce blends that met clients’ subjective tastes by manipulating the objective properties of natural oils.

In 1891, Albert bought a large house in an affluent neighborhood in Kalamazoo and moved his family there. Albert and Augusta had five children, William Alfred, Albert John, Paul Harold, Allman Avon, and Ethel May. According to newspaper reports announcing his move, Albert controlled half the American essential oil business and was beginning to be called the new peppermint king. After a few months operating in rented space, he moved into a building he built downtown, on the corner of Kalamazoo Avenue and North Rose Street. The four-story, twenty-four-room brick structure was the Todd Company’s headquarters until 1929 and stood until 1971, when it was torn down to make room for a new Kalamazoo County Administration Building. The sign above the company building’s front entrance read “A. M. Todd, Mfg. Chemist.”

In 1893, Albert’s peppermint oil won a prize medal in Chicago, and the Todd letterhead began to carry a notice in red at the top, announcing: “Five Highest Awards—Medals and Diplomas—World’s Columbian Exposition, for Finest Essential Oils; Distilling Apparatus; Essential Oil Plants; Fine Chemicals; Chemical Library; Etc.”^[21] In 1893, a forty-three-year old Albert Todd entered politics with an unsuccessful run for mayor of Kalamazoo. He was elected to Congress in 1896, a topic explored in detail in the next chapter.

Unlike the Hotchkiss brothers, who devoted little of their energy to actually farming peppermint, Albert was extremely interested in improving peppermint culture and agriculture in general. In 1895, he purchased a large peppermint farm in the marshy mucklands of Allegan County, near the town of Fennville. He set to work improving the farm he renamed Campania, directing the digging of more than ten miles of drainage ditches and straightening the stream that flowed across the property.^[22] He established a second plantation he called Mentha in Van Buren County, west of Kalamazoo. He installed fifteen miles of ditches at Mentha, connected to a four-mile-long main ditch. Although he continued to buy and redistill the peppermint oils of an increasing number of farmers, his own farms were a vital source of both peppermint and spearmint oil, as well as being the sites of botanical as well as social experiments. Unlike Hiram Hotchkiss, who left his family in rural western New York in later life and resided in a posh New York City hotel, Albert lived with his family in a small Midwestern city and remained intimately connected with rural life on his several farms.

Throughout his life, Albert kept extensive handwritten records in a series of ledger books. In 1897, his annual balance sheet for his operation showed assets of $134,119 and liabilities of $56,589. The net value of the A. M. Todd Company was $75,529.^[23] Albert’s success sparked some jealous reactions. A neighboring oil dealer allied with the Hotchkiss operation wrote to Hiram’s sons, “Todd came back from New York City and says he will buy 10,000 pounds next week and 10,000 the week after and pay a good big price for it, so he says to farmers around here.”^[24] And an employee, Felton D. Garrison, quit Albert’s company, stole the names of Albert’s farmers and customers, and tried to go into business for himself. In March 1897, Garrison began writing to everyone on Albert’s customer list. “I have been in the Crystal White Works for about 5 years,” he said, “and know that I can give you just as high quality of oil as that brand at a lower price than you paid for the last you bought.” Garrison offered sample bottles at $2.50 per pound and assured Albert’s customers, “My brand will be known as Dew Drop and will be made only from the purest oil that I can find.” Garrison also wrote to peppermint farmers, saying: “The prices are near $1.00 per pound yet and if your oil is Prime American I might better this a trifle.”^[25] He worked furiously, sending handwritten letters to Albert’s entire client list in just a few weeks. He shipped samples to many, but it is unclear whether his oil posed a credible threat to the Todd Company. If he infringed on Todd’s patents, Garrison would presumably have been stopped; but there was not enough time to find out. Felton Garrison died of tuberculosis a year later, and his Dew Drop brand disappeared.

Although Albert spent quite a bit of 1897, 1898, and early 1899 in Washington as a member of the 55th Congress, leaving the business in the hands of sons whose judgment he trusted, he remained involved and took the time to respond to business issues. In early 1899, he responded to a letter from his brother James, who lived in nearby Burr Oak, Michigan, and raised peppermint there. Albert wrote in answer to his brother’s inquiry regarding peppermint oil, “I have not bo’t any for about a month, as I have all I can use for 3 or 4 months unless trade improves. I think 80¢ is all that could be obtained now in New York after paying shipping expenses, for prime quality, and I would pay you this if you wish to send it here.”^[26] Later in the summer, when he had returned from Washington and resumed the day-to-day running of his business, Albert discovered his yields had been reduced. “The mint crop this year will be a small one, owing to the devastation of the cut worm. I have lost 200 acres myself,” he told the Grand Rapids Herald, “and the yield of the other land will be much reduced.” But, he added, “this will not affect us so much, since the price of peppermint is now down below the cost of production. It has driven the small growers out of the business, and the large growers will produce much less mint in hope that the restricted production will cause a raise in prices.”^[27]

Albert exhibited his peppermint oil at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 and won another gold medal. The Paris Exposition was the event historian Daniel Rodgers described to open his 1998 history of transatlantic Progressive thought, Atlantic Crossings. Rodgers mentioned that the Socialist International convened in Paris in 1900 and that Albert Todd’s acquaintance Jane Addams was “drawn to Paris as a delegate to the international women’s congress and a juror for the ‘social economy’ section of the fair.” Todd, like Addams, would have been attracted by the socialists’ examination of what Rodgers called the “painfully disruptive revolution in human relations” triggered by the intersection of technological change and the “social ethics of the marketplace.”^[28] Although Todd did not write anything that survives regarding this aspect of the exposition, it is probable that like Addams, Todd was aware of and influenced by the fair’s social pavilion. Albert Todd’s politics are examined in greater detail in the next chapter.

Crystal White Oil of Peppermint won first prize again the following year, at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. With Hiram Hotchkiss’s death in 1898, control over New York’s H. G. Hotchkiss and Sons essential oil company passed to Calvin Hotchkiss and then to H. G. Hotchkiss Jr. Although the Hotchkiss brand remained powerful, western New York peppermint oil production fell behind that of Michigan and Indiana, and even the Hotchkisses depended almost entirely on western farmers for their oils. Using hardier, higher-yielding Black Mitcham plants, Michigan farmers produced more than a hundred thousand pounds of oil annually throughout the 1890s and in the peak years of 1894 and 1897 placed 175,000 and 172,000 pounds of oil on the market, respectively.^[29] As Albert observed in the Grand Rapids Herald and mentioned to his brother, the oversupply caused peppermint oil prices to fall from $2.84 per pound in 1892 to less than a dollar per pound in 1899. Depressed commodity prices were a common problem for farmers during the economic recession of the 1890s. But Albert was also aware that low prices were encouraging some farmers to turn away from peppermint and to grow other crops like celery, which became an important cash crop for muck farmers around Kalamazoo. Albert knew that in spite of low prices caused by oversupply and the deepening depression of the 1890s, in the long run reduced supplies of oil would ultimately drive up prices.

On December 31, 1901, the A. M. Todd Company Ltd. was formed as a “partnership association,” capitalized at a hundred thousand dollars. A thousand one-hundred-dollar shares were issued and distributed to family members. Albert took 850 shares and gave fifty shares each to his wife, Augusta, and his sons William and Albert James. William became secretary of the company, and “Bert” became treasurer. Among the company’s assets were listed Campania Farm (1,640 acres), “Lands in Van Buren County,” which became Mentha Farm (1,850 acres), Sylvania Ranch (seven thousand acres), and the headquarters building in Kalamazoo. Also listed were 350 cattle, thirty-two horses, machinery patents, and label trademarks.^[30] In 1902, a local newspaper announced: “Todd puts his business on a profit-sharing plan.”^[31] The plan consisted of paying very low monthly salaries to the company’s principal shareholders, Albert and his family, and instead basing most of their compensation on profits. His ongoing focus on the company’s profitability insured that Albert and his descendants would continue to develop innovative solutions to the changing markets they served.

Also around 1902, posters were put up in Chicago calling for “Farm Workers for A. M. Todd Co.’s Mint Farm, 60¢ per hour—10 hours per day. No Lost Time. Good Board $1.05 per day, Free Room with Plenty of Showers and Laundry Facilities. Free transportation—No Fees. Leave Chicago Grand Central Station 11 a.m. daily except Saturday and Sunday.”^[32] Although it seems unimpressive today, sixty cents per hour was a very substantial wage at this time. Farm labor paid an average of fifty cents per day at the turn of the twentieth century, net of room and board. Even ironworkers, the highest-paid manufacturing workers, received wages of only $2.03 per day, which did not include their housing and food expenses.^[33] The opportunity to earn nearly five dollars per day after room and board was unprecedented. Albert traveled to Chicago regularly to meet with customers such as William Wrigley, who had begun packaging chewing gum in addition to his main business, baking powder, in 1892. Albert also maintained political connections in Chicago, including with Jane Addams, who had cofounded Hull House with her partner, Ellen Gates Starr, in 1889.

After lower prices drove farmers out of peppermint production, prices rose again as Albert had expected. The surplus oil the company was holding in its warehouses began to appreciate in value. In the fall of 1902, newspapers across the nation carried stories claiming “Todd has a corner on mint oil, holding 95 per cent. of mint and essential oils of the world.” According to the Michigan Telegram, “The price of peppermint oil, which a month ago was $2.50 a pound, is now $5. As the total crop this year is about 190,000 pounds, the total value will be $900,000, and the advance amounts to nearly half a million.” The article blamed New York speculators for depressing peppermint oil prices and reported Albert’s prediction that “under the new arrangement the growers will reap profits. The crop of the present season is only two-thirds as large as usual. The heavy rainfall has produced the smallest crop in ten years.”^[34] Aside from pointing out that higher prices benefited peppermint farmers, Albert did not address the claim that he had cornered the market. He sent an “Outlook” letter to his customers and the press, explaining the situation. “The total American crop is the smallest for many years, not exceeding 130,000 lbs.,” he wrote, “which is less than one-third of the crop of 1896, and practically only one-half of the world’s annual consumption (250,000 lbs.).” He explained that from 1895 to 1898, surplus peppermint oil production drove the market price below the cost of production, “resulting in the abandonment of the industry by many growers who plowed up their fields and allowed their distilleries to rust and decay.” More recently, due to an unusually wet season, “many farms were inundated since low lands are now almost exclusively used, the result being that the crop obtained is still smaller. In many cases it was impossible to cultivate with horses at all (which is the usual manner), requiring the work to be done by hand at far greater cost per acre, while the yield was much less than ordinary.” As an example, Albert described the situation at one of his own farms, on which he had made “an investment of over $50,000, and where we should have secured over 5,000 lbs. Oil, only 600 lbs. was obtained, costing over $6.00 per lb.” Another grower, he said, who usually produced 10,000 pounds of peppermint oil from his 350-acre planting, had distilled only 1,800 ponds. “At Decatur, where 130,000 lbs. were produced in 1896, but 19,000 lbs. were obtained this year.”^[35] Albert had command of the facts, and most of his readers were convinced that higher peppermint oil prices were not due to the A. M. Todd Company cornering the market.

Albert followed up his outlook with a warning to his customers to be wary of dealers selling oil of questionable “QUALITY. Owing to scarcity and consequent higher value, the temptation to adulteration which has always been practiced more or less, will be increased.” Albert reported that his chemists had analyzed samples “sold as ‘Prime,’ containing over 40% adulteration, some adulterants costing not over 10c per lb. so that the mixture is sold at a large profit materially below the cost of pure quality.” He mentioned that in the past one of these adulterants had been “Japanese Mint,” which he explained “is no true peppermint (Mentha Piperita) but [is] (Mentha Arvensis), having many of the characteristics of pennyroyal.”^[36] Since arvensis oil was a more abundant source of menthol than the more valuable peppermint oil, it was used primarily to produce the menthol crystals used in medical formulas by manufacturers such as the Vick Chemical Company. But after the menthol had been removed, Japanese oil was frequently used as an adulterant to stretch peppermint oil and reduce its cost. Albert had warned against this adulteration as early as the 1890s, but the problem persisted, and arvensis use spiked whenever scarcity pushed up the price of genuine peppermint oil. His passion for keeping “Japanese Mint” away from his peppermint was carried on by his heirs. In 2010 his grandson and his brother-in-law, both officers of the firm, remarked they would be damned if they’d ever let arvensis get through the company’s doors.^[37]

To emphasize his concern, Albert sent a second letter to customers and journalists in 1902, entitled “Pure vs. Adulterated Oil Peppermint.” He called attention to the fact that due to current scarcity, lower-quality “resinous, weedy, and adulterated Oil Peppermint, which accumulated during the period of overproduction from 1897 to 1900,” was entering the market. He offered an example of the economics of adulteration, explaining that five pounds of pure peppermint oil costing $1.80 per pound could be sold to customers for ten dollars, returning a profit of twenty cents per pound, or one dollar. But if an unscrupulous dealer bought four pounds of pure peppermint oil at the regular cost of $7.20 and then added a pound of adulterant worth ten cents, his cost on the five pounds would be $7.30. The dealer could then sell adulterated oil to customers for $1.80 per pound, the cost of pure peppermint oil, and make $1.70 in profit. Albert explained, “Everything of value in this (4 lbs. pure @ $2.00 per lb.) would have cost the consumer only $8.00, so, in buying the ‘cheaper’ oil, he is paying $1.00 for 1 lb. of injurious substance costing 10¢.” He concluded that even if the adulterant was only a dilutant and did not compromise the quality of the oil, buyers would still have been better off “to obtain their supplies direct from actual producers of established reputation.”^[38]

By late 1902, the price of peppermint oil had risen significantly. A. M. Todd Co. Ltd.’s Price List of Essential Oils, dated October 23, 1902, listed two varieties of peppermint oil. Crystal White Double distilled was priced at $3.50 per pound and Super-Extra Natural at $3.15. The form also left blank space for handwritten quotes of “Production of other growers.” Crystal White Double Distilled was Todd’s rectified peppermint oil, described as “produced from the finest cultivated plants of True Peppermint (Mentha Piperita) grown and distilled by us in the most perfect manner with approved appliances, and is not only GUARANTEED ABSOLUTELY PURE, but also UNEQUALLED IN FLAVOR, STRENGTH, SOLUBILITY, WHITENESS, etc., and is recognized throughout the world as the HIGHEST STANDARD OF QUALITY.” Super-Extra Natural was a lower-priced unrectified oil produced on Todd’s own farms, described as “the finest oil possible to produce, as above, from select cultivated plants of True Peppermint, but is not submitted to a double distillation. It is ABSOLUTELY PURE and EXTRA CHOICE IN EVERY RESPECT, and is unsurpassed by the highest quality of any other producer.”

In addition to being a peppermint farmer and controlling a patented processing technology, Albert wanted to be known as a local producer who was in touch with growing conditions and able to provide detailed, timely information on Midwestern mint oil production. “Regarding the production of other growers,” the price sheet continued, “we would state that being situated in the center of the producing district, and being able to personally inspect all fields of growing plants, etc., we are able to purchase with better discrimination than would otherwise be possible, and can supply the trade on the most advantageous terms.” In addition to peppermint oil, the price list included Spearmint Oil ($5.00), Wintergreen Oil ($2.10), Wormwood Oil ($5.50), Tansy Oil ($5.00), Sassafras Oil (.75), and True Fireweed Oil ($2.50). The payment terms Todd offered were net thirty days, with a discount of ½ percent for payment in less than ten days from invoice.^[39]

Unlike Hiram Hotchkiss, who had considered his ability to distinguish quality a unique talent, Albert Todd tried to establish his reputation as an authority on scientific measurements of purity and quality. In 1903 he sent out another letter to customers and the trade press regarding adulteration. He quoted extensively from a recent report in Britain’s Chemist and Druggist: “It has been recently shown by the British Chemist, E. J. Barry, B.Sc., F.I.C. that nearly every sample of Oil Peppermint coming under his observation recently is impure.” He quoted an excerpt, listing the specific gravities and optical rotation results of ten samples of peppermint oil. He noted the chemist’s conclusion that all ten specific gravity results were “too low for perfectly pure Oil of Peppermint . . . and that the optical rotation in every sample is less than that required for pure quality.” The British chemist had concluded, “Under these extraordinary circumstances consumers will do well to scrutinize the quality of their purchases with the utmost care, and in the case of doubt . . . to employ an expert chemist to verify the quality.”^[40] Of course Albert Todd, in bringing this information to the public, was also establishing his bona fides as the type of expert chemist customers needed on their side. In contrast to Hiram Hotchkiss, who had simply declared himself an expert judge of quality and purity, Albert Todd claimed there were objective, scientific standards of quality and that he had the credentials to ensure they were met.

Albert diligently positioned himself as a reliable conduit of information from peppermint oil producers to essential oil consumers. By the beginning of the twentieth century, more than 90 percent of America’s peppermint crop was grown within a hundred miles of Kalamazoo, so he was well situated to gather intelligence for his customers. In May 1903, he wrote to his customers to advise them that the shortage of peppermint oil might continue. Higher prices had caused growers to try to increase their plantings, he wrote. “The month of March, however, opened extremely warm, causing the roots to sprout, and was followed in April by one of the most severe blizzards ever known in that month, extending over the entire Peppermint producing district with a fall of snow averaging about twelve inches.”^[41] The snow had been followed by heavy rains that had prevented many farmers from planting new roots. In the fall, Albert wrote to his brother James in Burr Oak, who had offered to gather statistics from farmers in his area. Albert sent a printed form and asked James to note “their names, the Post Office address, the number of acres planted this year, with the amount of oil produced, and the total number of acres which they distilled this year including old and new, and the total amount of oil produced; and you may also note down any remarks regarding the crop and its quality, etc. so far as you should happen to learn.” Albert cautioned that James might find some of the peppermint farmers “rather reticent about giving information” and instructed him not to push too hard for answers. Albert also said James could convey the A. M. Todd Company’s interest in buying the oil, but not make any commitments regarding prices and quantities. Albert was aware the growers were hoping for price rises: “They are generally holding at from $2.25 to $3.00, and in some cases as high as $4.00; but there is no prospect at present of these higher prices being reached.” Albert also asked his brother, “Whenever any of the buyers come into that territory you perhaps better ’phone us to let us know what they do. . . . We have the ‘Bell’ telephone both in our office and home.” He reminded James that if he called after 6 P.M. the rates would be less and that he could of course reverse the charges.^[42]

In March 1904, Albert wrote to inform his customers that planting was slow and that due to snowmelt “a great many of the fields have been completely covered with water for ten days to a depth of eighteen inches, and unless this can be promptly carried off a large proportion of the roots will doubtless be drowned out, as they have been much weakened by the extreme winter.”^[43] In September the Todd Company sent a follow-up letter noting, “Distillation of the new crop of Oil Peppermint is now practically completed and results prove that our predictions for a small production made some time ago were correct.” Albert reported that the peppermint oil supply reaching the market would be “about thirty-five thousand pounds smaller than last year’s, and less than two-thirds of a normal yield.” He went on to caution that prices were rising. “There is however some rejected adulterated stock on the market, which will again probably be offered under changed labels. As these oils consist largely of adulterants costing from 5¢ to 10¢ per pound an enormous profit is made whenever a sale can be effected even at the lower prices. It is needless to state that the consumption of such oil is ruinous to manufacturers of fine confectionary and pharmaceuticals.”^[44] Any deal that seemed too good to be true, Albert reminded his customers, really was.

The A. M. Todd Company continued working on innovations that would improve peppermint distilling and farming. In early 1906, the company hired a Kalamazoo patent attorney to research mechanical root planters. The lawyer’s search returned three designs similar to the planter the company had designed, but different enough to enable the filing to go forward.^[45] In November 1907, Todd employee John Shirley received a patent for his invention, which he immediately assigned to Albert James Todd (Bert), company treasurer. In October 1908, a Kalamazoo paper printed news of a visit to the region by the president of the H. G. Hotchkiss Essential Oil Company, Calvin Hotchkiss. Michigan’s peppermint crop yields, Hotchkiss estimated, were 50 percent to 60 percent of normal. He estimated that a hundred and fifty thousand pounds of new peppermint oil would be supplemented by about seventy-five thousand pounds of oil held over from the previous year. He also reported that in Wayne County, New York, “the planting was about one-third of the previous season’s extent, but with the yield favorable, the aggregate of the new crop and undisposed stocks from the former production will reach the fairly normal quantity of 30,000 pounds.”^[46]

While the Todds took business very seriously, unlike the contentious Hotchkisses they remained a very close family and retained their sense of humor. In June 1909, Albert wrote to his son Paul, who was completing his course in botany at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Paul wanted to take a summer capstone course in plant hybridizing, but his father was not convinced it would be valuable enough and suggested that Paul either take the time either to relax before coming to work during the stilling season or to take a tour. Albert wrote two pages about the pros and cons of different tours Paul could take of regions where the company had business interests. Then, closing his letter, Albert remarked: “I had momentarily forgotten that sometimes other equally strong attractions (or ‘attachments’) are found in Universities, especially where Co-eds participate. I am willing to presume that it is purely plant breeding that you had in mind, and shall not intrude into any of your secrets, but if it really is some fair Co-ed, just tell me whether she is a blonde or brunette!!”^[47] The available records do not provide an answer to Albert’s question, but presumably his son saw the humor in the exchange. Not long afterward, in January 1910, the Todd family celebrated the wedding of the youngest child, Ethel May Todd, to Edwin LeGrand Woodhams, an Englishman who was overseer of the Mentha plantation.

As the first decade of the twentieth century ended, the A. M. Todd Company’s preeminence in the essential oil business was becoming apparent. In 1908, the company’s balance sheet showed assets valued at $346,935, of which $225,722 consisted of the company’s farms and headquarters.^[48] The following year, merchandise inventories of $104,836 boosted the bottom line to $478,049.^[49] Not only was the A. M. Todd Company beginning to dominate the wholesale domestic and export businesses Hotchkiss had pioneered, it had discovered new markets that had not existed when the Ranneys and Hotchkisses had dominated the peppermint oil business, which would soon overshadow exports, confectioners, and druggists. Tooth powders based on soap, chalk, and charcoal evolved into toothpaste when Colgate first mass-produced jars of the new product in 1873 and began manufacturing tubes of toothpaste in 1890.^[50] Firms like Colgate, Pepsodent, and Kolynos began to use large quantities of peppermint and spearmint oils to flavor their toothpastes.^[51] Gum chewing began in colonial America using the resins exuded by native trees such as spruce and balsam. Products based on tree resins led the market until the 1870s, when they were overtaken by paraffin-based gums made from by-products of Pennsylvania’s new oil industry.^[52] By the 1890s, gums based on chicle, the sap of the Central American sapodilla tree, were gaining in popularity. An 1895 news report stated that 90 percent of the gum consumed in America was made from chicle, of which four million pounds was imported annually.^[53] Observing that earlier chewing gums had been attacked as dangerous and foul-tasting, manufacturers flavored their chicle-based gums with peppermint, spearmint, and wintergreen. Taking advantage of the traditional medicinal legacies of these herbs, advertisements for the new chewing gums claimed they aided digestion, perfumed the breath, cleared the voice, and offered a healthy alternative to chewing tobacco and a breath freshener after smoking newly popular cigarettes.^[54] In addition to William Wrigley, who began shipping chewing gum in 1892, other companies such as Beech Nut, Fleer, Sen Sen, Beemans, Zeno, and American Chicle had entered the rapidly growing gum business. In March 1910, Albert Todd wrote to his son Paul from New York: “I am glad to tell you I succeeded in contracting to American Chicle Co. 10,000# Natural Peppt @ 2.00 tho they had just bot 7000 of Rudd @ 1.90 & wanted me to sell at $1.75.”^[55] On the strength of its new business supplying peppermint and spearmint oils to gum manufacturers, the Todd Company was incorporated in 1911. And on January 1, 1912, the company’s $130,847 worth of merchandise and $285,400 worth of real estate contributed to a total value of $543,052.

Unlike Hiram Hotchkiss, who had both micromanaged and belittled his sons, Albert Todd had enough confidence in his children that in 1912 and 1913 he and Augusta spent fourteen months in Europe. He vacationed, added to his art collection and library, and studied the public-utilities systems of Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Greece, Holland, Italy, Norway, Prussia, Saxony, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland. He collected documents and reports and took more than five hundred photographs of public utilities. The children kept their father apprised of major business developments, and Albert offered them occasional advice. In January 1913, Albert James Todd (Bert) wrote to his parents. “Our higher priced Wrigley contract starts,” he said, “and we will avoid many of the delays we were obliged to encounter last year so unless something unforeseen happens I think we will have the best year on the farms we have ever had.” Bert provided some of the details that inspired his confidence and concluded, “I think our total profits will be in excess of what they have ever been before by fully twenty thousand dollars unless conditions should again be awry and we unable to exercise any control over them.”^[56] In March Albert senior wrote to his children from Berlin, about business. He suggested furnishing a social hall above the general store in their farm community, Mentha. “The hall above the store is an unusually beautiful and well-lighted room and is suitable for social amenities for the employees and such others as might be invited, while at the same time the walls afford excellent opportunity for attractive pictures, which I will be glad to personally furnish as well as what furniture and so forth may be necessary.” Just as he had arranged to pay his farmworkers more than any comparable labor force in America, Albert wanted Mentha to be an actual community. He continued, “Such a place would I think add largely to the morale as well as the happiness of the employees, and thus also add incidentally to the stability of the building and the pleasure of all the members of the community.”^[57]

Albert Todd’s farms, Mentha and Campania, were the largest peppermint-growing operations in the nation, and they produced most of the spearmint oil on the American market. Between 1911 and 1928, Mentha produced 361,870 pounds of spearmint oil and 84,163 pounds of peppermint.^[58] Yields averaged about thirty pounds of oil per acre, and Albert used the two farms’ production to make his Crystal White and Super Extra Natural oils. He applied for a trademark on the “Super-Extra-Natural” name, but the regulators considered it too descriptive.^[59] In spite of this setback, he continued working to differentiate his products on the basis of objective, scientific measures. In 1915, he received a reply to a letter he had written to Dr. C. Kleber at Clifton Chemical Laboratory in Passaic, New Jersey, regarding United States Pharmacopeia specifications for rectified peppermint oil. Kleber agreed with specifications that required “rectified Oils of Peppermint from which the first fractions (containing sulphides and lower aldehydes) and also the tarry residue have been removed as these have a bad odor and irritating properties.” Kleber believed, however, that the U.S.P. standard really only applied to oils used for medicinal purposes, and that commercial users ought to be able to make up their own minds. Kleber also stated, “Regarding the content of Di-methyl sulphide it seems to me that all Peppermint plants grown for some time on American soil produce this very undesirable substance, that Mitcham plants are generally free from it, but will gradually assume under the influence of American soil and climate the character of the American plants with production of sulphides.”^[60] Albert had improved the quality of American oils by importing Black Mitcham roots from England, but he continued experimenting in his laboratory and at Mentha to produce a better peppermint.

The continual effort of Albert to improve his plants paid off very quickly in spearmint. As the close relative of peppermint became more popular with chewing gum and toothpaste manufacturers, he introduced a new variety of Scotch spearmint (Mentha cardiaca G.) that one of his suppliers had found in a Wisconsin garden. Scotch spearmint was hardier than native spearmint and produced as much as 50 percent more oil. Albert planted Scotch spearmint at Mentha, and it quickly became the standard plant for producing spearmint oil.^[61] The Todd Company’s balance sheet for 1917 included $243,010 in merchandise (mostly peppermint and spearmint oils held at Kalamazoo) and $411,000 in real estate at Mentha, Campania, Kalamazoo, and Sylvania, for a total value of $775,343.^[62]

While Michigan and Indiana gained ground each year as the centers of peppermint production, the Todd family also helped introduce peppermint to the Pacific Northwest. Albert’s older brother, Oliver, had moved west from Michigan in 1873, when he had sold his stake in the Nottawa partnership to Albert. Oliver settled first in Kansas and then in Idaho, where he planted a little peppermint. When he began making plans to grow peppermint in higher volume in 1912, Oliver decided to try the lowlands beside the Willamette River in Oregon. In December 1916 the Pacific Drug Review reprinted an article from the Oregonian about “Oregonians Distilling Peppermint.” The article announced, “Four thousand pounds of peppermint oil, distilled from plants in the upper Willamette Valley . . . is being shipped by O. H. Todd, of Eugene, the brother of A. M. Todd.” The oil was distilled in Albany, Oregon, “where for four years a number of farmers have been growing mint very successfully and where there are approximately 250 acres planted to peppermint.”^[63] Washington, Idaho, and the Willamette Valley in Oregon are still important peppermint-growing regions today.

By 1920, the A. M. Todd Company was the acknowledged leader in the essential oil market, and Albert was known as the peppermint king or sometimes simply as “Peppermint Todd.” Over the years, Albert had educated his customers and the industry press on how to accurately measure the purity and quality of essential oils. One of his letters to his customers included detailed descriptions of twelve scientific tests they could use to measure the purity and quality of peppermint oil. Taking advantage of this increased knowledge, Todd’s labels carried detailed specifications: “The Sp. Gr. of the Crystal White Oil Peppermint at 15°c is never below .903 and never above .913,” and included a space where the results of a polarity test on each can’s contents could be penciled in.^[64] Another notice in red stated, “This can is sealed with a Metallic Cap, impressed with the manufacturer’s name, secured by a Protective Strip bearing his Guarantee of purity and quality, with signature. Refuse any package not corresponding to the tests and specifications hereon, and advise the manufacturer, giving date and number on label, with particulars.”^[65] Albert used security devices developed by the Hotchkisses, but the products his seals and signatures protected were validated not merely by the authority of his name and reputation as a judge of subjective oil quality but also by scientific measurements of the specific, objective chemical properties of the oil he sold.

As Albert aged, he began turning over responsibility for the family business to his children. Although he still held most of the company’s stock, the list of shareholders grew to include his younger children, Paul, Allman, and Ethel, and Ethel’s husband, LeGrand. The children took control when Albert turned his attention to politics or traveled. Including his fourteen-month trip in 1912–13, Albert visited Europe eight times between 1907 and 1923. During that time, he shipped home twenty-six cases of art objects weighing more than thirty thousand pounds.^[66] When his children wrote him to get his counsel, he gave his opinion but left most decisions to them. In March 1920, for example, the children wrote to their father in Los Angeles for advice regarding a large land purchase they were contemplating, to expand the peppermint farm at Mentha. Albert wrote a four-page explanation of why he wouldn’t buy the land, if it were up to him. He admitted, “You will probably think I am holding a pessimistic view or at least an ultra-conservative one, and you are tolerably right in so assuming.” He went on, “I have no doubt but that were I twenty years younger I would feel much more optimistic, so I do not feel that you should be held back by my timidity.” He concluded that the children were going to have to live with the results of their decisions and told them they had his permission, “since you are young and will have to shoulder the responsibility, to do as the majority of you think best.”^[67] He wrote again a few days later, reiterating that he was against the purchase but would go along if they really wanted to buy the land. He advised them not to pay more than fifty thousand dollars, but “I should leave this to you,” he said, “for as the care and responsibility will rest with you, I think you should have the right to decide whether it should be bought or not.”^[68]

His confidence in his children paid off. In the 1920s, while Paul Todd was managing Mentha, he worked with operators there to design a new still that would recover the small quantity of peppermint oil left in the distillate waste water. Their new processing plant recovered an extra 26,273 pounds of oil in its first eight years of operation, from water that would otherwise have been discarded.^[69] And Albert’s sons took over major accounts like Wrigley, with whom they developed an innovative new relationship. In 1919–20, Wrigley bought fifty-five thousand pounds of peppermint oil from the A. M. Todd Company. In the summer of 1920, before the buying season commenced, company treasurer Bert Todd wrote a new contract with Wrigley, for whom the company would “act as your buying agents for Oil of Peppermint and are to supply you with 50% of our purchases from this date until we have furnished you 40,000 lbs. Natural quality.” Wrigley agreed to pay a fixed markup of sixty cents over whatever best cost the A. M. Todd Company could negotiate for their joint purchases, which would guarantee the company a fee of at least twenty-four thousand dollars but ensure there would be complete transparency regarding prices paid to the farmers. The contract also specified the shipping terms for the drums of oil the company would provide, and that the Wrigley Company “are also to provide the money with which to pay for these purchases as rapidly as we advise you the purchases have been made and the Oil ready for delivery to us.”^[70]

The A. M. Todd Company’s role in this agreement was that of a purchaser, on its own behalf and for Wrigley. Rather than trying to guess what the price of oil might be, the Todd Company promised to make the same efforts it would make on its own account, and share evenly the oil it bought. The Todds predicted they would probably be able to buy oil at $4.50 per pound but promised to advise Wrigley immediately of changes in the market. Wrigley agreed to the deal, and the Todd Company ultimately delivered fifty-five thousand pounds of peppermint oil for a total price of $311,362.34 (about $5.66 per pound), plus a fee of thirty-three thousand dollars. In 1921, the price of peppermint oil had declined substantially, and Wrigley offered to buy thirty-five thousand pounds at $1.65 to $1.75, including a fee for the Todd Company of thirty-five cents per pound. Bert Todd responded that the prices he was currently paying farmers were between $1.50 and $1.60, so if he agreed to $1.75 including his fee, he would be selling the oil for $1.40 per pound, below his cost.^[71] The transparency of the arrangement gave the A. M. Todd Company much more leverage than it would have had if the prices it had paid farmers had been invisible to the customer. The Wrigley Company ultimately paid more than it wanted to pay, but it could be confident that it had paid market prices rather than an arbitrary, negotiated price. The arrangement worked, and in 1921 the Todd Company balance sheet included $351,112 in merchandise and $595,939 in real estate. The company’s total value was $1,071,659.^[72]

The Wrigley purchasing-agent agreement was only one of several creative marketing arrangements Albert Todd and his sons tried in the 1920s. In 1923, The A. M. Todd Company contracted with the Wrigley Company to sell it between twenty-five thousand and sixty thousand pounds of spearmint oil annually for five years, for the fixed price of three dollars a pound.^[73] Unlike peppermint oil, which it bought from farmers at market prices, much of the spearmint oil the Todd Company would need to fill the Wrigley contract was produced at Mentha. For the rest, the company signed a contract with George Wattles in Colon, Michigan, to plant 150 acres of spearmint in 1923 and two hundred acres in 1924 and to sell the spearmint oil to the Todd Company for $2.25 per pound. The company agreed to advance Wattles five dollars per acre in May and five dollars per acre in June against the proceeds of the oil sales in the fall.^[74] George Wattles was the general organizer of the American Society for Equity’s Essential Oil and Mint Grower’s Branch, which was organized in 1906 to fight “speculators from the east as well as the west [who] depressed the market.”^[75] Apparently the fixed-price deal gave the activist confidence he was being treated fairly by the company he had once suspected of cornering the essential oil market.

In 1927, an assessment entitled “The Mint Industry in the United States” reported that Michigan and Indiana produced 450,000 pounds of peppermint oil annually, which accounted for 85 to 90 percent of all the peppermint oil distilled in America.^[76] The article listed the main uses of peppermint oil in their order of importance: “1st chewing gum, 2nd dental creams, 3rd confections, 4th medicinal purposes.” The article noted that after the first distillation the water “which flows from these receivers is conducted to a special building where the patented Todd equipment for removing the oil from distillate water is in operation. This equipment the writer was not permitted to see, and in fact no mention was made of it by the officials who explained the operation of the still.” The authors were impressed with the size and efficiency of the distilling operation. “The Todd still is equipped with six 200 horsepower boilers of which five are in operation when the distilling equipment is used to its fullest capacity.” The article also stated that there was nearly no remaining peppermint production in western New York. After price increases in 1925 and 1926, a few New York farmers had ordered roots from Indiana to replant, but even so “while 50 acres was set as the maximum it is likely that the actual average is much less,” and only six growers had reported any plantings. The article mentioned that the Hotchkiss Company of Lyons depended entirely on oil from Michigan and Indiana, although the author noted that the western oil was probably rectified and blended to make it fit the flavor profile expected of Wayne County oils.^[77] Of course, since peppermint oil was rarely kept more than a few years, it is impossible to know how the Hotchkiss oil of the 1920s compared to the Hotchkiss oil of the 1850s. The flavors of A. M. Todd’s essential oils also probably changed over time, but at least Todd’s oils had been subjected to thorough chemical analyses that helped ensure recipes for clients like Wrigley and Colgate would remain as consistent as possible.

Albert May Todd retired from the peppermint oil business in 1928, when the company moved from the four-story brick building he had built in downtown Kalamazoo to its newly built headquarters on Douglas Avenue north of the city. In a sixty-year career, Albert had helped establish Michigan as the center of both the peppermint and the spearmint oil businesses. He had invented new technologies and pioneered agricultural processes that improved the yield and quality of essential oil production. Although a strong salesman and a charismatic leader, he deliberately established his business on a scientific basis and promoted objective standards of purity and quality. And he treated his family, workers, and business associates fairly and with respect.

Albert educated and prepared his children to succeed him in his business and then gave them the opportunity to run it without interference. They were remarkably effective, improving the company’s performance during his lifetime and continuing it successfully after his death. The A. M. Todd Company remained a privately held corporation throughout the twentieth century, always headed by a member of the Todd family. The company remained the world leader in peppermint and spearmint oil and continued its strong relationships with manufactures like Wrigley and Colgate. In 2010, the company for the first time appointed a chief executive who was not a family member. In 2011, the A. M. Todd name and the company’s product portfolio and intellectual property were sold to WILD Flavors, a German firm that had invented the Capri Sun fruit drink in 1969. WILD GmbH is now owned by the global conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland.