Plasmon
From Mark Twain in the German Language Press
The main product sold by the Plasmon Company was also called “Plasmon”, a skim milk powder that was supposed to restore general health and which Samuel L. Clemens encountered first during his stay in Vienna in 1898/1899 (see Wilson and Rees in LeMaster and Wilson, The Routledge Encyclopedia 108-112; and Ober 169).
There were a number of producers of similar protein products around the time (see “New Foods and Cures” in the Conchise review, 10 Oct. 1900 which uses “albumen” as a catch-all term for this and similar products). An extensive advertising campaign claimed that Plasmonhad been invented by German Chemist Dr. Siebold in (see for example “Plasmon, a Nutritious Food,” The San Francisco call, 5 Mar. 1901, 9). The production of Plasmon was cheap and Clemens therefore deemed its marketization a profitable business opportunity. The powder would be dissolved in boiling water, baked into biscuits, or cooked into all sorts of food to make it palatable.
Around the time, Clemens consumed it on a daily basis in some form, either dissolved in milk or simply eaten as plain powder (Paine 3:1099, 3:1151). He also promoted it to family and friends as a miracle cure which he claimed had healed him from indigestion and which he hoped would also improve the declining health of his wife, Olivia (Ober 172). In terms of nutrition, Plasmon was claimed to equal a multiple of its weight “in steak”, not only by Clemens but also by some of his contemporaries (Ober 171).
Company
The Plasmon Company mentioned in relation to Clemens is explicitly the American company; a British branch (both are sometimes referred to by the same name: “Plasmon Co.”) existed simultaneously and Clemens also held shares of the British company which had been founded in 1900, slightly earlier than the American company, and eventually did gain Clemens some profit when it was sold (Paine 3:1058; and Ober 170-171). Clemens invested $25.000 in the American Plasmon Company and is referred to as its vice-president (Scharnhorst, “The Complete Interviews” 659) or director (Lauber 286). In the beginning, Clemens saw Plasmon primarily as a valid business opportunity and tried to convince friends to invest in the company. His endorsement of the dietary product manufactured by Plasmon was also used for marketing purposes (see the advertisement in The San Francisco call, 23. Dec. 1900). Mark Twain became increasingly enthusiastic about the supposed health benefits of the product (Ober 170-171).
Bankruptcy
According to contemporary newspaper reports, the Plasmon Company of America had suffered from in-company fighting and misunderstandings almost since its foundation at the turn of the century. In October 1907, a court case (see “Mark Twain Witness in Libel Suit,” New-York tribune, 16 Oct. 1907, 11) was brought before the Supreme Court, Brooklyn, in which Ralph W. Ashcroft accused one of the Plasmon shareholders, John H. Hammond, of libel. A telegram which Hammond had sent to Clemens in 1904 had described Ashcroft as unfit for his position as manager and stockholder of the Plasmon Company. The resulting conflict likely brought about the company’s bankruptcy later the same year, when, in December 1907, some of the company’s creditors – all of which had previously held some position in the company’s management – forced Plasmon to file for bankruptcy, their claims ranging from $1.000 to $8.000 (see “Price of Digestion,” New-York tribune, 21 Dec. 1907, 7).