The Answer:
Graham crackers and graham flour are both named after a failed
minister turned professional reformer named Sylvester Graham
(1795-1851).
Born in Connecticut, Graham toured the Northeast during the
early 1800s and gave controversial lectures about his views on
peoples' eating and drinking habits and their sexual behavior.
Graham had revolutionary ideas for early 19th-century America.
He advocated that folks stick to a vegetarian diet, make their own
bread with whole-grain wheat (graham flour), and use marriage to rid
the body of sexual desires, which he believed caused disease.
His lectures became so heated that no hall in Boston would book
him, and he was once attacked by a mob of butchers and bakers.
His home on Pleasant Street in Northampton, Mass. is now
occupied by Sylvester's
Restaurant specializing in home-baked breads and other baked
goods. No doubt Graham would be pleased.
—The Editors
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