Pioneering Consumer Advocate Gave Rise to FDA

Wiley joined the Union Army in May 1864, according to AOCS. He served briefly in the 137th Indiana Infantry Regiment and guarded railroads in Tennessee and Alabama. Discharged as a corporal in September 1864, he enrolled at Hanover College in Indiana, where he earned bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degrees, as well as an MD from Indiana Medical College in 1871. He taught Latin, Greek, and chemistry at Butler University and at a high school in Indianapolis, then returned to his studies, earning a bachelor’s degree in science at Harvard University. Wiley joined newly started Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., as a chemistry professor.

In 1878, Wiley traveled to Europe for a series of lectures by August von Hoffmann, who discovered coal tar derivatives, including aniline. Wiley impressed von Hoffmann, who recommended him as a fellow in the German Chemical Society. In Germany, Wiley worked at the Imperial Food Laboratory in Bismarck, where he mastered the chemistry of sugars. That knowledge came in handy late in life, in his successful battle to keep refined sugar pure and unadulterated. His first paper on the subject, which was published in 1881, focused on the adulteration of sugar with glucose.

According to the FDA, Wiley moved to Washington, D.C. in 1883 to become the chief chemist in the Department of Agriculture, which tasked him with supporting new agricultural industries. George Loring, the commissioner of the department, reportedly wanted a chemist who could run a program to develop sorghum into a sugar crop. Wiley’s boyhood knowledge of agriculture and background in chemistry made him a natural for the position. He also had a personal passion for developing tests for food purity, which he was able to continue in his new post.

After fighting for decades to get safe food legislation passed, Wiley set up and directed the Bureau of Foods, Sanitation, and Health for Good Housekeeping magazine before leaving the government in 1912, a year after he married and two years after he was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal, given by The Franklin Institute. Once on staff with the magazine, and with his own chemistry laboratories in Washington, Wiley was able to watch over the government’s activities more effectively and gain caché in his fight for food purity. The bureau analyzed food and published the findings, and its “Tested and Approved” seal became coveted in the industry. The Good Housekeeping Seal of approval still holds sway with today’s consumers.

Wiley spent 19 years as director of the bureau at Good Housekeeping, battling for government enforcement of tougher meat inspections and for purer butter and other foods.

In 1927, Wiley was again ahead of his time when he expressed suspicion that tobacco use might promote cancer. Good Housekeeping stopped allowing cigarette ads in 1952, 12 years before the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report on the health hazards of smoking. Good Housekeeping has continued Wiley’s work on safe foods and proper labeling. Wiley died in 1930 at age 86 on the day of the 24th anniversary of the signing of the Pure Food and Drugs law. The Association of Analytical Communities, which Wiley founded in 1884 and for which he was president in 1886, gives an award in his memory. He also had a 3-cent postage stamp issued by the U.S. Post Office in his honor in 1956 to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1906 Act.

Lori Valigra is a writer based in Cambridge, Mass. Reach her at l[email protected].