lucrative staple of American consumer life. By 1900, Coca-Cola was sold in every state.
That same year, the partners created separate bottling companies to divide the national market. Joseph Whitehead joined John T. Lupton to establish the Dixie Coca- Cola Bottling Company( later Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Company) to serve the Southeast, along with bottlers in other regions. The Whiteheads moved to Atlanta in 1903, where they became prominent in business and society. Just three years later, Joseph died of pneumonia, leaving behind his widow and two young sons.
Lettie Whitehead took charge, becoming chair of Whitehead Holding Company and president of Whitehead Realty Company. She not only managed the businesses but expanded them aggressively— reorganizing operations, improving distribution networks and helping build one of the largest Coca-Cola bottling operations in the country. Her efforts to standardize and scale the bottling were key to Coca-Cola’ s rise as a national and global brand.
Lettie developed a close friendship and business partnership with Robert W. Woodruff, who became president of Coca- Cola in 1923. In 1934, she sold the family’ s bottling interests back to the Coca-Cola Company in exchange for stock, greatly increasing her wealth and stake in the enterprise. That same year, she joined Coca-Cola’ s board of directors, becoming one of the first women to serve on the board of a major American corporation. Her appointment was not symbolic; she was a respected and influential director, contributing meaningfully during a period of significant growth and change.
With her fortune secure, Lettie devoted herself increasingly to philanthropy. During World War II, she donated more than $ 50,000 to the Queen’ s Canadian Fund for Air Raid Victims, funded a Spitfire fighter plane for Britain that she asked to be named Virginia and provided ambulances for France. She also served as a trustee of the American Hospital of Paris.
Over her lifetime, she gave over $ 150 million to more than 130 organizations— equivalent to several billion dollars today. In 1945, she established the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation, to which she left her estate. The foundation continues to support educational and cultural institutions.
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans was far more than a caretaker of her late husband’ s business. She was a pioneering executive and civic-minded leader whose vision and contributions helped Coca- Cola become the global brand it is today.
Marjorie Merriweather Post: Corporate Visionary
“ Again, back in my Daddy’ s business!” scribbled Marjorie Merriweather Post( 1887 – 1973) on the announcement of her appointment to the General Foods board in 1936. Though not officially on the board until then, her influence on the company had been evident since her father’ s death in 1915.
In 1891, when Marjorie was four, the Post family moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where her father, C. W. Post, sought treatment from John Harvey Kellogg. Kellogg’ s use of breakfast cereals and coffee substitutes inspired Post to experiment with food manufacturing. Walking the neighborhood with her father, Marjorie watched women laboring in kitchens at dawn, a burden they hoped to ease. Out of that vision came Postum, a breakfast beverage, as well as Post Toasties and Grape-Nuts, cold cereals. These products were the foundation of the Postum Cereal Company, launched in 1895. By age 10, Marjorie was attending board meetings with her father and learning the business firsthand.
Bissell Carpet Sweeper Co. advertisement, 1887.
That same instinct to lighten household burdens guided her most famous decision: championing the 1929 acquisition of Clarence Birdseye’ s frozen food company. Drawing on vivid memories of her mother’ s laborious canning, she foresaw that Birdseye’ s ability to freeze vegetables, fruits, fish and poultry would transform the food industry. Her persistence persuaded both the General Foods board and her then-husband, financier E. F. Hutton, to make the purchase. It was a bold move that reshaped the American diet and put General Foods on the path to becoming a conglomerate.
By 1935, Marjorie owned 10 % of General Foods stock and pressed for a board seat. With women’ s suffrage secured and Frances Perkins serving as Secretary of Labor, the case for women in leadership was gaining visibility. A broader movement was building to support gender diversity on boards— a cause endorsed by General Foods director Sidney Weinberg, senior partner of Goldman Sachs, with whom Marjorie would later serve for many years. In 1936, she formally joined the General Foods board, cementing her place among the first women to hold such a role at a major American corporation.
Her impact extended well beyond business. Committed to social welfare, the arts
10 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Fall 2025 | www. MoAF. org