At the beginning of the twentieth century the nation’s supply of saccharin came from Germany, the only source of it. A middle-aged purchasing agent for the Meyer Brothers Drug Company of St. Louis decided it was time to change that. One pound of saccharin in those days equaled 500 pounds of sugar and was six times less expensive. John F. Queeny established his own chemical works in St. Louis. While working for Meyer Brothers, he started a business which seventy-five years later was operating in 143 countries and had 60,000 employees. He was forty-two years old with six years of schooling when he established his business in 1901 with $1500 of his own money and $3,500 from another source.
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