Colonel Sanders

by Kay Novy

Title

Colonel Sanders

Artist

Kay Novy

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Colonel Harland David Sanders (September 9, 1890 December 16, 1980) was an American businessman and restaurateur who founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant chain.
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Sanders' father was a mild and affectionate man who tried to make a living as a farmer, but fell and broke his back and a leg and had to give it up. For two years he worked as a butcher in Henryville. One summer afternoon in 1895, he came home with a fever and died later that day. Sanders' mother obtained work in a tomato-canning factory; the young Harland was required to cook for his family.
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In 1930 Sanders opened a service station in Corbin, Kentucky where he cooked chicken dishes and other meals such as country ham and steaks for customers. Since he did not have a restaurant, he served customers in his adjacent living quarters. His local popularity grew and Sanders moved to a motel with a 142 seat restaurant, later designated the Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum. Over the next nine years he developed his "Secret Recipe" for frying chicken in a pressure fryer that cooked the chicken much faster than pan frying. In 1939 food critic Duncan Hines visited Sanders restaurant incognito and was so impressed he listed the place in Adventures in Good Eating, his famous guide to restaurants throughout the US. As his success grew, Sanders played a more active role in civic life, including joining the Rotary Club, the chamber of commerce, and the Freemasons. In 1947, he and Josephine divorced and Sanders married his secretary Claudia in 1949, as he had long desired. He was "re-commissioned" as a Kentucky Colonel in 1949 by his friend, Governor Lawrence Wetherby.
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Around 1950, Sanders began developing his distinctive appearance, growing his trademark mustache and goatee and donning a white suit and string tie. He never wore anything else in public during the last 20 years of his life, using a heavy wool suit in the winter and a light cotton suit in the summer. He bleached his mustache and goatee to match his white hair.
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In 1952 he successfully franchised "Kentucky Fried Chicken" to his friend Pete Harman of South Salt Lake, Utah, the operator of one of that city's largest restaurants. In the first year of selling the product, restaurant sales more than tripled, with 75% of the increase coming from sales of fried chicken. For Harman, the addition of fried chicken was a way of differentiating his restaurant from competitors; in Utah, a product hailing from Kentucky was unique and evoked imagery of Southern hospitality. Don Anderson, a sign painter hired by Harman, coined the name Kentucky Fried Chicken.
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The franchise approach became successful and in 1964 Sanders sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation for $2 million to a partnership of Kentucky businessmen headed by John Y. Brown, Jr. The deal did not include the Canadian operations. In 1965 Sanders moved to Mississauga, Ontario to oversee his Canadian franchises and continued to collect franchise and appearance fees both in Canada and in the U.S. (He was active in Ontario even as he aged. For example, his 80th birthday was held at the Inn on the Park in North York, Ontario, hosted by Jerry Lewis as a Canadian Muscular Dystrophy Association fundraiser. In September 1970 he and his wife were baptized in the Jordan River. He also befriended Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell.

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May 18th, 2013

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