Austin Church

Austin Church (January 8, 1799 – August 7, 1879) was an American medical doctor and a pioneer of bicarbonate of soda manufacturing.

He was a co-founder of the company that first developed the product in America from chemical compound salts.

Church gave up his medical practice and established a factory to make pearlash and saleratus in Rochester, New York.

[5][6] Church and Dwight packaged the product themselves in one-pound (450 g) brightly colored bags for grocery store shelves.

The factory that produced the baking soda was in Brooklyn, where Church lived for twenty-five years.

[10][11][12] They used the well recognized trademark to sell the Arm & Hammer Baking Soda product for hundreds of uses in cooking and cleaning and marketed it worldwide.

For fifty years, the company was one of the most well-known grocery store supply vendors in the United States.

[16] Church was known as a generous contributor to various charities in Brooklyn,[17] one being the New York Association for Improvement of the Poor.