Oberlin College was, at the time, a bulwark of Christian Pietism. The leaders of the school were Grahamites. This included the famous revivalist preacher Charles Finney and William Alcott, the uncle of Lousa May who wrote Little Women.
They issued a decree that all meals on campus must follow the Graham diet to the letter of the law. Villagers guffawed claiming they could tell an Oberlin student by their gaunt and pale appearance. The experiment came to an end when two things happened. 1. A large number of students boycotted and began to eat off campus. 2. A faculty member was fired when he was found to be smuggling a pepper shaker onto campus in his pocket.
You may think I am making some of this up, but I'm not. You can read about it here. It's a history of Oberlin College. Check out, especially, chapter 22.
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