(bright chime) (joyful music) - I'm Fred Martino.

In focus today, the documentary "Fields of Gold."

It's the amazing story of A.E.

Staley.

He grew up on a North Carolina farm to a family of modest means.

On his own, he built an empire.

The A.E.

Staley Manufacturing Company began in Baltimore, but in Decatur, Illinois, it thrived.

The business became the largest processor of soybeans in the world.

Staley was a pioneer in the industry and the business made soybeans one of the most important crops in Illinois.

That is where we begin with this clip from "Fields of Gold."

- [Narrator] In 1914, only 2000 acres of soybeans were planted in Illinois.

There was no large scale processing.

But A.E.

had a vision backed by careful research.

Still, he was taking a leap of faith.

- He was successful with the corn.

And you think to yourself, why would you want to then try to add this huge expense?

Soybeans right now, that's a common word in our lexicon.

Everybody knows what a soybean is.

At that point, soybeans weren't something that people knew about.

- The introduction of the soybean was a great compliment to what farmers are raising in corn.

And what's unique about soybeans is the fact that its roots develop fixed nitrogen into the soil.

And in the early days, there was not commercial nitrogen.

So the soybean was what fed, if you will, that corn crop.

And so the rotation where if you raise corn year after year after year, is hard on the soil, but you could rotate between corn and soybeans, and it was better for the soil, better for yields, more productive, and in the end, more profit for farmers and the Staley Manufacturing Company.

- [Narrator] By 1922, enough beans were being harvested for Staley to announce his plans for the first major soybean processing plant in the nation.

That plant began processing beans on September 30th, 1922.

- A.E.

Staley not only had this vision, but he took it one step further.

He guaranteed a market for every farmer.

He said, "I promise you I will buy every bushel of beans you produced."

And he did.

And that gave farmers the certainty to go ahead and try this new crop that no one had planted before.

- [Narrator] That first soybean plant used the expeller process, which uses hydraulic presses, or screw presses, to process the beans.

But more beans were needed, so Staley undertook an information campaign to encourage farmers to grow more.

He used letters, bulletins, pamphlets, and newspaper stories.

But the company's most ambitious undertaking was a combined effort with the University of Illinois, the US Department of Agriculture, and the Illinois Central Railroad.

It was called the Soil and Soybean Special.

And it made stops across the state from Galena in the North to Metropolis in the South.

- There's a story about him going by train to different communities saying, "If you grow soybeans, I will sell them."

And really convincing people to believe in what he was trying to do.

But he took our railroad industry, which was in good shape for the day, and really helped it explode into an incredible industry.

And that's still true to this day.

- So A.E.

Staley had the vision of this crop being successful in the Midwest and he knew it wasn't a known commodity here.

And so he took it upon himself to partner with the University of Illinois and the Illinois Central Railroad, and take his message out to the producers and clearly explain to them the advantages of not only growing soybeans, but then also feeding that rich, rich protein that soybean creates back to their animals.

And it was such a huge win-win-win as we talk about vertical integration.

It was just really a breakthrough for the American farmer.

- That was a clip from the documentary "Fields of Gold," the amazing story of A.E.

Staley.

And I am so pleased to welcome the film's director, Julie Staley, who also reports for WSIU.

Julie, it is so great to have you here in studio.

- Thank you for having me here.

- Congratulations on the film.

This is your first film.

You've been a reporter and a news anchor, many years doing that and now in to film.

I wanna start with your family's connection to A.E.

Staley through your husband and the story of how this documentary project began.

- My husband, Mark Staley, so he's the great grandson of A.E.

Staley.

Mark's father, Henry Staley, was of course the grandson.

And Henry worked his whole career at the A.E.

Staley Manufacturing Company.

So there is a direct connection there, a direct line of descendants there.

And my husband and I have two sons, so that'd be great-great grandsons.

And this history is something that we really wanted to share with the community.

And when we found the Staley Mansion was available, we created that to be the Staley Museum.

And we began getting all kinds of artifacts from the company, from people, from the family to put inside this beautiful home and open it to the public.

And now it really is a place that everyone can come and enjoy the history of the family, of the community, and of their families that were connected to the company.

- So going through that process made you think about this story also has to be told through a film.

- Exactly.

This was something that we thought was a way to really rise above just the main opening that we had.

We had a grand opening, we had a ribbon cutting.

We had all kinds of people that came in for this wonderful day that we had, but we knew that there was more to tell because we have so many pieces of archive material and so many pieces of memorabilia that we can't, and most museums are this way, they don't have space to show everything, to tell the whole story.

So they have rotating displays, temporary displays, because this is a way to showcase all the things in their archives.

Some of them now have digital versions of displays, things you can access digitally, because again, there's just not enough space, square footage, to be able to put all of the archives out there for everyone to see.

So we do have some temporary things and rotating displays and things so people can hopefully see something new every time they come in.

- This is a tough question, but what impressed you most about A.E.

Staley?

- His integrity.

It was something that he had his whole life, no matter if he was barefoot on a farm growing up as a poor boy running around in North Carolina, or if he was a salesman going across the country, meeting people, trying to get his name out there.

Or he was at the top of the corporate ladder and the top of his game.

His integrity was always there.

His trustworthiness, his friendliness, his ability to get along with people and know what people needed.

He just seemed to have a sixth sense, an innate ability to understand people and understand what they needed.

And he was so trustworthy in what he did that people really would go along with any kind of a proposal that he put in front of him.

- Yes, and you see that in the film.

Well, before starting his own company, A.E.

Staley became a successful business executive working for others.

A portion of that part of the story now in this clip from "Fields of Gold."

- [Narrator] By 1895, Gene Staley was working for the Royal Baking Powder Company as manager of their western branch in Chicago.

- The local boy made good, farm boy.

Could have stayed on the farm like 99% of the people did and been satisfied with that, but he wasn't satisfied.

I imagine it took a lot of nerve to hop on the train and go north.

Farm boy with third grade education, so.

- [Narrator] Gene spent 18 years on the road.

He traveled to the far Northwest on the Northern Pacific Railway.

Some places he visited were not yet states.

He was among the first passengers to travel by rail to the territories of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

- But he definitely would've been a pioneer as far as going that far West selling.

And by the 1860s and '70s and '80s, the predominant business infrastructure of manufacturing was in the East and the Midwest.

So in the 1880s and 1890s, that's where A.E.

Staley would've been a pioneer.

Businesses were developing as infrastructure and resources were being put in place, especially in the northwestern part of the United States.

- [Narrator] For six months in 1896, he kept a written record of every stop and every order while on the road.

He also kept a bit of good fortune with him, pressed four leaf clovers inside his sales book.

A.E.

Staley had this bit of luck with him when he made his first visit to an Illinois town he hardly knew called Decatur.

He stayed at the St. Nicholas Hotel.

During his free time, he walked the town and daydreamed.

- Sometimes he would have some available time and he would stroll the communities that he was visiting.

He saw this home and he looked up at it.

If you remember him coming from humble beginnings, log cabin or small family farm, looking up at a home like this one, which at that time and even today is one of Decatur's most impressive homes.

- [Narrator] Bigger things at that time were not in Decatur.

He would find the key to his next step in Chicago.

- Well, Julie, that next step that A.E.

Staley took in Chicago led to his marriage.

Tell me about Emma Staley, covered so beautifully in the film and how her support and love was so critical in his success.

- It absolutely was.

He always talked about how vital that relationship was and how integral she was in the decisions that he made.

She offered gentle but firm support.

She came from a wealthy family, so she knew what it took for her husband to be able to have the home life, have the social life that he needed to support his endeavors, to support his company.

She knew that he needed a lot of advice from his wife that would be supportive in what he was doing.

He wasn't home a lot.

He was traveling, he was at the office, at the plant.

And so she had to take care of a lot of things at home by herself.

She was raising five children, yet also support what he was doing outside of the home.

And the interesting thing about her is that she had her own interests.

She was her own person.

She was a published poet, she was an accomplished pianist, and she had a lot of connections and activities and groups that she was involved in in social life.

So she had a very well-rounded life outside of what she and A.E.

Staley were having together in their marriage.

So they were very busy people all of the time.

And he always appreciated her advice and knew that it came from deep in her heart 'cause she also had kind of a sense of where things need to go.

- Yeah.

- They were a great team.

- Well, another thing that really stood out to me in the film, it does a great job of showing how Staley really understood the power of marketing, from packaging to personally courting investors, to connecting sports teams with the business, that promoted the business.

He was just an amazing marketer.

- Somehow he knew the power of marketing, corporate marketing before we really knew what that was.

He again, had this sixth sense, this innate ability to know what people needed and wanted and what his products needed.

For instance, the corn starch.

When he started to package those, he made sure that the designs on his boxes were more colorful and more ornate, and something that really stood out from the boring old boxes that you would see in the grocery stores.

And that was something that really made his product, again, standout from the other ones.

And then the brilliance that he had, the forethought, the insight he had to put his name on athletic teams and to market that.

That was amazing.

And he started with baseball because that was his love of sports.

He started with a baseball team.

And unbeknownst to him and everyone at the time, it became the football team that really carried the name.

- And we'll get back to that with more coming up.

Right now, A.E.

Staley was also willing to take risks.

He invested heavily in the Decatur plant to make it successful, which allowed the company to move into manufacturing.

That part of the story in this clip from "Fields of Gold."

- [Narrator] A.E.

Staley was just getting warmed up.

In 1907, Staley hired a team of experts to find a factory.

Advisors suggested he look into an idle starch plant in a town Mr. Staley had frequented on his sales route with a bit of luck in his pocket.

Pratt Cereal Company in Decatur, Illinois had fallen on hard times and sold the property to the Wellington Starch Company in 1906.

Wellington had problems from the start and Standard Oil Company made a move to purchase it at a discount.

A.E.

found out about the deal, traveled to Decatur from Baltimore, and offered the bank a few thousand dollars more than Standard Oil.

For $45,000, he owned a plant.

Mr. Staley would invest another $150,000 to get it running.

The plant had rundown equipment that needed repairs, but it also had five railroads in the middle of fertile farmland.

- That's what brought him here, was the fact that you already have an established town with an excellent railroad source, so you can get your supplies in here with no problem.

And you have businesses that have already started here.

You already have grain mills, silos that you can work with, and you don't really have to rebuild your infrastructure.

- He could have located anywhere, certainly in the Midwest with the production, what he was looking to do.

And then as he evolved, he was able to use the resources here to change the direction of the company and still make it profitable for the community.

So I think he had tremendous vision in everything he did.

- [Narrator] Staley received the title to the plant in 1909.

Initially, his reception in Decatur was chilly.

Companies had tried and failed to maintain a business in the old plant.

People didn't believe an outsider could come in and make it work.

- There had to be investors at that time going, "Oh boy, I've lost my money."

I imagine the town had probably just figured it was never going to open, but he never gave up.

He never let it die.

- The whole idea with stay straight, move forward, don't step outside of the box.

And here was a guy who comes to central Illinois and you're not gonna have a more restrictive group of people in their viewpoints.

And yet, he comes in and says, "I got this idea.

I got this idea."

And they all made it happen.

- I think that was really a testament to his belief in his visions.

- A.E.

Staley changed the course of history for Decatur.

He changed what this community was and would become and evolve into because we were a railroad town.

And that's one of the reasons he decided to bring his plant here and his business here is because of the transportation network.

- [Narrator] Today, Decatur has one of the largest flat track shipping yards in North America.

- Julie, as we said before that clip, the film also covers A.E.

Staley's deep connection to sports.

As you said, he was the original owner of the football team that became the Chicago Bears.

Tell me about that.

- He loved sports immensely.

As a young boy growing up in North Carolina in the 1800s, he loved all kinds of sports, but especially baseball.

And people know the history, baseball was really big back then.

And so he really loved baseball.

And I think he felt when he started to see that he was a rising star in the corporate world, that that could be a way for him to really get the word out about his business.

And it sure was, he had the Decatur Staley's baseball team.

And he had a little bitty team at that time that was the Decatur Staley's football team.

And eventually he hired a very young man named George Halas to manage that football team.

And it wasn't long before they realized that this was something that was growing much faster than they expected.

The ticket sales for the football games were sellouts.

They couldn't have enough tickets available to sell.

And eventually, A.E.

Staley knew he was going to have to make a choice, he knew it was either going to be football or agribusiness.

And he ended up sending George Halas and the team to Chicago.

They eventually became the Chicago Staleys and later on became the Chicago Bears.

- What a story.

Well before professional sports, A.E.

Staley helped organize teams for his employees, as Julie said, and that was just a small part of the many benefits for Staley employees.

That part of the story in this clip from "Fields of Gold."

- When you drive by Staley, it is kind of like an enigma, right?

It's like buildings and it's smoky and you don't think about the people that work there.

You lift back the fog and then you find out the number of families that have been touched by this company is mind blowing.

- [Narrator] His family was settled, his company was growing, he had a fine life.

But Mr. Staley wanted that for his employees as well.

The Staley Fellowship Club founded in 1917 offered a strong social life, a family outside of work with dances, dinners, and sports teams for all employees.

Years later, a women's club was added.

It was another pioneering effort in corporate management that made it one of the most important features in the history of the company.

Belonging to the Fellowship Club allowed the company to provide work benefits.

It was something most companies talked about, but failed to do in America.

In 1910, President Taft proposed legislation for paid sick time for employees.

It never passed.

The initiation fee for the club was set at 50 cents and dues at 50 cents per month.

It was decided that a $5 a week sick benefit would be paid and a $100 death benefit.

Then there was the fun of the Fellowship Club picnic called the Staley Picnic.

There were sporting events, contests, music, and a variety of food.

It would grow throughout the years to have more than 5,000 people attend, all paid for by A.E.

himself.

A.E.

also led the way with the Staley Fellowship Journal.

It combined company news and safety reminders.

The journal featured advice from the Staley Fire Department for employees to use on the job, as well as photographs and stories highlighting workers and their families.

The journal received national honors in 1923.

The magazine was a photo album, showing the good life of Staley employees, the cars they were driving, the homes they lived in, the vacations, and the life that Staley employees were living and living well.

- Well, as we saw there, A.E.

Staley really was a pioneer when it comes to employee benefits and also what you might call employee engagement.

Tell me your reflections about the importance of this part of this Staley company.

- This was incredibly important because it emphasized his integrity because he wanted a good life for himself and for his family, but he also wanted a good life for his employees.

And he did everything he could to make that happen.

He instituted sick time, sick leave, paid leave, death benefits, all kinds of ways for people to be able to pay or buy in to what was called the Staley Fellowship Club.

And that was something that gave them these benefits for not only a medical or an emergency, but also there were social benefits to the Staley Fellowship Club.

They could join the club and go to dances and dinners and parties, and there were athletics for men and for women.

And that's where the baseball team started, and the Staley Fellowship Club is where the football team started.

- Yeah, I imagine that created a comradery amongst the employees and a real investment.

People stayed there for life in employment and then generations of a family would work there.

- Absolutely.

And it was so vital that they stayed together as a family.

When the Depression hit, he didn't lay people off, he raised their wages.

That's how important his employees were to him.

- Well, after seeing this entire film, I cannot wait to see the museum, which was the home that we saw in the film.

And you mentioned that at the beginning of our conversation today.

It must be so meaningful for you being part of that and seeing people enjoy that.

- It really is.

We were so grateful to be able to obtain and purchase the home after a family had taken it under their wing and renovated it.

And it was just glorious to see it after this family had renovated it.

And then to be able to open it back up to the public and let it be their home in the community.

And now it is a home for everyone to come in and enjoy the history of, again, the family, the Staley family of A.E.

Staley himself as a personal man and to enjoy the history of the company and to enjoy the history of all of the thousands of people that helped build that company and make it what it is today.

- I can't wait to spend some time.

- [Julie] We're looking forward to having you there.

- Julie, congratulations on the film.

- Thank you so much.

- And thank you for sharing part of it with us.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you for being with us at home.

For everyone at WSIU, I'm Fred Martino.

Have a great week.

(cheerful music) (cheerful music continues)