World-renowned a century ago, Rose Knox faded into obscurity, but Pine Plains resident Rachel Greenfield is determined to change that. In her new biography, “Rose Knox: How One Woman Mixed Kitchen and Boardroom to Remold an American Business,” Greenfield details how Knox initially ran Knox Gelatine behind the scenes following the 1908 death of her husband — the company’s founder — to avoid violating the era’s strict gender norms facing women in corporate business. Once Knox eventually assumed public leadership, she became one of the most famous and successful American businesswomen of the 1920s and ’30s — only to fall into anonymity after her death at the age of 90, in 1950.
Released on Oct. 15 by Three Hills, a branch of Cornell University Press that specializes in New York state history, Greenfield’s book is the result of a decade of meticulous research and her personal desire to bring the stories of 20th-century female industrialists back into the national consciousness. “History and our world are cyclical,” she told the Herald. “Women in business today can better understand their lives if they understand the women in business who came before them: what precedents were set, what images were set, and what expectations were set.”
Greenfield’s biography career grew out of her own distinguished business background. After studying history at Vassar College, Greenfield attended Harvard Business School in the late 1970s — when women were just beginning to fight their way up the corporate ladder. She worked 40 years as a publishing and digital executive, running the Publishing Division of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and founding SheBooks, a startup that produced e-books written by women for women.
When Greenfield left the corporate world in 2016, it wasn’t to retire: ”I don’t use that word — it’s misleading, connoting playing golf or bridge.” Instead, she fulfilled a promise she made to herself in college: to return to history by the age of 60 and to investigate women who ran companies in the early 1900s. “No one had written about leading and owning businesses,” she said. “People wrote about female factory workers or teachers, not owners.”
While professional women of the time were expected to focus solely on their careers and forgo marriage, Knox “did it all,” embracing her role as a devoted wife and mother while building a successful business. By 1927, she expanded Knox Gelatine — by then, the world’s leading manufacturer of the unflavored, granulated powder — into a $1.6 million enterprise (equivalent to over $30 million today), eight times the size of the company her husband had left her.
Greenfield writes about Knox’s achievements and challenges as both entrepreneur and mother. “Rose Knox never talked about how tough it was — she wouldn’t have been accepted by women or men,” Greenfield said. “She gave proof she could do it all without telling us what really happened.” (While Knox’s wealth and domestic staff undoubtedly eased some burdens, her creative resilience remains a central part of her legacy.)
That balancing act deeply resonated with the biographer. Longtime friend and neighbor Darrah Cloud, a veteran playwright, said she spent many hours on Greenfield’s lakeside porch discussing women in business trying to raise kids. “I remember Rachel getting the idea for the book because she related to Rose so well,” Cloud said. “Her life mirrors Knox’s life: wanting to be a good mother, a good wife, and a good businesswoman.”
Knox first drew Greenfield’s attention a decade ago, when she was researching potential subjects. “I found out Rose had lived in Johnstown, N.Y. — less than two hours from my home — so I drove up there to look at the library archives,” she said. Johnstown was the headquarters of the Knox Gelatine Company, established in 1891, which mass-produced the calf-bone collagen powder widely used in jellies, ice creams, and the highly popular decorative molds eaten at family gatherings and church suppers.
With the local librarian’s help, Greenfield met Knox’s grandchildren, who invited her to their historic 35-acre Adirondack camp on Piseco Lake. They gave her exclusive access to a century-old collection of family papers — thousands of personal letters, press clippings, ads, and photographs — stored haphazardly in dusty cardboard boxes in the attic of the family’s massive log home.
For eight years, Greenfield traveled to the camp once or twice a summer, staying three days at a time. “It’s really hot up in the attic; I almost got heat stroke once,” she recalled, “And I couldn’t go in the winter because the camp was closed — and it was freezing.”
Armed with an iPad, Greenfield photographed each document. Back home in Pine Plains, she systematically catalogued every image with Excel sheets to track dates and set keywords; then translated all the raw data into a master draft.
The research process yielded another discovery. Michael Kemp, a vintage record player collector from Pine Plains, played Greenfield a rare recording of Knox: her speech at a 1932 convention — an address that highlighted her effective, likely elocution-trained speaking style. “I could finally hear her voice,” Greenfield said. “It made a major difference to how I presented her and is an integral part of the book.”
Transitioning from a corporate executive to a biographer required a new skill set for Greenfield. She took 20th-century American history courses at Columbia University to improve her academic writing and joined the Authors Guild and Biographers International Organization. The latter group “beat into me that if you’re writing a biography, it’s not a history book,” she said. “It’s a very different type of writing.”
In 2019, Greenfield met the editor-in-chief of Three Hills; the publisher offered her a contract in 2023. The manuscript first underwent rigorous peer review, including an extensive evaluation by an expert in women’s business history, Dr. Susan Ingalls Lewis, Professor Emerita of History at SUNY New Paltz.
Courtesy Rachel Greenfield
“Rachel’s book is a biography, but it had to be set in the context of women’s business history,” Lewis said. “She had done a huge amount of research; it was important to me that this book be recognized as an important contribution to the field.”
Greenfield’s biography is enhanced with sketches, photographs, historical advertisements, and 28 gelatine recipes — one at the end of each chapter, all of which she tested during her gelatine-making parties.
Cloud was one of the attendees. ”We weren’t the best cooks, but we had a blast trying to follow the old recipes,” she said, noting that following the antique instructions was challenging, She called the ham and green olive soufflé “tasty,” but added, “The chocolate mousse turned out pretty slimy, and slid right onto the floor. It was sad.”
After finalizing the manuscript in early 2025, the book was slated for mid-September delivery — but Greenfield learned of its actual publication unexpectedly when colleague and writer Amy Reading and Pine Plains neighbor Leah Cadwallader both texted photos of the new hardback. Shocked, Greenfield texted back, ”Wait a minute… I haven’t gotten my book yet!” Cadwallader gifted her copy to the upset author until Greenfield’s own shipment arrived two days later. Finally holding the book in her hands “just felt good,” she said.
Greenfield has embarked on a self-arranged, national book tour since late October, with multiple stops from New York to Iowa. Attendees proactively bring their own vintage gelatine molds to her talks, “which we eat,” she said. Greenfield may consider starting another book on a historic businesswoman next year. “Writing biographies is a lot of work,” she said, “but it’s also a lot of fun.”
Rachel Greenfield will appear in conversation with Amy Reading to discuss “Rose Knox: How One Woman Mixed Kitchen and Boardroom to Remold an American Business.” Presented in partnership with Oblong Books and the Pine Plains Free Library, the event will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8, at The Grace Note in Stissing Center. Admission is free. More information can be found on Stissing Center’s website.