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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   1920s soda pop pick-me-ups hit the spot   List Jim Trautman Next   Wartime medicine blossomed into soda pop wars   By Jim Trautman The history of soda pop is a fascinating chapter in the cultural history of North America.   Today, it is sold in grocery stores, gas stations, corner stores, vending machines and, of course, drug stores.   The history of soda pop began around the time of the American Civil War. One good fact about wars is they often increase our medical knowledge regarding the treatment of wounds sustained by the body and mind.   After the Civil War, there was a new market for various medicinal products and it would not be until the 1920s that there would be any meaningful regulation on what could be sold over the counter. Drug stores began to appear in large numbers in towns and large cities.   As the population moved west, the “Traveling Medicine Show” began to visit. It was the high point of the year, along with the circus coming to town.   Each traveling show had its own magic elixir to sell to the gathered crowds. The pitch was usually the same: the product would cure everything from hernias, seizures, croup, consumption, corns, fallen arches, rusty nail punctures and much more, including being “down,” or as we know it in 2012, depression.   Testimonial letters were read out to the crowd as part of the plan to increase sales. Who really knew if someone had written those letters? Another reason for the development of these elixirs was that the push by the Temperance Movement was beginning to accelerate. If you lived in a “dry” area, it did not take long to discover that the medicine gave one a nice pick-me-up. Even a recent turn of the 20th Century Murdock Mystery on television dealt with the evils of the famous Absinthe - green liquor.   In the late 1880s, druggists or pharmacists in many towns and cities began to concoct new drinks that were marketed as pick-me-ups. The most famous, Coca-Cola, was invented by Dr. John Stith Pemberton. He stirred up the first glass of what was to become Coca-Cola in May 1886 at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Pepper was a product of Waco, Texas.   Both Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper now have their own museums where one can explore the history of the drink and the company. The museums are located in the cities where each drink was invented. Explore their websites.   Later, Pepsi Cola was invented by Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist from North Carolina, and N.C. Ward, a chemist in San Francisco, devised Orange Crush, which originally contained real pieces of orange.   In 1929, Charles Leiper Grigg of St. Louis, Missouri, brought onto the market Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon Lime Soda, which became known as 7Up. The little bubbles on the 7Up bottle were a sign that if you drank it, you would become happy. This was very possible since it contained Lithium.   Moxie, invented by Dr. Augustin Thompson of Salem, Massachusetts, was sold as “nerve food, helping those suffering from nervous exhaustion.” Originally, it was sold to be taken by the spoonful before meals. Ted Williams, the famous Boston Red Sox baseball player, appeared in its advertising, especially on metal signs along the highway and in drug stores.     As the original inventors of the product brought in business partners, it became apparent that to maximize profits these soda pop drinks had to move out from the drug store fountain and into mass markets.   In 1892, the metal bottle cap crown was invented along with the machinery to turn the caps out by the thousands. This, coupled with the introduction of the mass-produced glass bottle, made it possible to produce the soda pop in large factories and begin to market and develop a company brand.   In addition, the syrup for the soda pop could still be employed in drug stores for customers who wanted it fresh on the spot. Carbonated water could be purchased in bottles and new machines made it possible to create it in the drug store.   Coca-Cola became the major developer in setting the tone and putting their brand into the public realm. In 1900, as a forerunner to the coming Age of the Automobile and the drive-in restaurant, Coca-Cola marketed its cola syrup to drug stores.   Many drug stores then began to provide curb service for horse and buggy drivers. An employee would take your order, go in and mix the Coca-Cola drink and then carry it out to the waiting occupants of the carriage.   While each of the soda pop drinks was sold as a pick-me-up, Dr. Pepper focused on the female customer. Their ads ran, “Vim springs from within, rest won’t restore energy, but food will. Dr. Pepper is the jiffy quick energy lift." The bottle cap contained the numbers 10-2-4.   The three numbers indicated when it was time for a Dr. Pepper.   As competition for the customers’ money heated up, companies issued give-away items, conducted contests and with the advent of radio, soda pop advertising increased. Like today’s television shows, radio shows required sponsors to pay the bills.   Pepsi Cola, which had been purchased by the Loft Candy Company, was quick off the mark with its radio jingle - “Nickel Nickel” - indicating the low price for a bottle of Pepsi Cola. This was followed by Dr. Pepper with, “Drink a bite to eat at 10,2,4 - the friendly Pepper-Upper.”   But, it was the Coca-Cola Company that hit it big with the most iconic figure of all time; Santa Claus. Starting in 1931, their illustrator Haddon Sundblom created the Santa Claus image, which is still with us today.   Sundblom would move on to create the Quaker Oats Man, the package art for Maxwell House Coffee and the advertising for Packard cars, but it was his depiction of Santa Claus that made him famous.   The Christmas advertising campaign ran for 40 years. One year featured Santa Claus playing with electric trains another year holding a bottle of Coca-Cola and even being caught by a little boy as he looks in the ice box for a cold one.   In recent years, the company has resurrected those long ago images on collector cans and packages and brought back many of the original images including the Polar Bear.   Each company attempted to keep their product before the public eye. In the past 100 years, innumerable items have been given away as premiums. They have included special edition bottles, calendars, trays, pencil holders, bottle neck hangers, baseball picture cards, movie stars etc.   During World War II, it was a large series of Allied aircraft bottle neck hanger cards. The set was designed by the famous artist William Heaslip. The complete four sets of aircraft now sell for thousands of dollars.   Point of sale items have been a major part of the advertising campaigns, as well.   Records with famous singers have been issued and now one can find Santa Claus on the sleeve of Christmas Carol records. From the 1930s to 1970s, restaurants and soda fountains posted cardboard ads featuring hot dogs, fries and hamburgers along with a bottle of Coca-Cola or Pepsi Cola.   Many items were issued with the local high school or college team logo and a section to add the latest football, basketball, baseball or hockey scores.   The competition became so intense that companies provided stores with a metal door push to put on the screen door. As you entered and pushed on the door, there was the company brand putting out the subliminal message to have a cold soda pop.   After World War II, with wages increasing, autos mass-produced and cheap gasoline, the “Golden Age of the Automobile” had arrived.   As a kid, my father operated a Philips 66 gas station and I remember gas wars and providing full service. We even asked you to step out of your car while we vacuumed the inside.   With the advent of the Sunday drive and vacation trips, more and more fast food drive-ins appeared. Each drive-in provided kid-friendly, inexpensive food like hot dogs, hamburgers and fries and, of course, you needed a soda pop to wash it all down. Drive-in restaurants had agreements with specific soda pop companies and only served that brand. These agreements have continued on in 2012.   A&W started in the 1930s and by 1970 had over 2,400 drive-in restaurants located across North America. The feature of A&W was the car hop who took your order and brought back the food on a tray which hooked on the car window.   A 1970 ad for A&W features a young woman in a fashionable outfit much like an airline stewardess. The promo: “A&W Root Beer, brewed with pure natural ingredients and true draft flavour, so good with food.” And, of course, one could then purchase their own heavy draft root beer mug to take home. A&W became famous for the combination of ice cream and its root beer to create a float.   With the Internet, one just has to Google to find thousands of sites devoted to soda pop. The book on Coca-Cola Collectibles runs to over 600 pages. Several pages are devoted to Coca-Cola trays that were only issued in certain markets such as Canada or Mexico.   Many of the companies marketed items to each specific area and so it makes collecting soda pop items very interesting. Many soda pop items have cross over collector appeal. Into sports, train sets, advertising, bottles, Christmas, it is, in fact, virtually unlimited.   Many brands have their own collector clubs, magazines, annual conventions. When the Emmy-winning TV drama Mad Men returns next season, you might want to watch it to see how the process for developing advertising for specific products is undertaken.   With the arrival of Prohibition in the early 20th century, John Somerset wrote in the June 1920 issue of Drug Topics, “the bar is dead, the fountain lives, and soda is king!”   Photos 1 - WW2 Coca-Cola's Santa ads brought the war into their advertising   2 - A late 1940s Woolworth' 5&10 soda fountain attracted young and old   3 - Coca-Cola tray one of thousands of collectible promotional items   Return to top of page   This Is Publishing © 2012 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster