Coca-Cola

In 1886, an Atlanta, Georgia, pharmacist named John "Doc" Pemberton (1831–1888) concocted a thick, sweet brown syrup that he claimed would cure headaches and upset stomachs. Mixed with carbonated water and served for a nickel a glass at the counter of his pharmacy, Doc Pemberton's drink grew in popularity and soon he was selling up to nine glasses a day. He named his creation Coca-Cola, after its most powerful ingredients, cocaine from the coca plant of South America and caffeine from the kola nut of Africa.

From such humble beginnings, Coca-Cola has grown to become one of the most powerful corporations on earth. Sold in 195 countries, Coca-Cola is the largest selling soft drink, and the Coca-Cola bottling system is the most widespread production and distribution network in the world. More than that, "Coke" has come to represent American culture and lifestyle in both positive and negative ways at home and abroad.

Pemberton may have been a creative inventor, but he was not an aggressive businessman. Soon after he introduced Coke in Atlanta, ownership of the product passed to Asa Candler (1851–1929), who was a sharp businessman and increased sales dramatically. He improved the original recipe, removing the cocaine, which was beginning to be considered a dangerous drug. By 1895, Candler was distributing Coca-Cola in every state and territory in the United States. In 1919, Candler sold the business for $25 million dollars to a group of investors headed by Ernest Woodruff. It was Woodruff's son, Robert (1889–1985), who would make Coke an international household word.

When he assumed the presidency of the company in 1923, Robert Woodruff concentrated on creating the Coca-Cola image. His first step was the mystification of the "secret formula" for the drink. Mostly as an advertising trick, he made a very public show of hiding the handwritten copy of Pemberton's original formula in a bank vault. Only two or three Coke executives would have access to the formula, he said, and their identities would be secret. Supposedly, these executives would not be allowed to travel together, so that in case of a car, train, or airplane crash, the formula would not be lost. The American public responded well to Woodruff's little drama. He followed up by producing hundreds of products with the Coca-Cola logo. Trays, glasses, napkins, and calendars bearing the red-and-white script logo appeared in thousands of homes across the United States. However, it was the role of Coke in World War II (1939–45) that established the soft drink globally.

When the United States joined World War II in 1941, Woodruff continued his campaign to identify his soft drink with basic American values. One of his smartest marketing moves was to supply Cokes to American servicemen at the U.S. price of five cents a bottle, no matter how far away they were stationed. Though this policy cost the company money, it was money well spent. Coca-Cola became a patriotic symbol of home to homesick soldiers, and the journalists who wrote about the war gave the drink priceless advertising in their stories. In 1943, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) set up ten Coca-Cola bottling plants in Northern Africa to supply American troops there. Although other soft drink companies, like Pepsi-Cola, tried to compete, none achieved the popularity of Coke. By the time the war ended, the Coca-Cola company had sixty-three bottling plants set up in Europe, Africa, and Asia, ready to begin peacetime soft drink sales.

Woodruff's aggressiveness in advertising lived on at the company after his death, and the company's advertising slogans have become almost as much a part of American culture as the soda itself. Coke has been called "the real thing," "the pause that refreshes," and "it." A 1971 ad campaign identified Coke with world peace by gathering dozens of singers on an Italian hillside to sing "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company." More than a soda with doubtful health benefits and some peculiar uses—bottles of Coca-Cola syrup are still offered by some pharmacies as a remedy for indigestion, and many household-hints books recommend its acid for cleaning automobile battery terminals—Coca-Cola has become a symbol of the American way of life. As such, many people outside the United States see the soft drink as a symbol of an American invasion of their country, both culturally and economically.

Coca-Cola is now a gigantic corporation that also produces Minute Maid juices and soft drinks Tab and Sprite, along with sport drinks, bottled water, and coffee drinks. However, that fizzy brown soda pop that some call "Georgia champagne" continues to convince generations of Americans that "things go better with Coke."

—Tina Gianoulis

For More Information

Brands, H. W. "Coca Cola Goes to War." American History (Vol. 34, no. 3, August 1999): pp. 30-37.

Coca-Cola Web Site.http://www.cocacola.com (accessed December 14, 2001).

Kahn, Ely Jacques. The Big Drink: The Story of Coca-Cola. New York: Random House, 1960.

Oliver, Thomas. The Real Coke, The Real Story. New York: Random House, 1986.

Pendergrast, Mark. For God, Country and Coca-Cola: The Unauthorized History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It. New York: Collier Books, 1994.