Did you know that the Coca-Cola beverage was invented in the Victorian Era? I surely didn't, until the director of the museum asked me to research it. The original formula for Coca-Cola was created as a medicine to cure morphine addiction. The inventor of the original formula, John Pemberton, was a chemist who also served in the Confederate army. In April 1865, he was injured in the Battle of Columbus. Like most injuried soldiers of the Civil War, he was given daily doses of morphine for the pain (the addictive properties of morphine were not discovered in the 1860s). Also like most injured Civil War veterans, Pemberton became addicted to morphine. He started trying to use his chemistry skills to create a medicine that would cure morphine addiction. The original formula was actually a coca wine made from the coca plant and mixed with French Wine. However, when prohibition began in Atlanta in 1886, he was forced to change the formula so that it was non-alcoholic. That is when Coca-Cola was born. The name was settled on because it tells everyone the two main ingredients, coca and kola. Coca is a plant from which cocaine is extracted and kola is a nut from which we get caffeine.
The first advertisements for Coca-Cola sold the beverage as a patent medicine for 5 cents that was said to cure morphine addiction, headaches, and impotence. By 1888, John Pemberton had 3 different Coca-Cola mixtures on sale in drugstores across Atlanta. He sold the formula to 5 separate businessmen. However, the one who turned it into a worldwide phenomenon was Asa Candler who would later become mayor of Atlanta. Candler eventually bought the 4 other competing companies to become the sole owner of Coca-Cola.
The formula of Coca-Cola has changed several times over the years. They have created Cherry Coke, Lime Coke, Lemon Coke etc. Several different countries have even developed their own local tastes, but the 2 main ingredients have always been coca and kola nut. Once the addictive properties of cocaine were discovered, the fomula was changed to use the leaves of the coca plant after the cocaine had already been extracted, leaving only the flavor of the leaf behind in the beverage.
Now that the world has become very different from Victorian Era culture, Coke has become even more popular. In 2011, John Pemberton started his own Twitter feed. He now has 55,0o0 followers. The Coca-Cola Facebook page has thousands, if not millions, of fans. Coke sponsors athletes, movie theaters, and all other kinds of entertainment. It is no longer just a beverage, it has become a permanent part of people's lives and our culture.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Memorial Day
I love old cemeteries with shady magnolia trees and iron fences. Days like today - breezy and only about 80 degrees - are the best days to get out and wander down the aisles and paths. The dogwoods have long bloomed out, but their graceful limbs wave in the breeze, fanning those in need of respite from the heat. Robins perch atop gravestones, ornaments in themselves. Brown thrashers, camoflauged against the dark tree trunks, pick through the underbrush. A patch of Queen Anne's lace and the remnant of an old rose pop up here and about.
The older cemeteries truly are parks, and they are welcoming. Their aged beauty embraces, asks you to stay a while ~ much as you would stop before a piece of sculpture or an eye-catching painting in a museum. Art and poetry, sculpture and stained glass, even music I have heard in cemeteries. There are several locals that take to the quiet park settings to read and sketch and to play their music. I have walked and could see no one, but could hear the strains of a flute.
As a youngster, Saturdays usually included a stop at the cemeteries to tidy up the lots, replace greens and flowers and scrub the stones. It was also a time for me to let my imagination go - I would visit lots other than my family's (they were not very interesting). I walked up the stone steps and through the fence as though expected. I sat upon stones to chat with the small angels, leaving them with a handful of buttercups. I would look for my name (first name) on stones, and read other names, deciding if I would rather be named Edith or Emily or Virginia. I like Margaret the best, thank you Mama and Daddy.
On a recent visit to our newest cemetery (1902), I noticed how it had grown up, how it, too, was beginning to acquire that aged beauty. Oddly, that provided a sense of peace for me.
My family has been a powerhouse of women, women who remember, women who hand down the stories, women who protect the family history, women who retain the duty and honor of visiting the cemeteries. Memorial Day is not osberved only on May 30.
The older cemeteries truly are parks, and they are welcoming. Their aged beauty embraces, asks you to stay a while ~ much as you would stop before a piece of sculpture or an eye-catching painting in a museum. Art and poetry, sculpture and stained glass, even music I have heard in cemeteries. There are several locals that take to the quiet park settings to read and sketch and to play their music. I have walked and could see no one, but could hear the strains of a flute.
As a youngster, Saturdays usually included a stop at the cemeteries to tidy up the lots, replace greens and flowers and scrub the stones. It was also a time for me to let my imagination go - I would visit lots other than my family's (they were not very interesting). I walked up the stone steps and through the fence as though expected. I sat upon stones to chat with the small angels, leaving them with a handful of buttercups. I would look for my name (first name) on stones, and read other names, deciding if I would rather be named Edith or Emily or Virginia. I like Margaret the best, thank you Mama and Daddy.
On a recent visit to our newest cemetery (1902), I noticed how it had grown up, how it, too, was beginning to acquire that aged beauty. Oddly, that provided a sense of peace for me.
My family has been a powerhouse of women, women who remember, women who hand down the stories, women who protect the family history, women who retain the duty and honor of visiting the cemeteries. Memorial Day is not osberved only on May 30.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Springtime Fun
With the arrival of springtime, the museum has been in full swing preparing the house to receive visitors. The whole area is out and about going to the beach, taking bike rides, or going on picnics in the park. Now that we are all in the midst of our springtime events, I thought I would take this opportunity to let you all in on some Victorian picnic ideas. Typical Victorian picnics were not just a blanket and a picnic basket. Oh no, if you had servants picnics were a grand scale event. Imagine you lived in the country and had numerous servants at your disposal. You didn't have to carry the food, set up the tents or blantkets, or even walk to the appointed destination.
First, being a good socialite, you would work out the details of the event with your cook to decide what you and your guests would eat. Next, you and your friends would organize where you would have your picnic and organize your servants to have the tents and blankets set up and the food laid out in proper style. Then, you would have your coachman drive you and your friends to the destination. After all, walking in the hot sun would definitely not be fashionable. Once you reach your destination and eat the food that has already been set up for you, all you have to do is lay about in the spring air.
If you had a larger party involved, there are many games and acitivities you could do after eating. One of the most popular Victorian picnic games is Blind Man's Bluff. A game which is played by blindfolding one person, spinning them around, and then letting them try to catch one of the other participants. The trick is that the other players have to stay within a certain radius to the "blind man". Once the blinded person has caught someone, he or she must guess who they have caught without taking the blindfold off. They can feel clothing, hands, and/or faces. If they are correct, then the person they caught has to be the blind man. If not, they remain the blind man until they guess correctly.
Even though Blind's Man Bluff is one of the most popular games at a grand scale picnic, there are other activities such as cards, horsebacking riding, cricket, or even dancing if you hired some musicians. The activities are really what make the picnic grand. Grand picnics were more for the upper class societies. Even still they were adventures outside rather than just eating outside as we do today. Picnics today are still great fun, but next time you go on a picnic just imagine how much better it would be if you got to spend the whole day playing and not have to do a bit of the work involved.
First, being a good socialite, you would work out the details of the event with your cook to decide what you and your guests would eat. Next, you and your friends would organize where you would have your picnic and organize your servants to have the tents and blankets set up and the food laid out in proper style. Then, you would have your coachman drive you and your friends to the destination. After all, walking in the hot sun would definitely not be fashionable. Once you reach your destination and eat the food that has already been set up for you, all you have to do is lay about in the spring air.
If you had a larger party involved, there are many games and acitivities you could do after eating. One of the most popular Victorian picnic games is Blind Man's Bluff. A game which is played by blindfolding one person, spinning them around, and then letting them try to catch one of the other participants. The trick is that the other players have to stay within a certain radius to the "blind man". Once the blinded person has caught someone, he or she must guess who they have caught without taking the blindfold off. They can feel clothing, hands, and/or faces. If they are correct, then the person they caught has to be the blind man. If not, they remain the blind man until they guess correctly.
Even though Blind's Man Bluff is one of the most popular games at a grand scale picnic, there are other activities such as cards, horsebacking riding, cricket, or even dancing if you hired some musicians. The activities are really what make the picnic grand. Grand picnics were more for the upper class societies. Even still they were adventures outside rather than just eating outside as we do today. Picnics today are still great fun, but next time you go on a picnic just imagine how much better it would be if you got to spend the whole day playing and not have to do a bit of the work involved.
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