Coca Cola and Pharmacy: John Pemberton (1831 July 8th)

Vintage sign, General Store

Coca-Cola antiquity started in 1886 when the inquisitiveness of an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John S. Pemberton, led him to make a idiosyncratic tasting soft drink that could be sold at soda fountains. He created a flavored syrup, took it to his area pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water and deemed “excellent” by those who tested it. Dr. Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, is credited with naming the beverage “Coca‑Cola” as well as designing the trademarked, distinct script, still graces the cans and bottles.

Among the biggest tests for early bottlers, were reproductions of the beverage by competitors coupled with a lack of packaging reliability among the 1,000 bottling plants at the time. The bottlers agreed that a distinctive beverage required a standard and distinctive bottle, and in 1916, the bottlers accepted the unique contour bottle. The new Coca‑Cola bottle was so characteristic it could be predictable in the dark and it effectively set the brand apart from competition. The contoured Coca‑Cola bottle was trademarked in 1977. Over the years, the Coca‑Cola bottle has been inspiration for artists across the globe — a sampling of which can be viewed at World of Coca‑Cola in Atlanta.

The initial marketing energies in Coca‑Cola history were implemented through coupons promoting free samples of the beverage. Considered an innovative tactic back in 1887, couponing was followed by newspaper advertising and the distribution of promotional items bearing the Coca‑Cola script to contributing pharmacies.

Source: World Of Coca Cola

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John Stith Pemberton (1831-1888)  Article

King, Monroe M. “John Stith Pemberton (1831-1888).” New Georgia Encyclopedia. 26 June 2019. Web. 02 July 2019.y

John Stith Pemberton was the inventor of the Coca-Cola beverage. In his day Pemberton was a most valued member of the state’s medical establishment, but his gift was for medical chemistry rather than regular medicine. He was a practical pharmacist and chemist of great skill, active all his life in medical reform, and a respected businessman. His most lasting accomplishments involve his laboratories, which are still in operation more than 125 years later as part of the Georgia Department of Agriculture. Transformed into the state’s first testing labs and staffed with Pemberton’s hand-selected employees, these labs almost single-handedly eradicated the sale of fraudulent agricultural chemicals in the state and ensured successful prosecution of those who tried to sell them.

Early Life and Career

Born on January 8, 1831, in Knoxville, in Crawford County, Pemberton grew up and joined the local schools in Rome, where his family lived for almost thirty years. He studied medicine and pharmacy at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, and in 1850, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed to practice on Thomsonian or botanic principles (such practitioners relied heavily on herbal remedies and on purifying the body of toxins, and they were viewed with doubt by the general public). He practiced medicine and surgery first in Rome and its vicinities and then in Columbus, where in 1855 he established a wholesale-retail drug business concentrating in materia medica (substances used in the composition of medical remedies). Some time before the Civil War (1861-65), he acquired a graduate degree in pharmacy, but the exact date and place are unknown.

The analytical and manufacturing laboratories of J. S. Pemberton and Company of Columbus were exclusive in the South. “We are direct importers,” the company claimed, “manufacturing all the pharmaceutical and chemical preparations used in the arts and sciences.” Established in 1860 and outfitted with some $35,000 worth of the newest and most improved equipment—some of it designed and patented by the company—it was “a magnificent establishment,” an enthusiastic reporter from the Atlanta Constitution proclaimed in 1869 when the labs were moved to Atlanta, “one of the most splendid Chemical Laboratories that there is in the country.”

Pemberton served with distinction as a lieutenant colonel in the Third Georgia Cavalry Battalion during the Civil War and was almost killed in the fighting at Columbus in April 1865. In 1869 he became a principal partner in the firm of Pemberton, Wilson, Taylor and Company, which was based in Atlanta, where he moved in 1870. Two years later he became a trustee of the Atlanta Medical College (later Emory University School of Medicine) and established a business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his own brands of pharmaceuticals were manufactured on a large scale. He also served for six years (1881-87) on the first state examining board that licensed pharmacists in Georgia.

Pemberton was “the most noted physician Atlanta ever had,” according to the Atlanta newspapers, but he is best known for his expertise in the laboratory, where he perfected the formula for Coca-Cola.

The Origin of Coca-Cola

A few years before Coca-Cola started its remarkable rise to international acclaim, a drink known as Pemberton’s French Wine Coca was extremely popular in Atlanta. Its celebrity spread throughout the Southeast, and the demand for the tasty beverage was high.

In 1885 a reporter from the Atlanta Journal approached the creator of French Wine Coca and asked him for a detailed analysis of the new drink. Pemberton replied, “It is composed of an extract from the leaf of Peruvian Coca, the purest wine, and the Kola nut. It is the most excellent of all tonics, assisting digestion, imparting energy to the organs of respiration, and strengthening the muscular and nervous systems.” He explained that South American Indians considered the coca plant a sacred herb and praised its beneficial effects on the mind and body. With the aid of the coca plant, the Indians had performed “astonishing” feats, he said, “without fatigue.”

Pemberton then admitted that his coca and kola beverage was based on Vin Mariani, a French formula perfected by Mariani and Company of Paris, which since 1863 had been the world’s only standard preparation of erythroxylon coca.

In 1886 the city of Atlanta announced prohibition, which, among other things, prohibited the sale of wine. Pemberton decided to make another version of his popular drink. He dropped the reference to wine in the name of the beverage, substituted sugar syrup for the wine, and coined the name “Coca-Cola” to identify his formula. Henceforth, he would call Coca-Cola the ideal temperance drink, both on the label and in advertising.

Understanding that he needed financial backing to market this nonalcoholic version of French Wine Coca on a large scale, Pemberton formed a company for that purpose. He put his son Charles in charge of manufacturing Coca-Cola, and after prohibition ended in 1887, he again produced French Wine Coca. He announced that he would retire from active practice, sell his drugstores in Atlanta and elsewhere in the state, and devote all his time to promoting his beverages. Meanwhile, a group of businessmen responded to Pemberton’s appeal to finance the new Coca-Cola Company. He was to receive as royalty of five cents for each gallon of Coca-Cola sold.

It was Pemberton’s practice to organize a business as a copartnership and then convert it into a corporation. In March 1888, after being in business for eight months as a copartner, he filed the petition for incorporation of the first Coca-Cola Company in the Fulton County Superior Court. Five months later, on August 16, 1888, he died at his home in Atlanta.

On the day of Pemberton’s funeral, Atlanta druggists closed their stores and attended the services en masse as a acknowledgement of respect. On that day, not one drop of Coca-Cola was dispensed in the entire city. At sunup the following day, a special train carried his body to Columbus, where a large group of friends, relatives, and admirers laid him to rest. The Atlanta newspapers called him “the oldest druggist of Atlanta and one of her best known citizens.”

Further Reading

Constance L. Hays, The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company (New York: Random House, 2004).

Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It, 3d ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2013).

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From Addiction To Invention To Demise

Relying on the knowledge he had amassed over his professional years, John Pemberton set out in search of a cure for his addiction. He began experimenting with different herbs and plants, including the coca leaf, which is the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

By mixing coca leaves, wine, and kola nuts (in case that cocaine didn’t offer a big enough caffeine kick), Pemberton invented his first beverage – the Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. The drink, advertised as an anti-depressant, a painkiller, and an all-around aphrodisiac, worked to relieve the ails of Pemberton’s morphine addiction and was sold to the public, where it became almost immediate success.

Twenty years after its formulation, Atlanta County in Georgia, where Pemberton lived and established his business enterprise, announced that it was prohibiting the production, selling, or buying of alcohol. With the looming threat of nationwide Prohibition, removed the alcoholic ingredient from the drink’s recipe in 1886 and replaced the wine with a sugary syrup.

Working with his longtime friend Willis E. Venable, the duo rebranded the item Coca-Cola, which they intended to be used for medical purposes had they not accidentally added carbonated water to the mixture. Instead of scrapping the idea altogether, they marketed it as a refreshing soft drink.

While Coke would go on to become a global success, Pemberton didn’t fare so well. As there is no known cure for addiction, his morphine morphine habit returned, an addiction that cost him his life’s savings as well as his health. Additionally, the sudden rebranding of the medicinal elixir as a refreshment beverage didn’t initially went well. This forced Pemberton to sell the rights to his invention to a number of business partners just to make ends meet.

John Pemberton died of stomach cancer in 1888, broke and in the grips of addiction. He left his fortune, which at that time consisted only of his remaining shares in the Coca-Cola company, to his only son, Charles. Charles, a morphine addict himself, would die a mere six years after his father. Both Pembertons missed out on the tremendous popularity and success Coca-Cola would see the world over, by several years.

Source: The History Daily,The Tragic Story Behind The Invention Of Coca-Cola  1800s | April 28, 2017

Happy Canada Day, July 1st 1867

 

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Canada Day, observed on July 1st, is a national holiday paying tribute to the anniversary of Confederation in 1867, when the British North America Act came into effect. It was initially known as Dominion Day until it was renamed in 1982.

Origins and Legal Status

The British North America Act enacted on 1 July 1867, created the country of Canada with its initial four provinces of Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In June 1868, Governor General Charles Stanley Monck called for a celebration of the anniversary of Confederation on 1 July 1868.  The legal status of Dominion Day as a public holiday was uncertain with only a few celebrations. In May 1869, a bill to make Dominion Day a public holiday was considered in the House of Commons.  It was withdrawn after several members of Parliament registered their objections. A more successful effort, presented by Senator Robert Carrall of British Columbia, passed through Parliament in 1879, creating Dominion Day a public holiday.

In the decades following the Second World War, several private members’ and government-sponsored bills were proposed to change the name of Dominion Day, but none succeeded. In July 1982, a private member’s bill to change the name to Canada Day was proposed by Vaudreuil MP Hal Herbert. The bill quickly passed through the House of Commons, and was ratified by the Senate in the fall.

Early Observance

For the first decade following Confederation, some provinces, including Ontario, Québec and Nova Scotia, observed Dominion Day as a de facto holiday. Celebrations were planned at the local or municipal level, and included a wide array of activities, including bonfires, picnics, sporting events, parades and pageants. Fireworks were often the highlight of the evening.

Dominion Day provided a chance for communities to express their visions of Canadian identity, and the place of their community within the country. Newspaper editorials published on July 1st frequently publicized the country’s history, its place in the world and its prospects for the future. They could also, as was often the case in British Columbia, express concerns about the treatment of individual provinces within Confederation. Locally organized events sometimes afforded opportunities for members of marginalized communities to demonstrate their belonging to Canada, while also asserting their community identities. In British Columbia, members of the Chinese and Japanese communities in the early 20th century contributed floats to Dominion Day parades, and members of Indigenous communities participated in sporting events and musical performances.

Celebrated overseas, Dominion Day was a way for Canadians to commenorate their national identity and assert their uniqueness within the British Empire. During the First World War, Canadian soldiers stationed in the United Kingdom took part in events such as log-rolling exhibitions and baseball games, asserting a rugged Canadian masculinity.

In the mid-1920s, members of British Columbia’s Chinese communities organized Chinese Humiliation Day as a counterpoint to Dominion Day to protest the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act that blocked most Chinese immigration to Canada. Members of the community wore badges reading “Remember the Humiliation,” organized speeches and distributed leaflets.

In the aftermath of the 1980 Québec referendum, the federal government shifted its focus and financial supports to emphasize observance of July 1st at the local level. Although still organizing concerts and formal events for Parliament Hill, the main focus was to stimulate community-based celebrations. A national committee for Canada Day (as the holiday was called after 1982) provided seed funding to communities to organize Canada Day events. It also suggested activities to link communities together, such as noonday singings of “O Canada” (adopted as the national anthem in 1980), and annual themes such as explorers, transportation or young achievers that were featured in activity books produced for children.

Source: Encyclopedia Canada

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CANADA DAY ON KRNN, 7/01:  The British North America Act came into effect on 1 July 1867, creating the country of Canada.  You are invited to join in the Canada Day festivities with a playlist of the best new bands from Canada on Crosscurrents, 7/01 at 8 am.

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For most Canadians, July 1 is just one day in a long weekend; a day that, when it falls on a Sunday, magically triggers a statutory holiday on Monday; a day to barbecue and to get in or on or near the water; to kick back and enjoy the start of a Canadian summer that never comes early enough and always ends too soon; a day to take the kids to the fireworks, which are happening on this day because, um, well, oh … Canada?

This is not a country that gets overly sentimental about history, or pretentious about its place in it. It’s the national day, but most of us don’t make too big a deal about the whys or the wherefores. You’re giving us the day off? We’re taking the day off.

Other countries have national holidays that mark The Big Moment they made a violent break with the past. The Americans have Independence Day, the day the Thirteen Colonies signed the Declaration of Independence, began a war to separate from Great Britain and created a new country. The French have Bastille Day, the day the French Revolution started and the monarchy started ending.

For many people, those histories seem more clear and vivid than ours. They certainly make for more dramatic TV and movie adaptations. The days the French and Americans are celebrating were the start of abrupt, radical and bloody – extremely bloody – rejections of the past. Change came through the barrel of a gun.

July 1, 1867 was nothing like that. It wasn’t a revolution, it was an evolution. It wasn’t vicious, it was peaceful. Something new was accepted without something old being rejected. A group of statesmen who differed on many things nevertheless, through compromise and cooperation, made a deal. It was an agreement about incremental change and improvement. Nobody was died. Nobody went to the guillotine and lost their head.

The Constitution created in 1867 contains no inspirational words, just a lot of sensible ideas. The American constitution begins with a impressive “We the People”; the Declaration of Independence ends with its signatories promising to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” The first word of the British North America Act? “Whereas.”

Instead of being the all-caps Day When Everything Violently Changed, July 1 was instead the day when something very Canadian happened: It was the beginning of a process. In fact, Confederation wasn’t even the beginning, since Canada already existed before 1867. And it wasn’t the end, since the process continued, and continues today.

Source: Thee Globe And Mail  PUBLISHED JUNE 29, 2018 UPDATED JULY 1, 2018

The Garden State, The Crossroads Of The Revolution, and Founding Of New Jersey (1664.06.24)

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Before 1664, the land we now know as New Jersey was under a Dutch governor, but on June 24, 1664, the British sailed into New York Harbor and took control of Fort Amsterdam and its associated lands.

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NEW JERSEY FOUNDED ON KRNN, 06/24:  The Duke of York believing that he owned the land presumed to make a gift of the territory to his favored lords on this date in 1664.  No need to choose between north and south Jersey, just tune in for a playlist of new New Jersey bands on Crosscurrents, 6/24 at 8 am.

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The land was granted by King James to two friends, George Carteret and Lord Berkley. Colonization took place along the Arthur Kill and Hackensack River with many of the pioneers coming from other colonies, as opposed to coming from distant shores. In 1673, Berkley sold his half to the Quakers, who settled the area of the Delaware Valley. New Jersey was separated into East and West Jersey from 1674 to 1702.

It was ruled as a single colony with its own governor from that point to the time of the American Revolution. New Jersey approved its constitution two days before the Continental Congress professed American independence from England, and, well, you know the rest; New Jersey was key in the Revolution, receiving the nickname “Crossroads of the Revolution” and hosting such important battles as the Battle of Trenton (I & II), the Battle of Princeton, the Battle of Monmouth, and, of course, Washington crossing the Delaware.

None of that would have happened if New Jersey hadn’t become a British colony, three hundred fifty-four years ago this week.

[NewJersey101.2]

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The Act of Uniformity passed in 1662 prescribed the form of public prayer, administration of the sacraments and the rites of the Established Church of England. Adherence to these rites was required to hold office in the government or the church in England. Berkeley and Sir George Carteret saw this as an chance to lure disgruntled Englishman to emigrate to the New World to populate their colony. They wrote The Concessions and Agreements, which guarenteed those who would settle the land, freedoms and rights that they could not enjoy in England; freedom of religion, freedom from persecution for religious beliefs, land, and the right to manage their own affairs.

However, their strategy to profit from the land was thwarted for two reasons. First, the new Governor of New York, who had arrived with the Duke of York’s fleet, had already granted a half a million acres of the land, known as the Elizabeth Town Purchase, to settlers from Long Island and Connecticut. When Philip Carteret, cousin of Sir George Carteret, the appointed representative of Carteret and Berkeley, arrived in New Jersey he was met by settlers already in control of the land. A second obstacle to Berkeley and Carteret’s rent system was the awkwardness of gathering rents in the vast unsurveyed territory.

While the Concessions and Agreements were not an effective temptation for immigration from England they were a major motivation for an incursion of settlers from New England and Long Island, where many, such as Quakers, had experienced religious persecution; others were desirous of new lands and opportunities. The Concessions provided settlers, in return for swearing Allegiance to the King and faithfulness to the interests of the Lord  Proprietors: the status of freeman, guaranteed freedom from being molested, punished, disquieted or called in question for any difference in opinion or practice in matters of Religious concernments; the right to choose representatives from among themselves for an Assembly charged with making laws, establishing fair courts, laying out of towns and other divisions; and levying equal taxes on the lands to support the “public charge” of the Province; constitute a military from within the Province for security; and, receive clear recorded title to land after seven years. Future settlers were to be seen as naturalized, with all the rights provided by the Concessions, by swearing allegiance to the King and faithfulness to the interests of the Lord Proprietors.

The Concessions and Agreements, signed in 1665, was an very significant text, which recognized a representative form of self-government, set civic responsibilities and guaranteed personal freedoms in New Jersey 110 years before the Revolution.  A key provision of the Concessions, which became of central importance in the next century, was that taxes could only be levied by the representative Assembly of the New Jersey for the sole use to support the Province. King George’s effort to levy taxes for the sustenance of England and the Crown was seen by colonists as taxation without representation and a direct violation of the Concessions and contributed to revolutionary furor in New Jersey (see Appendix A- Excepts from the Concessions and Agreements).

[Descendents of the Founders Of NewJersey]

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Lord Berkeley finally sold his interest in West Jersey. Quakers, along with Finns, Swedes, and Dutch, settled in West Jersey in the 1670s, later establishing strong connections to Philadelphia.

Both regions comprised progressive government, religious freedom, and considerable political participation. The colony’s rich lands and political freedoms encouraged immigrants to venture to New Jersey, uniting the traditions of liberty and diversity in the Garden State. While these regions ultimately merged into one colony, remnants of this early dissection persist to this day. North Jersey roughly corresponds to East Jersey, while South Jersey is what once was West Jersey.

[NJ Gov]

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