David Rosenthal

Well, Ben, as you so aptly set up there, the story of the birth of Coca-Cola starts arguably with the birth of America as we know it today in a newly reunified United States of America following the Civil War.

Mark Pendergrast, in his great book for God, Country, and Coca-Cola, that was a main source for this episode, has a great quote.

He says, Coca-Cola remains emblematic of the best and worst of America.

It is a microcosm of American history.

Coca-Cola grew up with the country, shaping and shaped by the times.

The drink helped to alter not only consumption patterns, but attitudes towards leisure, work, advertising, sex, family, life, and patriotism.

You know, just a few small things.

So if you remember back to our Standard Oil series a couple years ago, one of the biggest industries in post-Civil War America was oil of a certain kind.

But it wasn't the same kind of oil as Standard Oil.

It was snake oil.

Yeah.

Or as it came to be known after the war, patent medicines.

Before this industry, there were no national brands in America or anywhere else.

There were railroads and there were like big...

national industrial companies, but there weren't any national consumer product companies.

Everything was local.

There weren't any CPG companies, there weren't any supermarkets, there weren't any car companies, there weren't gas stations, and there weren't advertising agencies to go along with them.

Patent medicines were sort of like this seed crystal that created the modern American consumer business.

And what were patent medicines?

So going back again to our Standard Oil series, John D. Rockefeller's dad, if you remember, was a traveling snake oil salesman.