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SECTION IBackground bottle history

A very interesting and often overlookedtime period in the history of bottles, is theone between 1915 and 1945. It was duringthat thirty-year period “Specialty” and“Applied Color Labeled” (ACL) bottleswere invented and first utilized in the sodapop industry.

KOOL–AID“The Most Consumed Beverage for Kids”

and the bottles it came inby Cecil MunseyCopyright © 2004

According to John J. Riley, Secretaryof the American Bottlers of CarbonatedBeverages from 1939 to 1957 and authorof “A History of the AMERICAN SOFTDRINK INDUSTRY, Bottled CarbonatedBeverages 1807-1957”:

“The ‘Specialty Bottle’ Vogue. Glasscontainers of special form, configuration,or surface design were long known. Butthe development of a beverage bottle ofsuch unique design that it would serve toidentify the product contained in it, didnot assume particular importance until theCoca-Cola patented bottle became widelyused, following its introduction in 1915-1916 [Figure 1].

“It was during this period that theproprietors of such prominent brandeddrinks as NuGrape, Orange Crush, Try-Me, Chero-Cola, Whistle, Orange Kist, DrPepper, Double-Cola, Howdy, and manyothers adopted special bottles for theirproducts….”

According to Cecil Munsey, author ofthis article and the 1970 classic book, “TheIllustrated Guide to COLLECTINGBOTTLES”:

“Applied Color Labeling (ACL). Thisprocess is a relatively new method ofenameling that was developed around1920 in the United States but it was notuntil the 1930s, however, that it began toreplace the popular mold-createdembossments [of the Specialty Bottle] asa means of decoration and identification.Applied color labeling is used almostexclusively today on milk bottles, sodawater bottles and other common bottles.With this innovation, common bottledecorations became more complicatedthan they had ever been before.

“The process as originally developedconsisted of powdering a borosilicate witha low melting point and mixing it with anoxide for color, and oil. The resultingpaste was then applied to the bottlethrough a stainless-steel screen similar tothe screen used in silk-screening. The

screened bottle then had to be slowly driedat about 300 degrees in a muffle [oven]before another color could be applied.Since most bottles with applied color labelsused two colors the process then had to berepeated for the second color before thebottle was fired in the muffle to fuse thepaste with the glass. In the late 1940s itwas discovered that by replacing the oilin the mixture with a thermoplastic waxor plastic resin which was solid at roomtemperature but became fluid and couldbe screen printed if moderately heated, thedrying process was almost completelyeliminated. The deletion of the drying steppermitted two colors to be printed in rapidsuccession during a single trip through anautomatic printing machine.”

In Brian Wade’s recently published

Figure 9 Figure 10

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Figure 1

book, DECO SODA BOTTLES, Aguide to collecting those fancyembossed soda bottles of the 1920s and1930s,” [see book review reference inthe bibliography at the end of thisarticle], he pictures a specialtybottle (page 51) and describes it asfollows:

“KOOL-AID, clear, 8 oz.,straight-sided bottle. Plainbottle, familiar brand. Icicledesign on shoulder and lowersection. Name on front panelwith slogan ‘FIRST INFLAVOR’. Patent date onbottom ‘JULY 16, 1940’.‘KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN’on reverse. I believe this is thesame company known for theirpowdered drink mix.”

It was that final wonderingand tentative sentence in hisdescription that started the research trip Itook to learn the history of Kool-Aid andto be able to answer the question – didKool-Aid, the famous powdered drink mixever come in bottles?

SECTION II

Origins of Kool-Aid“Fruit Smack” to “Kool-Ade”

to “Kool-Aid”

By 1922 Edwin Perkins [Figure 2], a33-year-old mail-order entrepreneur fromHastings, Nebraska [Figure 3] owned andoperated the Perkins Products Co. He soldproducts by mail order and by trust agents

Figure 4

Figure 3

Figure 2

under the patented brand “Onor-Maid” [Figure 4]. In 1922 he addedto his line of more than 125 differentitems ranging from face creams andlotions, medicines and salves, soaps

and toilet waters to food flavorings,jelly making products, a soft-drinksyrup called “Fruit Smack.” Itwas sold in four-ounce corkedglass bottles (none of whichseemed to have survived) andcame in six flavors – Grape,Cherry, Raspberry, Orange,Root Beer, and Lemon. It wasconcentrated so that a familycould make a pitcher full of thebeverage for only pennies. Butshipping it presented problems ofbreakage, leaking, and theweight of the glass when it wastransported.

Perkins – who hadadmired Jell-O (itself a powdered

concentrate) since he was first introducedto it as a youngster and had alreadyperfected fruit pectin powders to make jellyat home – felt that Fruit-Smack could bereduced to a dry, concentrated, easily-

soluble form capable of being packagedin an envelope. He also reasoned that sucha powdered drink mix could become anational product that would be of greatinterest to food brokers, especially if theproduct was attractively packaged. Andthat might allow him to get out of the time-and-product-intensive trust agent andmail-order business he had started todevelop in 1900 when he was only 11-years-old.

His objective was to dehydrate Fruit-Smack by tinkering with the recipe,focusing on the right mixture of dextrose,citric acid, tartaric acid, flavoring and foodcoloring. By 1927 he had a Fruit-Smack-modified product he named “Kool-Ade[Figure 5].” He maintained the same sixflavors and later added Strawberry. Hetrademarked “Kool-Ade” in 1928 in thename of the Perkins Products Company.

Government regulators eventuallycontacted Edwin Perkins and complainedthat “Ade” was a name reserved for fruitjuice products, so the name was changedto “Aid.” The product became “Kool-Aid.” Perkins Products Companytrademarked the “Kool-Aid” name in

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1934 [Figure 6].There were other setbacks. Packaging

took longer to perfect than expected, andthe company missed the 1927 summerseason. After experimenting with“asphaltum-laminate paper” (whichleaked black, tarry material into theproduct) and hard waxed bread wrappingpaper (resulting in envelopes whichwouldn’t stay glued shut), Edwin settledon a soft waxed paper inner liner and alithographed outer envelope in brightcolors [Figures 5 & 6].

By 1929, with the Stock Market crash,the Great Depression had started andalthough banks all over the country wereclosing their doors and men were losingtheir jobs, the demand for Kool-Aidescalated. At ten cents a package (enoughto make two quarts of fruit-flavored drink),Kool-Aid made enough glassfuls thatfamilies could have whole pitchers full onhot summer afternoons. It was also duringthis period that young pint-sizedentrepreneurs learned to set up Kool-Aidstands on card-tables in their front yards[Figure 7]. From that time to this, almostevery neighborhood in America featuresyoungsters selling lemonade and/or Kool-Aid at stands in their front yards.

By 1931 business was so good thatPerkins Products Company became anational firm by relocating the companyto Chicago, a better distribution point andcloser to sources of supply.

In 1933 the price of Kool-Aid was cutin half, from ten cents a package to fivecents to ensure sales would continue toincrease. It worked – the price stayed at anickel for over thirty years. Net sales ofKool-Aid increased from $383,286 in1931, to $1,564,292 (five years later) in1936. The decrease in price, according toa 1956 article in Advertising Age, was “adaring gamble that made the company.”[One of the proofs of that 1956 statementis in the fact that by 1950 the companywas producing 323,000,000 packets ofKool-Aid annually, for a net sales of tenand a half million dollars.]

Since Kool-Aid was a seasonal productand didn’t fit into the regularmerchandising pattern, Perkins developedthe successful marketing concept he calledthe “Silent Salesman.” Kool-Aid waspackaged in one-ounce envelopes, fortyenvelopes of six assorted flavors in onecolorful lithographed counter displaycarton which showed the range of flavors[Figure 8]. The forty-packet carton was

^ Figure 5

Figure 7 ^

Figure 6 >

Figure 8

an innovation in display techniques at thetime and helped promote Kool-Aid evenas it sat on the grocery shelf.

SECTION III

Kool-Aid in bottlesWhile never approaching the sales of

Kool-Aid in traditional paper packages,beginning in 1936 Kool-Aid was sold inbottles [Figures 9 and 10]. From the mid-to late- 1930s, as described in the earlyparagraphs of this article, the bottles usedwere “Specialty” bottles [Figure 9].

During the 1940s and 1950s, the newer

“Applied Color Labeled” (ACL” or“painted-label”) bottles were utilized[Figure 10].

Both types of Kool-Aid bottles utilizedthe popular Crown Cork closure. [Figure11[.

Kool-Aid in bottles was selling well,being bottled in franchised plants aroundthe country. It required large amounts ofsugar and as a result wartime sugarrationing handicapped the sale of the drinkin bottles. A traditional packet of Kool-Aid was a flavored concentrate to whichsugar and water had to be added. As a

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result, packets outsold the bottled product.By 1950, the Perkins Products Companywas producing 323,000,000 packets ofKool-Aid annually, for a net sales of tenand a half million dollars. Kool-Aid wasone of the most recognized products in thecountry. The trademark was alsoregistered in Canada in 1938 and Mexicoand Cuba in 1951.

In 1953, Perkins sold the business toGeneral Foods (which would merge withKraft in 1989). Within a year, GeneralFoods introduced a new advertisingcampaign for Kool-Aid, featuring theSmiling Face Pitcher [Figure 12] thatremains Kool-Aid’s trademark today. RootBeer and Lemonade flavors were addedto the original six flavors in 1955 and pre-sweetened Kool-Aid was developed in1964 and redeveloped in 1970.

SECTION IVEdwin Perkins and the days before

Kool-Aid(“The beginnings are here at the

end.”)

Black inventor Edwin Elijah Perkins(1889-1961) developed “Kool-Ade” in1927 [Figure 5] – a modification of anearlier product named, “Fruit Smack.” Itwas, however, in 1900 that the completestory of the entrepreneurial Edwin Perkins

begins. He was 11-years-old in 1900 andhis father had just traded a farm near thevillage of Hendley (Nebraska) for a generalstore that later became known as “D. M.Perkins-General Merchandise.”

In his after-school hours, Edwin beganclerking in the store. Kathryn (“Kitty”)Shoemaker, a friend of the Perkins familyand the girl he would marry in 1918,brought to the store some packages of anew product she had purchased inHastings – the new product was called“Jell-O,” and it came in “Six DeliciousFlavors.” Edwin was entranced with thenew product and persuaded his father tocarry it in the store. For the rest of hislife, he recounted how the Six DeliciousFlavors influenced his decision to get intothe pre-packaged food business.

A couple of years later in a magazine(sold in the general store) Edwin saw anadvertisement, “Be a manufacturer –Mixer’s Guide tells how – write today.”He did write to the advertiser in Ft.Madison, Iowa, to get some formulas andlabels with his name printed on them. Thelabels read “Manufactured by PerkinsProducts Co., Hendley, Nebraska.”

He made a nuisance of himself in hismother’s kitchen, making pungentextracts, medicines and other concoctionssuggested in the “Mixer’s Guide” packetof materials he had sent away for.

During the following years, Perkinsgraduated from high school, published aweekly newspaper, did job-printing (on hisown printing press), served aspostmaster and set up a mailorder business called “PerkinsProducts Company” to marketthe numerous products he hadinvented. (Perkins and hisprinting press in 1909 is featuredhere as Figure 13). During thoseearly years of the 20th century healso made and sold bluing,perfume, and other preparationsthat he made in his mother’skitchen.

He sold his products throughsales agents who were sentmerchandise and rewarded witha premium when they sold thegoods and sent in the money.

In 1918, Perkins married hischildhood sweetheart, Kitty, anddeveloped a remedy to kick thetobacco habit called “Nix-O-Tine” (pronounced almost like“nicotine”). When veterans

returned home from World War I, manywith the cigarette habit picked up in thearmy, the tobacco remedy businessprospered. The patent medicine wascomposed of herbs to be chewed, large flatherbal tablets to be swallowed, a hideous-tasting mouth wash with silver nitrate init and a powerful herbal laxative. Thecombined effort was guaranteed to cureanyone, and for those who stuck to theprogram, it probably did.

Business was so good that in 1920Edwin and Kitty moved to Hastings, eightymiles east of Hendley. Its location onseveral railroads and highways made it abetter distribution point than the smallvillage of Hendley.

In 1921 he went to St. Louis for a monthto learn more about the household productsbusiness. He worked with a small firmwhich contracted to make bulk orders oflotions, creams, patent medicines, and thelike and studied their production anddistribution techniques.

When Perkins returned to Hastings, hespent a year preparing to introduce his own“Onor-Maid” line of products [Figure 4].During that time he supported his familyby “Nix-O-Tine” sales.

To sell the household products, Edwinset up a nationwide system ofrepresentatives who sold door-to-doorfrom sample cases, using the sameprocedures as salesmen for Watkins, JewelTea, Fuller Brush and similar companies.

Figure 12

Figure 11

Figure 13

Continued on page 67

Bottles and ExtrasFall 200466

His door-to-door salesmen came fromadvertisements he printed and distributedhimself. One flier read, “I Want You toBe My District Manager,” post cardssoliciting product representatives whocould “Earn $10 a Day,” and bookletstelling managers how to secure Perkinsagents. “Our District Managers are nowpermitted to appoint both men and womenagents.” Another advertisement offerednew Ford or Hudson automobiles to themost enterprising managers. Edwin madea “Personal Guarantee” that any hardworker with a $3.50 sample kit couldsucceed as a Perkins agent.

One of the most popular items in thesample kit turned out to be the summersoft drink “Fruit-Smack,” a liquid put upin four-ounce corked bottles. It came insix flavors. It was concentrated so that afamily could make a pitcher full of thebeverage for only pennies and a cup or twoof sugar.

Those were the days before Kool-Aid.See previous SECTIONS II & III, asalready presented, for a comprehensiveexplanation of the invention of Kool-Aidand how it became “The Most consumed

Beverage for Kids” and all about the twotypes of bottles it came in.”

REFERENCES

Books:Morgan, Hal. Symbols of America.

New York: Viking Penguin Inc., StreamPress, 1986.

Munsey, Cecil. The Illustrated Guideto the COLLECTIBLES OF COCA-COLA.New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1972.

Munsey, Cecil. The Illustrated Guideto COLLECTING BOTTLES. New York:Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1970.

Riley, John J. A History of theAMERICAN SOFT DRINK INDUSTRY,Bottled Carbonated Beverages 1807-1957. New York: ARNO PRESS, 1972.

Wade, Brian. DECO SODA BOTTLES– a guide to collecting those fancyembossed soda bottles of the 1920s and1930s. New York: Privately Published,2003.

Periodicals:Munsey, Cecil. BOOK REVIEW –

“DECO SODA BOTTLES.” The Soda

Fizz, September-October, 2003.Thompson, Stephanie. “Kool-Aid Hits

Road, Fueled with Smiles.” Brandweek,31 May 1999: v40, i22, p6.

Pollack, Judann. “Kool-AidPitcherman Stays, But Ogilvy Puts HimTo Work: Kraft Icon Plays More ActiveRole In New Ads; Line Extension Set.”Advertising Age, 15 Mar. 1999:57.

Pamphlets:“Edwin Perkins and the Kool-Aid

Story.” Historical News, Adams CountyHistorical Society, Vol. 31, No. 4, 1998.

Internet:http://www.kraftfoods.com/kool-aid/

html/history/ka-timeline.htmlhttp://www.kraftfoods.com/kool-aid/

html/history/ka-pitcher.htmlhttp://www.kratfoods.com/kool-aid/

html/history/ka-man.htmlhttp://www.kraftfoods.com/kool-aid/

html/facts/ka_facts.htmlhttp://www.anglefire.com/journal2/

gleanings/blackhist.htmlhttp://www.agustachronicle.com/

stories/061902/flea_kool2.shtmlCecil Munsey, 13541 Willow Run Road, Poway, CA 92064-1733 - 858-487-7036 - cecilmunsey@cox.net