Sheet music:Just Make It Moxie for Mine

Long before Americans tapped their toes to the tune of Coca-Cola's "Real Thing" jingle, the country was swinging to the tune "Just Make It Moxie for Mine," which debuted at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. One of many 19th-century soft drinks touting medicinal benefits, Moxie was our nation's first mass-marketed beverage. First introduced as a medicine doled out by the spoonful, it was transformed into a soft drink by Dr. Augustin Thompson of Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1884. Thompson advertised it with a zealous campaign worthy of the product's name. This "Nerve Food" was supposed to cure almost any ill, including "loss of manhood, paralysis, softening of the brain, and imbecility." Moxie advertisements appeared everywhere - in newspapers and magazines and on china, ashtrays, candy, letterhead, and signs. In the days before radio and TV, Moxie advertisers distributed this song as sheet music to be played and enjoyed at the family piano. Moxie even made it into the dictionary: due in no small part to the success of its advertising, Moxie is now synonymous with "guts, nerve, and spunk."