ATDTDA (1): root beer and Cracker Jack

[Tim Strzechowski]

"Come on, Lindsay," Miles flourishing the banknote they had acquired so unexpectedly.  "Long as we have this windfall, let's go get us some root beer, and some of that 'Cracker Jack,' too.  Say, what do you know!  We're here!  We're at the Fair!" (p. 24)


from Eric Larson, Devil in the White City (pp.247 - 48):

"Within the fair's buildings visitors encountered devices and concepts new to them and to the world.  They heard live music played by an orchestra in New York and transmitted to the fair by long-distance telephone.  They saw the first moving pictures on Edison's Kinetoscope, and they watched, stunned, as lightning chattered from Nikola Tesla's body.  They saw even more ungodly things -- the first zipper; the first-ever all-electric kitchen, which included an automatic dishwasher; and a box purporting to contain everything a cook would need to make pancakes, under the brand name Aunt Jemima's.  They sampled a new, oddly flavored gun called Juicy Fruit, and caramel-coated popcorn called Cracker Jack.  A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely to succeed -- 'shedded doormat,' some called it -- but a new beer did well, winning the exposition's top beer award.  Forever afterward, its brewer called it Pabst blue Ribbon.  Visitors also encountered the latest and arguably most important organizational invention of the century, the vertical file, created by Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system. [...]


[...] Root beer was a traditional beverage and herbal medicine. The beverage was often alcoholic, usually around 2%. As a medicine it was used for treating cough and mouth sores. Commercially prepared root beer was developed by Charles Elmer Hires on May 16, 1866. He presented root tea powder at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial exhibition. In 1893 he began selling bottled carbonated root beer. There was an upsurgence in the popularity of root beer in the United States during the period of prohibition in the early 20th Century as local breweries resorted to brewing root beer since alcoholic beverages were outlawed. [...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_beer

http://www.root-beer.org/

1893: Frederick William Rueckheim and his brother, Louis, mass produce Cracker Jack and sell it at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. At the time, it was a mixture of popcorn, molasses, and peanuts and was called "Candied Popcorn and Peanuts". 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack

http://www.tias.com/mags/cjca/cjcahistory.htm

http://www.crackerjack.com/home.htm
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