EVER WONDER by JACQUE SCOTT: Dixie Cups

Dixie Cups

Ever wonder about the small waxed paper cup that serves as a disposable cup for drinking water as well as giving us visions of individual dips of ice cream?

Well, it all originated from one man’s frustrated attempts to sell an unlikely product- — a drink of water.  The drink of water only cost a penny and never really went anywhere, but the cup that was specially designed to hold it created a lasting industry.

The paper-cup story starts in 1908 when an enthusiastic inventor, Hugh Moore, made a porcelain vending machine to give pure, chilled drinking water.  These became the for-runners of our modern glass jug water coolers in our offices and homes.  Hugh Moore’s Penny Water Vendor had three separate compartments.  The top held ice: the middle held the water: and the bottom held used cups.  Each machine came with a sign that said that no cup was to be re-used.  Water was the product being sold, and the cup only held the water.

New York’s Anti-Saloon League immediately supported the Water Vendors.  They ran ads claiming that each day thousands of thirsty men wanting a drink of water had to go into saloons.

There they faced “terrible temptations”.  They claimed that water-vending machines on street corners were the roads back to sobriety.

Many water-vending machines were set up on corners and at strategic transfer points of the New York trolley lines.  But, no one bought Moore’s water.  Discouraged, Moore wondered if he could actually save his new company, the American Water Supply Company of New England.

Help came from an unlikely source, Dr Samuel Crumbine, a New York public health officer.  Crumbine had been crusading against public drinking dippers, because in those days, people drank water in most public places from a tin dipper.  The dipper was used by the healthy as well as the sick.   It was never washed and never sterilized.  Moore and Dr Crumbine decided they could help each other.  The lowly little disposable cup had found a niche.

Actually finding the backing for the disposable cups was another story.  Everyone that Moore turned to just laughed at the idea of a paper cup making a profit.  And most people didn’t believe that the public dippers posed a threat to health.  Fortunately, Moore met a wealthy New York banker who was a hypochondriac fearing the dipper.   In 1909 he promptly invested $200,000 in the idea, and overnight the failing American Water Supply Company of New England became the Public Cup Vendor Company.

Timing was perfect, because in the same year Kansas enacted a law abolishing the public dipper.

The new law said that healthy people were getting sick after drinking from the same cup as those with tuberculosis.  Just about the same time, a biology professor from Lafayette College placed some scrapings from a public dipper under a microscope, and found many varieties of germs present.

State after state passed laws banning the use of communal dippers and recommending individual drinking vessels.  Moore changed the name of the company again, this time to Individual Drinking Cup Company.  Railroads, schools, and offices started buying the disposable cups, which soon became a symbol of health.  And, once more, Moore changed the name of the company to Health Kups.

Moore eventually tired of that name too and found a catchy name on a sign for a company where a friend of his manufactured dolls.  The name of the company was the Dixie Doll Company, and Health Kups became the Dixie Cup Company.

Moore’s company eventually perfected the two-and-a-half ounce cup of ice cream with a flat pull up lid.  It gave the industry and ice cream lovers everywhere the first individual-size serving.

Moore had finally hit upon the right product, at the right time, in the right place.

And there you have it… a little bit about the history of the Dixie cup…  God bless you.       

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