Asa Griggs Candler, Economic Influencer Between 1900-1929

While Asa Griggs Candler began his career as a pharmacist, he is most famous for the business he spent his life building, the Coca-Cola Company, showing the world that he was a phenomenal entrepreneur. Less known about Candler, he also battled governmental regulations, served as mayor of Atlanta, and engaged in significant philanthropy. As an entrepreneur, Candler gave his customers something that they did not even know they needed and created the most successful business in the South of the first quarter of the twentieth century.

In the late 1800s, Asa Candler purchased the formula for Coca-Cola from John Pemberton for an alleged $2,300.[1] Candler bought Coca-Cola as a headache cure, but he became intrigued with its sweet taste and carbonation. In 1892, he founded the Coca-Cola Company, divested himself of all his other holdings in patent medicines, and concentrated entirely on marketing and sales of Coca-Cola as a beverage, which was known by its hallmark “Delicious. Refreshing. Exhilarating. Invigorating.”[2]

By the turn of the century, Coca-Cola was sold nationwide. However, Candler encountered problems that could have finished his company. While it is unclear whether early formulations of Coca-Cola contained cocaine from the coca leaves used to make the syrup, Candler’s orders for vast quantities of coca leaves strongly hinted that it did.[3] By 1900, the public became aware of the harmful effects of cocaine and as a devout Methodist, it concerned Candler that Coca-Cola might contain this addictive drug. Recollections from his family members show he found the idea of cocaine in the drink distasteful and that he worked on the manufacturing process to remove cocaine.[4] Despite his efforts, the federal government labeled Coca-Cola as a drug. In his 1906 lawsuit against the government to remove the drug label and tax, he was able to prove his soda contained only minute traces of cocaine.[5]

In 1907, the U.S. Army alleged Coca-Cola contained “a possibly intoxicating level of alcohol” and removed it from its list of approved beverages.[6] Candler demanded an analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry at the Department of Agriculture, which showed only minute traces of alcohol and about half a cup of coffee of caffeine (and no cocaine).[7] This garnered the notice of Harvey Wiley, head of the Bureau of Chemistry, who believed that caffeine was harmful and he had a shipment of Coca-Cola seized for violation of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. In 1911, the government sued in United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, alleging the beverage was adulterated with caffeine and misbranded because it contained very little coca and cola (kola nut).[8] In 1912, the company successfully defended itself, but the government appealed to the Supreme Court, which ordered the case to be retried in lower court.[9] The company settled by reducing the amount of caffeine. In the same time period, Candler also had to defend the product against imitators, of which there were one hundred and fifty-three.[10]

Despite these difficulties, Candler’s business prowess was legend. In 1909, the Associated Advertising Clubs of America declared Coca-Cola was the best advertised article in America.[11] Coca-Cola posters were plastered everywhere and “calendars, serving and change trays, blotters, fans, bookmarks, marble paperweights” were widely distributed. His aggressive marketing and training of salesmen to push the product led to its phenomenal success.[12]

Although Candler is most known for his company, he was active in Atlanta’s religious, financial, and political communities. He was involved in Atlanta's banking and real estate sectors and was a New South economic booster, even though he was wary of the effects of urbanization in Georgia.[13] Candler became mayor of Atlanta in 1916 to avert a city government crisis. Beginning in the 1910s, he gave away much of his wealth to charities and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of which he was a member for decades.[14] To Emory University, he donated more than eight million dollars, real estate holdings, and securities before his death in 1929.[15]

Asa Candler is typically known as the founder of Coca-Cola. He was more than that, however, in that he exemplified the best qualities of a successful entrepreneur by aggressively marketing his product over those of competitors, constantly improving it to meet consumer needs, and utilizing his profits to purchase real estate holdings. In doing so, he furthered his business empire and made a significant mark in the New South economy.

 

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[1] Kathryn W. Kemp, God’s Capitalist: Asa Candler, Illustrated edition (Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 2002), 41.

[2] “The Asa Candler Era,” accessed November 2, 2020, http://www.coca-colacompany.com/news/the-asa-candler-era.

[3] Ralph Roberts and Elizabeth Candler Graham, The Real Ones: Four Generations of the First Family of Coca-Cola (Emeryville, CA: Publishers Group West, 1992), 16–17.

[4] Roberts and Graham, The Real Ones, 18–19.

[5] Coca-Cola Company, “‘What Is It?  Coca-Cola What It Is?,’” Report for U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Coca-Cola Company v. Henry A. Rucker, 1901, File Unit: Coca Cola Co. vs Henry Rucker, IRS Tax Commissioner, 1900 - 1900 Series: General Index Cases, 1872 - 1911 Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/279260.

[6] Deborah Blum, The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (New York: Penguin Press, 2018), chap. 12, Overdrive Media.

[7] Blum, The Poison Squad, chap. 12.

[8] United States v. Forty Barrels & Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, 241 U.S. 265 (1916).

[9] James Harvey Young, “Three Southern Food and Drug Cases,” The Journal of Southern History 49, no. 1 (1983): 13–17, https://doi.org/10.2307/2209304.

[10] Roberts and Graham, The Real Ones, 64.

[11] Roberts and Graham, The Real Ones, 62.

[12] Roberts and Graham, The Real Ones, 293.

[13] Michael Shirley, “The ‘Conscientious Conservatism’ of Asa Griggs Candler,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 67, no. 3 (1983): 364.

[14] Thomas V. O’Brien, review of God’s Capitalist: Asa Candler of Coca-Cola, by Kathryn W. Kemp, The Journal of Southern History 69, no. 4 (2003): 950, https://doi.org/10.2307/30040174.

[15] Emory University, “Asa Griggs Candler,” History and Traditions., accessed November 2, 2020, http://www.emoryhistory.emory.edu/facts-figures/people/makers-history/profiles/candler-asa.html.