Moxie Horsemobile Sign, 1937
The Maine State Museum recently acquired two rare Moxie advertising signs. Designated as Maine’s official state soft drink in 2005, this infamous drink has acquired a cult following over the last 139 years.
Originally called Moxie Nerve Food, the inventor, Dr. Augustin Thompson was born and raised in Union, Maine. After serving in the Maine 28th Infantry in the Civil War, he became a physician in Lowell, Massachusetts where he invented Moxie Nerve Food in 1885. Dr. Thompson marketed his beverage with its “happy hit of flavoring” as a cross between a patent medicine and a carbonated soft drink. He attributed the therapeutic qualities of Moxie Nerve Food with a mysterious “Food Plant” discovered in South America by his “dear old friend” and beverage’s namesake, Lieutenant Moxie. The Lt. Moxie story proved to be a marketing ploy, and the secret ingredient was actually gentian root.
Yes! Moxie Sign, ca. 1915
Dr. Thompson rooted his early marketing for Moxie Nerve Food in late nineteenth century anti-modern anxiety. He capitalized on society’s fear of the transformation of working life during the industrial revolution. His advertisements read, “[a]s the world advances in civilization and intelligence, business and methods become more competitive…” and stated that Moxie would cure mental overstrain and nervous exhaustion. He went so far as to claim Moxie cured paralysis, blindness, and “sexual excess.”
In Dr. Thomspon’s most personal media campaign, he promoted Moxie as a temperance drink because it had no alcohol or stimulants. Dr. Thompson, an avid teetotaler, claimed Moxie “checks the rum thirst” to cure alcoholism. Dr. Thompson’s advertisements asserted that in its first nine months Moxie sold a million bottles and cured drunkards by the thousands.
After Dr. Thompson’s died in 1903, the company continued outlandish promotions including Moxie bottle-shaped wagons and its Moxie Horsemobile introduced in 1917.
Although its company operations were centered in Massachusetts, Moxie was made in other factories, including one in Chicago. Moxie was bottled in Bangor from 1885 through 1893. By 1887, the drink was marketed nationwide with agents scattered across the country. The company continued to grow until the Great Depression when it began a period of financial loss that lasted for several decades.
Through marketing by celebrities, such as Ted Williams, and special events such as the annual Moxie Festival in Lisbon Falls, Moxie has since grown in popularity as a nostalgic drink in New England, especially Maine.
The Maine State Museum’s new sign pairs nicely with a promotional Moxie Horsemobile toy that was already in the collection. MSM 72.200.156.21
