In honor of our talk tomorrow night (April 25) in Brooklyn (details here if you want to join us), here's a great, early shot of the Brooklyn Bridge, probably from about 1900.
Even better than the image is the message. It seems our correspondent, F.W. Haase is responding to someone suffering from digestive problems. Haase recommends: "Next time, drink a little Moxie or eat some Quaker Oats."
Moxie, one of America's oldest sodas, was first produced as Moxie Nerve Food in the 1870s. By the 1880s, carbonated water had been added, creating the soft drink that it still available--mainly in New England--today. The supposed medicinal properties of Moxie come from the bitter gentian root, which is a tonic and is supposed to aid digestion. The use of the word to mean "courage" or "nerve" is derived from the drink.
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Read more about the Brooklyn Bridge in
Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers
|| AVAILABLE NOW ||
Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers
|| AVAILABLE NOW ||
And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.
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