The Coca-Cola Bottle: Celebrating 100 Years of an American Icon
The Coca-Cola Bottle: Celebrating 100 Years of an American Icon
“A bottle which a person could recognize even if they felt it in the dark”
–Coca-Cola Company, 1915
Today the Coca-Cola bottle is one of the most recognizable containers in the world, but a century ago nearly all soda bottles looked the same. To distinguish its product from competitors, the Coca-Cola Company launched a competition among glassmakers in 1915 to design a new bottle that was distinctive in both look and feel.
The winning design, patented by the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, sought inspiration from two Coca-Cola ingredients: the coca leaf and kola nut. However, the bottle’s fluted contour shape was mistakenly modeled after the cacao pod, the main ingredient in chocolate.
The Coca-Cola Company adopted the Root Glass Company’s bottle design in 1916, but the original prototype was never manufactured because it was top-heavy and unstable. The first commercial “Coke” bottles debuted with a wider base and slimmed-down, contoured shape.
Click here to download “Design patent No. 48,160 for bottle or similar article, November 16, 1915.”
This document was on display in the West Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives in Washington, DC, June 4 through July 29, 2015 and in the East Rotunda Gallery October 29 through December 2, 2015.
The National Archives Museum’s “Featured Document” exhibit is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of The Coca-Cola Company.
Past Featured Records
-
Frances Perkins: Champion of Workers’ Rights
Thursday, February 29, 2024 – Monday, April 15, 2024
East Rotunda Gallery“I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten plain common workingmen.” —Frances Perkins
Chances are you benefit from the legacy of Frances Perkins,... Read more
70th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
Thursday, February 1, 2024 – Wednesday, February 28, 2024
East Rotunda GalleryEquity in Education: 70 Years Later
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court delivered a unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional in... Read more
250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party
Thursday, December 14, 2023 – Wednesday, January 31, 2024East Rotunda GalleryThe Destruction of the Tea
It wouldn’t be known as the “Boston Tea Party” for another 50 years, but the destruction... Read more
Diseños: An Impact of Mexican Cession
Tuesday, June 20, 2023 – Wednesday, October 18, 2023
East Rotunda GalleryAt the end of the Mexican-American War, the United States annexed more than half of Mexico’s territory under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Under its terms, the U.S. promised to... Read more
Celebrating Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong
National Archives, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service“I want to be an actress, not a freak.”
Film legend Anna May Wong’s talent could not be contained by the racist casting of early Hollywood movies. Born Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles in 1905,... Read more