Do You Have Moxie?


by Nancy Ayash - Date: 2006-12-23 - Word Count: 689 Share This!

Moxie is slang for gutsy, brave, courageous, self-sufficient, and just downright confident. It's the term for daredevils, the "can-do" American spirit, and rugged individualism. This five letter word encapsulated generations from the 1880s right up until the Great Depression. If you could drive that new invention known as the automobile, you had moxie. If you could put together a great business plan to an idea, you had moxie. If you were self-sufficient and reliant on no one, you had moxie.

Moxie, a soda developed by Doctor Thompson in 1884, was THE product which epitomized the great Progressive and Gilded eras. Moxie reflected its consumers; they were effervescent, vivacious and animated. It coincided with great inventions, free enterprise, and increased wealth with a higher standard of living for more citizens. It was capitalism gone wild -- open a bottle of Moxie and you opened a bubbly world filled with enthusiasm and zeal.

What did Moxie contain that grabbed the attention of an enterprising society? Not much. An old label from its first name "Beverage Moxie Nerve Food" included the following: carbonated water, sugar, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, sodium benzoate, gentian root extract, phosphoric acid, caffeine, and citric acid. Wait. That herb might have had something to do with the power of Moxie. Let's back this train up and explore just what Gentian root really is.

Gentian is a perennial herb which grows in central and southern Europe, along the alpine and sub-alpine pastures This particular herb is also chock full of caffeic and sinapic acids, linalool, limonene, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, zinc, B-vitamins and vitamin C. Germans have used gentian for ages, as the tea is licensed for its medicinal properties. It takes 7 to 10 years for the roots to be harvested, and the wild Gentian plant is so depleted that it is now under protected status within Germany and other countries. Maybe, just maybe, there was something to the Moxie soda after all.

Or, was it all just great advertising? In his book published in 1903 "The secrets of the Specialists" Dr. Dale Covey claimed that Moxie was little more than a concoction of sassafras and wintergreen flavored oats. And then there was the rumor that many beverages (including Coca-Cola) contained cocaine, which was responsible for the Moxie "kick". In other words, it really wasn't the product itself, but the marketing expertise of Frank Archer, the head of advertising, which made the drink a national phenomenon. Also, the turn of the century was rife with snake oil peddlers, quacks, and swindlers touting all sorts of tonics and elixirs to the public. Moxie just happened to catch the citizenry with a mass produced drink that appealed to their sense of powerfulness.

Whether this product was one of the greatest advertising successes of the era, or whether Moxie really contained the properties of a super cure-all, makes little difference. Its real power was in the belief people had in themselves; in their efficacy. Until the financial catastrophe of 1929, the American citizenry was churning out more patents than ever before. The shire was in bloom with inventions, contraptions, and machinery. Discovery included the New Thought movement, which encouraged the individual to seek the power of Divinity within the Self. Moxie was part of this landscape of gadgetry, new systems, and scientific innovation. The mass produced beverage and its name captured the imagination of an entire American population.

The real question is how did this word end up in the Oxford American Dictionary of Current English, and the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language? The meaning is a description of "spirit, pluck, energy, courage, daring." It is not a "soda, elixir, or tonic."

The drink became a symbol of a very special time in American history. Can we say the same of our generation? Do we have the moxie of the 1880s or the early 1900s? What word will describe us? Coca-Cola? Baby-Boomer? Post World War II Generation? They all sound rather bland and lackluster. If only we could capture that sparkling, energetic attitude once again, we could become the Moxie II generation.

But that is a question for the individual.

Do you have moxie?


Related Tags: motivated, individualism, self-sufficient, brave

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