Coca-Cola: The Woodruff Era

Robert Woodruff, Ernest’s charismatic thirty-three-year-old son, took over as president in 1923. Known as “the Boss,” he ruled the company, passing on every major decision until his death in 1985 at the age of ninety-five. Woodruff forbade negative, defensive advertising, and, with the help of Archie Lee’s “Pause That Refreshes” slogan and Haddon Sundblom’s Coca-Cola Santa Claus paintings, he made Coca-Cola an all-American drink. By the time of World War II, it had become a symbol of the American way of life. During the war, Coca-Cola for the military was exempted from sugar rationing, and Coke employees were given pseudo-military status in order to bottle the drink behind the lines. This gave Coca-Cola an invaluable foothold for international expansion following the war.