I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke

Coca-Cola was trademarked on this day in 1893.

In May 1886, Dr. John S. Pemberton invented the fizzy beverage made from caramel-colored syrup in Atlanta, Georgia. During the first year, Dr. Pemberton incurred a loss of $20. Today, people consume more than one billion drinks of Coca-Cola products per day.

This quilt, titled Coke Covers the World, reminds us that this soda pop is loved and guzzled worldwide. Otesia Harper's pun in nationalistic red, white, and blue fabric is part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's folk art collection.

You can enjoy many other works from the SAAM folk art collection in our traveling exhibition Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, now on view at The Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami through March 4, 2001.

Pictured: Otesia Harper, born 1925, Coke Covers the World (quilt), 1992, appliquéd and stitched fabric, 81 x 74 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr.