“Give yourself a coffee-break”

Michael Pollan’s review of Augustine Sedgewick’s Coffeeland: One Man’s Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug notes that the term coffee-break

entered the vernacular through a 1952 advertising campaign by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau, a trade group organized by Central American growers. Their slogan: “Give yourself a coffee-break . . . and get what coffee gives to you.”

That sounded familiar. How? Why? Oh — I had looked it up for a blog post in 2014.

Here is one of the Life magazine advertisements that promoted the slogan:


[Did baseball players ever really drink coffee in the dugout? Some, yes. Life, August 4, 1952. Click for a much larger view.]

Bob Elliott was nearing the end of his playing career in 1952. Larry Jansen, in mid-career, was the winning pitcher in the famous 1951 Giants–Dodgers National League championship playoff game that the Giants won in the bottom of the ninth. My dad always remembered hearing that game on the radio. The Giants went on to lose the 1951 World Series to the New York Yankees.

“A cup of coffee,” as some readers will already know, is a baseball term for a short stint in the major leagues. Maybe that’s what the unidentified player on the right was having.

Related reading
All OCA coffee posts (Pinboard)