7 Up up with the formula for a lemon-lime soft drink in 1929. The product, originally named "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda", was launched two weeks before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug, until 1948. It was one of a number of patent medicine products popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Its name was later shortened to "7 Up Lithiated Lemon Soda" before being further shortened to just "7 Up" by 1936. A myth exists that the 7 Up name comes from the drink having a pH over 7. That would make it neutral or
Cuyamel Fruit Company data from 1927 shows that Cuyamel accounted for about 14% of the bananas imported and sold in the United States that year. In 1929, after the October crash of international financial markets, Zemurray sold Cuyamel to United Fruit in exchange for stock and retired. Black Tuesday sent Cuyamel shares into a tailspin, forcing the combination of the two companies (Vaccaro, known by 1929 as the Standard Fruit Company, remained independent). For his sale of the Cuyamel Fruit Company, Zemurray received 300,000 shares of United Fruit, with a market valuation of $31 million, which would be about $420 million today. With