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Crazy Water Crystals box

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Date created
May 8, 2004
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This photograph copyright ©2004. All Rights Reserved

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  • North Carolina in the early 20th century: Primary sources and readings explore North Carolina in the first decades of the twentieth century (1900–1929). Topics include changes in technology and transportation, Progressive Era reforms, World War I, women's suffrage, Jim Crow and African American life, the cultural changes of the 1920s, labor and labor unrest, and the Gastonia stirke of 1929. (Page 1.12)

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Box of Crazy Water Crystals

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This packaging was used for Crazy Water Crystals, a product popular in the 1930s. At the Crazy Water plant in Texas, the company purportedly boiled down water from a mineral spring until only the minerals remained. They were packaged and sold, with instructions to dissolve a teaspoon of the crystals in a glass of tap water. According to the company, drinking the mixture would cure a variety of ailments. The United States Food and Drug Administration disagreed, however, and in 1940 ordered Crazy Water to stop their fraudulent advertising.