![]() Ironically communal drinking cups which were also used with the consumption of alcohol posed no threat to the public health because the alcohol killed the germs.Īfter the First World War, in 1918, the worldwide pandemic of Spanish Flu killed over 500 million people and the prevention of spreading of germs and viruses became of paramount importance and cemented the use of disposable cups.ĭisposable lids to seal the paper cup's contents were first invented during the 1950s when a number of cup lid patents were filed. Without realising that by encouraging people to consume fresh drinking water from communal cups at public water fountains the Temperance Movement had inadvertently begun to risk the health of the American population by the spreading of germs, such as TB, from these drinking cups. The Temperance movement would often travel from bar to bar around towns and cities in America with fresh drinking water on horse-drawn wagons to discourage the use of alcohol and this is where the saying," on the barrel" comes from to describe reformed alcoholics. The American Temperance Movement which began in 1784 and rapidly expanded during the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century advocated the abstinence of alcohol which they blamed for creating many of American society's ills with the establishment of public water fountains throughout America to discourage the consumption of alcohol. Luellen invented the disposable paper cup in direct response to health scares linked to diseases and germs being spread from shared water cups usually made of metal or wood called "Dippers", which were used at communal water fountains and water barrels in America. He first called the cone-shaped paper cups "Health Kups" which was later changed on March 23rd 1912 to the "Dixie Cup", named after a range of dolls made by The Dixie Doll Company of New York. The first disposable paper cup was invented as a single-use disposable solution to the spreading of infection from communal cups at public water fountains, by Boston, Massachusetts' lawyer and inventor Lawrence Luellen in 1907.
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