History of the Coffee Break

I think we have a strange relationship with coffee and caffeine, but its history in the workforce is very telling.

The coffee break allegedly originated in the late 19th century in Stoughton, Wisconsin, with the wives of Norwegian immigrants. The city celebrates this every year with the Stoughton Coffee Break Festival In 1951, Time  noted that "since the war, the coffee break has been written into union contracts" The term subsequently became popular through a Pan-American Coffee Bureau  ad campaign of 1952 which urged consumers, "Give yourself a Coffee-Break — and Get What Coffee Gives to You."

Basically to increase production in the factories, at the request of the female workers, bosses created the 15 minute coffee break in order to give workers time to ingest the drug so that production would increase after. And so hustle culture began.

Coffee is for closers rings throughout history!