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The Dr Pepper Museum in Waco was established in 1989 and is housed in the former Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, which was the first building dedicated to the manufacturing of Dr Pepper. Today, the museum is devoted to telling the story of Dr Pepper, the soft drink industry, and entrepreneurship by serving as a resource for learning through innovative, interactive, and inspiring programs. The museum is also home to the W. W. Clements Free Enterprise Institute, created in 1997 for the purpose of educating school children as well as adults about the economic system that underlies American life.

Humanities Texas recently awarded the Dr Pepper Museum grant funding to support the development of two new educational exhibitions. The first, titled Blueprints to Bubbles: The Home of Dr Pepper/Exposición de Planos a Burbujas: La Casa de Dr Pepper, tells the history of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company building. The second, titled The People Who Made Dr Pepper/Las Personas Que Hicieron al Dr Pepper, explores the diverse employee history at Dr Pepper. Both exhibitions are currently on display at the museum.

Members of our grants team spoke with Joy Summar-Smith, associate director of the Dr Pepper Museum, about the organization's work in the humanities and their recently awarded grants.

Interview with Joy Summar-Smith, associate director of the Dr Pepper Museum

Please tell us about your organization.
The museum started in the late 1980s with a group of concerned citizens who wanted to make sure the architecturally unique building—the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company—was preserved for the future. It had been used as a bottling plant from 1906 to 1965, when it closed and became storage for Dr Pepper and then passed to Baylor University. This group of citizens worked with Dr Pepper and Baylor University to get the building donated to the 501c3 that was started. In 1991, they opened a portion of the building as a museum, and, over the next five years, worked to open the rest of it, culminating in the opening of the W. W. Clements Free Enterprise Institute on the third floor.

Over time, museum visitation has grown from an average of 30,000 visitors to over 220,000 visitors last year. We now have two buildings open to the public and have a collection of over 90,000 objects.

Can you tell us about your most recently awarded grant for the Blueprints to Bubbles exhibition?
The Blueprints to Bubbles exhibition looks at the architectural history of the building. We looked at the construction of the building and at the designer and architect Milton Scott.

We did a lot of investigation work into the restoration of the building. B. J. Greaves was the architect for the restoration of the building. He brought a great perspective to that restoration because his dad had been plant manager in the late 1950s up until the plant closed. B. J. had memories of growing up and coming with his dad to work and was able to bring a lot of his memories into the restoration work. The architecture has been called Richardsonian-Romanesque, and it has some elements of that, but it is its own thing too, which helps makes the building so distinctive.

What is something you're enjoying about your current programming?
I love getting to spend time doing primary document research. It's so very accessible nowadays—you don't have to go to the library and scroll through microfilm; so much of it is available online.

Regarding the bottling room exhibition, [I enjoyed] pulling out the names of all the employees that I could find. When we had the exhibition opening for that space, I had our committee members read off all the names I had found. I'm sure there are gaps, and we're still in the process of gathering new information, but we read every single one of their names. We spoke them out loud and honored the work they had done in that building.

What makes humanities education essential?
We learn about who we are as people. Everybody has so many different skillsets that they bring to the table, and we get this opportunity to learn about our own history, our family history, our community history—and, in the case of Dr Pepper, the brand history and the people who were able to launch it to what it is. [Robert S. Lazenby, founder of the Dr Pepper Company] had the right skillset to get it moving and launched, then passed it to his son-in-law J. B. O'Hara, who passed it to other people. They were at the top, but we also learn about all the people working the line and getting the product into people's hands.

The workers in that building were a core group who supported each other in their personal lives, like at weddings. You see those different people coming together and working, and it speaks to our humanity and how effectively we can set aside differences to come together to be something.

We need to have the ability to do that research, and museums are a place that can happen. Museums are places where those stories can be told.