In the classic American play Our Town, Emily Webb and George Gibbs stop at Mr. Morgan’s drug store. There, at the soda fountain that serves as the center of the social life in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, young love blossoms over strawberry ice-cream sodas: Emily and George realize they are “fond of” each other and always will be. The play is set in 1901 and debuted in 1938, when soda fountains had become wildly popular. They were in drug stores and department stores, on steamships and trains. According to a…
