On the Road to Prohibition

Earlier this month the Max Kade Institute hosted an online lecture called "On the Road to Prohibition: The Temperance Battle and German-American Brewers". Speaking was Jana Weiß, Associate Professor of History at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, who is here in Madison working on her next project. She specializes in "the interplay of technology, race, religion, and human migration in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America" and she is currently researching the rise of lager beer here in the United States, a story featuring many German-Americans.

After reading her bio, it was completely unsurprising that Prof. Weiß began by noting that the lager beer revolution here in the United States was led by German and German-American brewers in the second half of the 19^th century. During this time, many Germans emigrated to the U.S. and they brought their culture, including a taste for lager beer, with them. Milwaukee (and Wisconsin generally) took in a large number of German immigrants. Most of the Beer Barons of the Midwest – Miller, Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, Busch – were associated with Milwaukee.

When the temperance movement gaining steam, public health campaigns started and they labeled beer as unhealthy which completely flummoxed German immigrants and German-Americans alike. For them bier was food and its consumption led to Gemütlichkeit, not the broken homes and spousal abuse that temperance activists like Carrie Nation attributed to demon alcohol.

German and German-American brewers started promoting beer as being a healthy food and contrasting it with spirits. Beer by German immigrants in the U.S. initially was Reinheitsgebot compliant. They started using rice and corn because these adjuncts were cheap. But the presence of these ingredients was used to promote such bier as more healthy.

The brewers also promoted biergartens and wirtschaften (think pubs) as salutary alternatives to the saloon. Many Midwestern cities had biergartens in the late 19^th century. These bucolic outdoor drinking establishments were family friendly and centers of community life. Plus, they preserved German-American culture (dress, food, music, bier). Additionally, biergartens stood in stark contrast to saloons, traditionally a male space. Wirtschaften had food and were not simply places to get drunk, unlike saloons.

Prof. Weiß argued that these maneuvers helped to keep the temperance movement at bay for a time. And then World War I changed everything.

Anti-German sentiment was high. Foes such as the Anti-Saloon League used the war as a pretext to attack brewers charging that loyalty to country took precedence over drinking lager beer as a personal freedom. The brewers had capitalized on German heritage in the late 19^th century and now they could no longer do so. Instead they were forced to say that they were American companies run by Americans. To counter the temperance activists, they had attacked the distillers so the two interests had much difficulty forming industry alliances.

Resistance faltered and Prohibition started in January 1920.