Curated by Meg Morrissey, Reader Services Assistant, Special Collections Library
The University of Michigan Special Collections Library presents a new student-curated project by recent UM School of Information graduate Meg Morrissey. This exhibit uses historical material from the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive and the William L. Clements Library to demonstrate the swift changes that the brewing industry of the United States underwent from the late-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth.
People have been brewing beer, in one form or another, for millennia. As England and a young United States entered the Industrial Revolution, however, brewers began to take advantage of newly available technology. Their developments changed the way that people experienced beer.
England and the United States entered a period of fast-paced innovation in the early nineteenth century. Pasteurization, industrial machinery, and shipping innovations affected the way that beer was brewed. Brewing was also affected by the mood of legislators. Legal prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States forced big breweries to find another use for their great machines, and alcohol was made and distributed using alternative, illegal methods. After the law was repealed, the industry returned in a leaner form. Only a portion of breweries survived. World War II saw growth for the industry, and innovation picked up.
The changes in the brewing industry reflected the changes in technology. Innovation and creativity kept brewing afloat during Prohibition and that spirit continued to spur new development.
In mid-eighteenth century England and Colonial America, instruction such as these could be found in a common domestic handbook. Brewing..
The Brewers Industrial Exhibition was part of the Centennial Exhibition, the first official World’s Fair in the United States. It..
These illustrations from the Bergner & Engel Brewing Company demonstrate the growing demand for beer and the technological advances that..
F.W. Salem dedicated his 1880 treatise, Beer, its History and its Economic Value as a National Beverage, to brewers, to whom..
The barrel-cleaning machine shown in the top left of the page shows the extent to which brewing had been mechanized...
Beer in the home was one of a wave of booklets and pamphlets published by breweries to establish beer as..
The Coors Brewery patented the bottle washer in 1884 and two years later became one of the first breweries to..
This pamphlet was printed in England, where brewing beer in the home was made legal in 1963. The practice was..
From the late-eighteenth until the mid-twentieth century, both brewing practices and industrial technology changed to keep up with demand. Brewing..
