Joseph Schlitz and the Uihlein Brothers

Abstract In 1900, the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company in Milwaukee was the largest brewery in the world. This chapter analyses the development from a small immigrant business in the 1840s to a market leader. It considers the full spectrum from macroeconomic to local conditions and argues that the label ‘German beer’ in the United States is too simplistic. Instead, the chapter stresses gradual emancipation from the German model in terms of technology and taste. The complexity of technological diffusion questions both contemporaneous and modern notions of ‘national’ food and consumer cultures. Immigrant entrepreneurs followed the logic of efficiency and markets rather than ethnic bonds. In the case of beer, stressing these bonds was, however, useful for marketing purposes.