The American beer scene of the 2010s and 2020s has been characterized by the opportunities it gives beer lovers to interact with the people who make their favorite drink. Many neighborhood breweries offer formal and informal tours led by those who produce and package the beer. Meet-the-brewer events are common—or were prior to the pandemic—and if you visit a taproom, there’s a good chance that the brewer (maybe wearing her pink boots) and other employees will be hanging around and willing to talk about their jobs.
But even with the visibility of the employees of Milwaukee County’s 30-odd craft breweries, it’s likely that the brewery employee you meet at the grocery store or the stadium formerly known as Miller Park will work for Molson Coors.
The company employs close to 1,200 in Milwaukee at the Miller brewery or in corporate headquarters—a number that far exceeds any area craft brewery. The same was true in the 19th century. While most breweries were small, the majority of workers were employed at the few giant breweries. The workers of the large national breweries of Milwaukee were prominent in their community in the decades before Prohibition. Many also maintained a barely concealed, militant attitude toward their employers, which sometimes erupted in violent struggles for greater labor rights and protections.
For most of the small breweries of the Upper Midwest, making beer in the early-to-mid 19th century was a family affair. The proprietor often did most of the brewing, sometimes aided by a son or brother (and occasionally by his wife, though such documentation is scarce). If additional help was needed, the proprietor hired another family member or immigrant from Germany. The largest brewery staffs in Milwaukee prior to the Civil War had 12 employees, but most had five or fewer.
However, explosive growth was on the way. The Phillip Best Brewing Company (renamed Pabst Brewing Company in 1889) had 100 employees in 1870, 235 in 1880, and over 450 by 1886. That same year, Schlitz employed 350 and Blatz had 175 on the payroll. This growth was caused by several factors: the introduction of bottled Lager, its widespread distribution, and the specialization of labor to make this whole industry more efficient and profitable.
By the 1880s, working for a brewery seldom meant stirring the mash or adding the hops—relatively few laborers were needed for those tasks. Many more were employed in the cellars where the beer was conditioned. Even more were necessary to rack it into kegs, or to bottle it, label it, and prepare it for delivery.
“Working conditions at a large industrial brewery were challenging. A typical workday in the early 1880s began at 4 a.m. Employees worked for two hours or more until their breakfast break, resumed until a 9 a.m. break, were back at it until their one-hour break at noon, and finished their day at 6 p.m.”
The large shipping breweries employed coopers to make and repair barrels and carpenters to make and repair cases. They needed teamsters to deliver the beer, and stable hands and mechanics to keep the horses and wagons (and sometimes sleighs) in order. The expanding plants needed engineers to maintain the ever more complicated machinery, and firemen to keep the boilers going (not to put out fires, though a few breweries had their own fire departments for that). The brewery offices were filled with buyers, accountants, sales staff, and advertising agents. Until artificial refrigeration became widespread, breweries also needed workers in the icehouses as well as gangs of seasonal laborers to harvest and store the ice.
Working conditions at a large industrial brewery were challenging. A typical workday in the early 1880s began at 4 a.m. Employees worked for two hours or more until their breakfast break, resumed until a 9 a.m. break, were back at it until their one-hour break at noon, and finished their day at 6 p.m. The early hours were dictated by saloons that wanted morning delivery of beer. Looking back at this period from the 1930s, Fred Pabst Jr. remarked, “I often wondered why these men going home at night after six didn’t meet themselves coming back at four in the morning.”
While many brewery workers lived to ripe old ages, they faced a variety of workplace hazards. Some employees had to move from extremely hot conditions in the brewhouse or malt kiln rooms to very cool conditions in the cellar, which was blamed for the high incidence of rheumatism and respiratory problems. More horrifying were the numerous ways that brewery workers could be maimed or killed on the job. Employees could be crushed by falling grain or ice, scalded by falling into mash or brew kettles, drawn into machinery, or burned while lining barrels with hot pitch. While modernizing equipment removed some dangers, the jobs still carried significant risks.
With all these hazards, why would anyone work in a brewery? For one thing, the pay was better than in most other industries. In the 1870s and 1880s, brewery workers typically earned between $10 and $13 per week even for common labor, at a time when few trained workers in any field were making more than $10 a week. (Wages of $10 a week would be worth approximately $1,900 in current dollars.) Employees were sometimes offered room and board at a dormitory near the brewery (or sometimes at a room in the brewery) which would have been welcomed by new arrivals to the city.
In addition, workers also received the most celebrated fringe benefit—free beer on the job. Accounts differ as to whether consumption was unlimited or not, but there seem to have been at least some restrictions. In 1888, the Sentinel reported that during the 9 a.m. break at the Best bottling works, “Each one is allowed to take a pint bottle of beer—girls and all.”
“More horrifying were the numerous ways that brewery workers could be maimed or killed on the job. Employees could be crushed by falling grain or ice, scalded by falling into mash or brew kettles, drawn into machinery, or burned while lining barrels with hot pitch. While modernizing equipment removed some dangers, the jobs still carried significant risks.”
Since companies had to account for all beer produced and consumed for tax purposes, records exist of employee consumption—and these were often reported with amazement in the press. In 1881 the Milwaukee Sentinel noted, “It is said the employees in Miller’s brewery consume fifteen kegs of beer every week.” In 1893 it was claimed that the average employee of Pabst allegedly drank between 25 and 50 glasses per day, though these glasses were probably a “Schnitt,” which was closer to six ounces than a full pint. Even when limits were imposed, they were generous and not always universally adopted.
In 1890 Pabst limited its employees to three bottles a day, as opposed to the previous policy under which “some of the brewery hands would consume forty to fifty glasses a day without a struggle.” Even with smaller glasses, this was a prodigious quantity, and the amounts were likely exaggerated. Some labor activists welcomed limits on free beer because they saw the practice as a way by which employers not only avoided paying higher wages but also kept their workers docile and under control.
Working in a brewery also conferred social status not enjoyed by people who made less gratifying products. In an era when massive parades were a frequent source of entertainment and spectacle, the entries of breweries drew much admiration. For the parade capping Milwaukee’s Semi-Centennial Exposition in 1895, the entire first division of the parade consisted of brewery displays.
Pabst Brewing Co. made the biggest impression, with 1,000 workers, 11 delivery wagons, and 300 girls from the bottling department, while “a squad of big walking bottles created amusement.” Brewery workers also participated in more elegant functions, such as the Brewers’ Masked Ball, which was a highlight of Milwaukee’s winter social calendar. Less grand, but more hotly disputed, were the parish fundraisers with contests to select the “most popular brewery foreman.”
“In 1881 the Milwaukee Sentinel noted, ‘It is said the employees in Miller’s brewery consume fifteen kegs of beer every week.’ In 1893 it was claimed that the average employee of Pabst allegedly drank between 25 and 50 glasses per day, though these glasses were probably a ‘Schnitt,’ which was closer to six ounces than a full pint.”
Of all the brewery employees, the drivers of the delivery wagons seemed to earn the highest honors from the public and the press. They certainly presented an impressive appearance, high atop elegant wagons in control of the finest horses found in the city. In a wonderful example of Victorian prose, a journalist offered the following praise in the Sentinel: “The giants who drive the beer wagons […] are the instruments favored by destiny with the task of carrying forward an ancient industry. [...] Under the influence of beer, heroes sprang up like the knights of the dragon’s teeth and fulfilled their destiny. The drivers of the beer wagons are a race of modern knights, who sit on wagons and guide stolid Percheron or Clydesdale draught horses instead of prancing on war steeds. In all sorts of weather they are seen making their rounds, or standing in front of their customers’ places of business in the act of lifting down the heavy half barrels or tossing up the empty kegs.”
The increasing demand for bottled beer required even more workers to be brought under the roof of the brewery. While the promotional booklets given out by breweries emphasized the modern equipment in the bottle shops, the reality was that many of the tasks were still performed by hand—typically by young women or children. Employing women and youth was a cost-saver for the breweries and a much-needed source of revenue for poor immigrant families.
In 1895 Schlitz paid young girls from $2.25 to $2.75 per week, and young boys $2.25. This labor was a source of concern for progressive reformers. Wisconsin had compulsory education laws and age requirements for workers in place by the 1880s, but these were routinely ignored by families desperate for income and by employers in search of cheaper labor.
In 1895 the U.S. Labor Bureau conducted an investigation of Milwaukee’s breweries. Schlitz claimed that it required certificates signed by the parents that their child was at least 14 years old, and the company further assuaged the fears of moral crusaders by assuring them that boys and girls had separate meal breaks and that beer rations were strictly limited to two glasses for boys and one for girls. Pabst had a similar policy about requiring a sworn statement from parents, though the company acknowledged that a few false statements had been made.
The growth of industrial brewing paralleled the growth of other major American industries and the rise of organized labor. The National Labor Union, the first of its kind, formed after the Civil War but disbanded in the face of the economic crisis of 1873. That year saw the first strike at a Milwaukee brewery, when employees walked out at Best. Accounts did not report how many workers were involved, and the Sentinel reported, “The places of the strikers have been filled, and no interruption of business will occur.” However, foreshadowing the labor violence of the next decade, a squad of police was dispatched to the brewery “as trouble was threatened,” though no violence broke out.
The most dramatic labor activism occurred in 1886, a year marked by strikes and violence around the nation. The Haymarket Affair in Chicago left 11 dead and many others injured. Militia called out to keep the peace at Bay View Rolling Mills in Milwaukee killed at least six laborers.
Brewery workers were critical to the movement for the eight-hour day in Milwaukee. They had special leverage because the May 1 strike date called by the Knights of Labor fell during the period when breweries were producing at peak capacity to prepare for summer sales. Approximately 1,700 brewery workers joined almost 14,000 other Cream City laborers on strike and comprised the second-largest group after garment workers.
The brewery proprietors, unlike employers in many other industries, refused to hire strikebreakers. However, it was essential to lure the workers in charge of the power plants and cooling systems back to work so that beer in the cellars would not spoil. Therefore, the Phillip Best Brewing Co. settled the hour and wage demands of these employees almost immediately.
But this only covered a fraction of the workers, and violence grew more intense throughout the week. Employees of Franz Falk’s brewery, who had stayed on the job at first, were forced to join the walkout after three days. Beer peddlers (as driver-salesmen were called at the time) encountered rock-throwing mobs and were forced to return to the warehouses. The Sentinel reported that company president Frederick Pabst had prepared for an attack on the Best brewery by ordering the coopers to make hundreds of oak clubs out of barrel staves, which were then placed at strategic locations around the buildings. To repel expected attackers, hoses were attached to vats of boiling water and one to the ammonia tank.
The Milwaukee Daily Journal added that Best employees were provided with rations in case they could not leave the building, and that “similar preparations were made in other breweries, the men being determined to resist outside intervention.” Shortly after, the principal breweries all negotiated agreements with their employees and, as the Milwaukee Journal rejoiced, “The beer wagons are on the street again.”
The strikes of 1886 were a temporary victory for the workers. Unions were beset by jurisdictional disputes and the Knights of Labor alienated brewery workers by including a temperance clause in its constitution and banning beer at union picnics. Milwaukee’s Gambrinus Lodge of the Knights withdrew and joined Local 9 of the National Union of Brewery Workers in the new American Federation of Labor. However, a dispute involving workers at independent malt houses in the city led to the hiring of strikebreakers and a request that Milwaukee breweries boycott malt from these firms.
After this was rejected, the union declared a boycott of Milwaukee beer by members of Local 9—which included the people making the beer. The national unions also called for a boycott of Milwaukee beer, which turned out to cause more backlash than benefit. The final straw for Milwaukee proprietors was when out-of-town beer was served at the Brewery Workers’ Masked Ball in 1888. The owners locked out members of Local 9 and no longer employed union men.
On January 25, the union held a mass meeting in which nearly 1,000 workers voted to stand with the union despite the threat of the lockout. That night, however, a Sentinel reporter interviewed Frederick Pabst “through the closed door of his residence on Chestnut street,” and “the Captain” remained confident that most workers would choose their jobs over their union. His confidence was justified, as the workers at nearly every brewery overwhelmingly rejected the union.
“Brewery workers were critical to the movement for the eight-hour day in Milwaukee. They had special leverage because the May 1 strike date called by the Knights of Labor fell during the period when breweries were producing at peak capacity to prepare for summer sales.”
The union was broken, and while the lockout left some lingering tensions, those passed quickly. A plan for a cooperative brewery to employ laid-off workers quickly foundered. A series of small explosions at Blatz, which some stories sensationalized as revenge bombings, were probably caused by grain dust. For the next few years, Milwaukee beer was a non-union product.
However, the breweries with wider reach soon made peace with their labor so that the competition for national markets could not be manipulated by the unions. By the early 20th century, Milwaukee breweries agreed to the eight-hour day and labor relations in the Cream City tended to be better than in other major brewing centers. In 1912, the owners recognized a union for women working in the bottling houses, finally organizing one of the last non-unionized groups of employees.
Even through the adversarial relations, there were occasions when labor and management celebrated together. In November 1893, a torchlight parade in the Cream City honored the Pabst and Schlitz breweries for their medals at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Employees of Pabst were given a holiday (an easier concession because it was the slow season) and a $5 gold piece.
At times, brewery workers offered tributes to beer barons more reminiscent of those for German royalty than republican businessmen. When Henry Uihlein returned to his Schlitz Brewing Co. in 1885 after six months in Europe, about 400 employees turned out with bands and a torchlight parade to welcome him back. His brother August received a similar welcome in 1890, as did Captain Pabst when he returned from a trip to Europe and the Middle East in 1895. It is impossible to know whether these greetings were authentic displays of warm feelings or employees taking advantage of a chance to party at the company’s expense.
During the dry years, some of the brewery workers’ unions remained active. Select employees had been retained to make other products, but the social and fraternal aspects of union membership also encouraged continued activity. The nationwide growth of organized labor in the years after the Great Depression supported brewery unions both directly and indirectly—even smaller breweries made sure to organize their workers so they could sell “Union Made” beer to a unionized nation.
Despite the attempts to build mutually beneficial relationships, conflicts still arose. The strike against all Cream City breweries in 1953 showed both the solidarity of the unions (the strike vote passed by a margin of 6,652 to 108) but also how their leverage was waning. Pabst and Schlitz both had breweries in other states that were not affected by the 76-day strike. Other national breweries moved in to pick up some of the business and some small Wisconsin breweries were able to survive for a few more years from the boost to their sales.
By the time of the next major strike, in 1969, consolidation in the industry meant that there were fewer Wisconsin producers to take up the slack. While workers had some leverage during the 36-day strike because of a hot summer, the company had a new threat—closing the brewery altogether. Several of Milwaukee’s plants were aging and it was easier to build a new brewery elsewhere than to retrofit an inefficient, century-old building. Schlitz ceased brewing in Milwaukee in 1981, followed by Pabst in 1996. While Miller continued to thrive, thousands of men and women at the other plants lost steady jobs and few were able or willing to move to other breweries.
While they were not the largest group of employees in the city, Milwaukee’s brewery workers occupied an exalted position because of the popularity of their product. Milwaukee’s largest breweries were almost an industrial city in themselves, where workers of all trades could find a secure job and where even children labored to support their families. The specialization of the large breweries meant that workers had tightly defined tasks, as opposed to employees at smaller breweries who often had to do a bit of everything depending on the need. The craft brewery employees of today have more in common with these smaller brewers, but no matter the size of the brewery, they share a dedication to their craft and enjoy the freshest beer in town when they quit for the day.
Words, Doug HoversonIllustrations, Araña Schulke
