This cabinet card portrait features a group of eleven men posing in front of a business with a Blatz’s Milwaukee Lager Beer advertising sign hanging on the wall of the building. The men are well dressed. Apparently they are businessmen gathered for some type of meeting or get-together. A few of the men are smoking cigars. The Blatz Brewing Comany was a major brewer in Milwaukee. It operated from 1851 through 1959. The company developed from the John Braun’s City Brewery.Valentin Blatz was hired by John Braun and when Braun died 1in 1851, Blatz bought Braun’s business and married Braun’s wife. Blatz was trained at breweries in Bavaria. Blatz’s Milwaukee brewery was bady damaged by a fire in 1872 but he used the disaster as an opportunity to enlarge and modernize the brewery in the rebuilding process. In 1875, Blatz developed a bottling department that allowed him to ship his beer nationally. Blatz sold his company to a British syndicate (United States Brewing Company” in 1891. He continued to lead the company until his death in 1894. He was succeeded by his son. The company was sold a couple of times before it was purchased by Pabst in 1958. Although Blatz’s Brewery was sold a few more times, the label remains in Pabst’s portfolio. (SOLD)
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 