Liquid Bread: Brewery Advertising Countering the Prohibition Campaign, 1900–20

In the early years of the twentieth century, groups such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union successfully pressed a campaign to modify the United States Constitution to ban the sale and production of alcohol. The 18^th Amendment was intended to end the consumption of alcoholic beverages in the country, including, of course, beer and ale. American brewers tried a variety of tactics to combat the anti-alcohol campaign including an effort to portray beer and ale as healthy, family-friendly beverages distinct from higher-alcohol distilled liquors. The brewers efforts included not just changes in advertising, but the creation of new brands as well in an increasingly desperate attempt to create a new, positive image that would allow them to survive the increasingly powerful temperance campaign. In the end, their efforts were unsuccessful, but the family-friendly campaign illustrates how a particular industry could attempt to reinvent itself as an answer to political and public pressure.