about

=About the Project=

Theme
The theme of our library is the history of Milwaukee breweries between 1850 and 1950. We focused on the four largest and most popular breweries in Milwaukee of the 19th century -- Pabst Brewing Company (founded 1844), Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company (founded 1849), Miller Brewing Company (founded 1855), and Valentin Blatz Brewing Company (founded 1851).

Organizational Structures
The three pages (beer barons, branding, and the brewing facilities) indicate the content of the images. We decided on this structure because we believe the categories effectively represent the brewing industry and its image, and are likely to be of interest to users.

Problems
We decided to focus on images because there is a lack of photographic collections of Milwaukee breweries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We began our search focusing on images from the nineteenth century but were unable to locate many digital images of branding and advertising ephemera. Thus, we decided to expand our search to include the first half of the twentieth century--still considered part of the golden age of Milwaukee brewing. Additionally, we limited images for inclusion to those from reputable sources with file sizes larger than 300 pixels, on the assumption that users would not find thumbnails helpful or interesting.

Choice of Metadata
We selected metadata based on the criteria of usefulness to the user and likeliness of our being able to locate such information. Year, creator, and title are the most basic of metadata. Although they allow the least manipulation of the search process and results, but are expected by users and we made good faith efforts to locate this metadata.

Branding
We chose branding as a subject because advertising and promoting your brand were an important part of brewing in this time period. Visual print advertisements were the main media of advertising in that era. Their creativity and beauty produced lasting advertisements that are still used to this day. Many of the breweries use the same seal and label as they did 100 years ago. During the search for items related to the branding of these main brewers, we decided to broaden our time frame to include the time period up to 1950. During the search of several historical sites it became clear that the heyday of beer industry advertising was in the early twentieth century. The search produced numerous results and the images selected and are representative of that era of beer advertising. The most numerous hits were related to Miller Brewing, particularly Miller High Life, which was not surprising considering the ongoing success the company maintains to this day. However the other three breweries that we selected were also well represented and it was not difficult finding images for all four. We included advertising in several different manifestations including images depicting traditional print ads and advertising on delivery trucks.

Breweries
Finding images of the breweries was not overly difficult. The Wisconsin Historical Society and the Milwaukee Public Library proved to be the best resources for finding images of Pabst, Schlitz, Miller, and Blatz Brewing Companies. Wisconsin Heritage Online, a digital resource that provides access to various libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives in Wisconsin, was used to locate images, as well. The sources had digital archives of Milwaukee breweries, including the creator and date of the images. Searches were conducted for the images by using terms and phrases like, “Milwaukee breweries,” or the specific name of the brewing company, like “Pabst Milwaukee.” In the Wisconsin Historical Society digital archives, conducting a search for “breweries” turned up the most images, however it also included many images of breweries outside of Milwaukee, which increased the difficulty due to the weeding out of irrelevant images. Additionally, in the beginning, the exteriors of the breweries was the main focus; however, it was decided to include interiors as well since they provide a more intimate portrayal of the brewery, for example, including images of brewing equipment and workers.

Beer Barons
For images related to the beer barons of the 19th century, we searched Wisconsin Historical Society, Wikipedia, Wisconsin Heritage Online, and UWM Digital Collections. Search terms included family names (Uihlein), individual names (Frederick Miller), company names (Blatz Brewing Company), and location names (Plank-Road Brewery). Searching for names in this fashion often resulted in image results of buildings, especially later 20th century images. We originally intended to include portraits of the founders of these companies, but these images were hard to find in adequate sizes and resolutions. Thus, the search was broadened to other images related to the personal lives of the men who were important to the running of the four major breweries, including exteriors of their personal residences and a marriage certificate.

About the Authors

 * Nicole Bungert** located, described, and uploaded images of the Milwaukee beer barons.


 * Paul Romuald** located, described, and uploaded images of Schlitz, Miller, Blatz, and Pabst advertising and signage.


 * Greta Voltz** located, described, and uploaded images of Schlitz, Miller, Blatz, and Pabst brewing facilities and product production.

All three together wrote this about page, made decisions regarding the collection, and posted to this wiki.