
[1] This article deals with only with the pioneers of the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company, Georg August Krug, Joseph Schlitz and their spouses.
[2] The brewery is still manufacturing brewing an “Auswandererbier 1849,” an IPA with 18% original wort and an alcohol content of 7.5%. The (marketing) story later promulgated was that the recipe for this beer was given to August Krug by his father at the time of his emigration from Germany. See “Brauerei Faust/Miltenberg: Auswandererbier 1849 (Nr. 1311),” Bier-Scout.de, (accessed April 5, 2016).
[4] Wilhelm Otto Keller, “Von Miltenberg nach Milwaukee: Biermagnaten vom Untermain in den USA des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Spessart 106 (Oct. 2012): 15–26, here 20.
[5] “Sons of German Innkeeper, Who Accumulated Fortunes in Milwaukee, Are Made Honorary Citizens of Wertheim-on-the-Main, Where They Were Born,” Milwaukee Journal, March 1, 1931, news clipping, Wisconsin Local History and Biographical Articles Collection (Wisconsin Historical Society).
[6] NARA, Soundex Index to Naturalization Petitions for the United States District and Circuit Courts, Northern District of Illinois and Immigration and Naturalization Service District 9, 1840-1950 (M1285); Microfilm Serial: M1285; Microfilm Roll: 105.
[8] For a broader perspective, see Suzanne M. Sinke, “Moved to Marry: Connecting Marriage and Cross-border Migration in the History of the United States,” L’Homme 25 (2014): 11–29.
[9] Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Hamburger Passagierlisten; vol. 373-7 I, VIII A 1 vol. 001; page 86, microfilm K-1701.
[11] This is a conservative estimation, based on the CPI. For details on the recalculation see https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/index.php.
[12] NARA, 1850 United States Federal Census, Census Place: Milwaukee Ward 2, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Roll: M432_1003; Page: 274B; Image: 218.
[15] “The Last Will & Testament of August Krug,” ed. Mike Reilly (accessed April 5, 2016). August Krug’s will was probated in January 1857, but the case was still unsettled in 1868; see Banner und Volksfreund. Vereinigte Tägliche, Jan. 6, 1857, 2; “Milwaukee County Court,”Daily Milwaukee News, October 4, 1868, 7.
[16] Ellis Baker Usher, Wisconsin: Its Story and Biography, 1848–1913, 8 vols. (Chicago and New York: Lewis, 1914), 4:951. In the context of early-twentieth-century ideas about women’s emotional instincts, it may well have been difficult for a male biographer to imagine Anna Maria Krug deciding to remarry without the push of her late husband’s encouragement.
[17] Harry H. Anderson, “The Women Who Helped Make Milwaukee Breweries Famous,” Milwaukee History 4 (1981), 66–78, here 71–72.
[18] Susan Ingalls Lewis, Unexceptional Women: Female Proprietors in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Albany, New York, 1830–1885 (Columbus: Ohio State University, 2009).
[19] NARA New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957; Year: 1863: Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Microfilm Roll: Roll 234; Line 2; List Number: 1018.
[20] Edward G. Uihlein, Erinnerungen aus meinen Jugendjahren & Lebenslauf (1917), 2, manuscript, MSS Lot U, Chicago History Museum (Chicago, Ill.). An English translation of the memoirs, available both at the Chicago History Museum and online (“Memories of My Youth,” accessed June 20, 2016) is not useful because the translation is often incorrect and important passages and details are cut off without indication and without explanation. For details of the inheritance of Krug’s estate, see “The Last Will & Testament of August Krug” (accessed June 20, 2016).
[21] NARA, 1880 United States Federal Census, Census Place: Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Roll: 1436; Family History Film: 1255436; Page: 392B; Enumeration District: 101.
[22] “Heirs Given a Brewery,” Milwaukee Journal 1887, January 25, 4. The number of rich and super-rich female estate holders was quite large in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; real estate was a fairly common method for wealthy men to ensure their surviving female relatives of a steady income without vesting in them responsibility to run a business.
[23] The family remained in the wine business. His brother Charles Schlitz went to Milwaukee and imported and dealt with wine and liquors (Daily Milwaukee News, Nov. 12, 1866, 6). His nephew Johann or John Schlitz worked in the same company until he moved to Cleveland in 1882. In 1875, he faced a penalty of $1000 fine and four months’ imprisonment for disobeying revenue laws (“Judgment Day,” Daily Milwaukee News, Dec. 2, 1875, 4; “Whisky,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 26, 1875, 4). Johann Schlitz exported wine from Laubenheim (brand: Laubenheimer Hackeldutt), where he owned vineyards, Mayence and Cochem to the U.S. (see the ad in Der Deutsche Correspondent, Nov. 19, 1895, 9). He used the globe-circling belt, a core element of the Schlitz’s brewing company’s marketing, for his wine advertisement in Germany.
[25] NARA, New York, Passenger Lists, 1820–1957, Year: 1849; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Microfilm Roll: Roll 080; Line: 8; List Number: 731.
[27] Helmut Schmahl, Verpflanzt, aber nicht entwurzelt: Die Auswanderung aus Hessen-Darmstadt (Provinz Rheinhessen) nach Wisconsin im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt/Main et al.: Peter Lang, 2000), 251 and 252, footnote 1055; NARA, 1860 United States Federal Census, Census Place: Milwaukee Ward 2, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Roll: M653_1422; Page: 73; Image: 79; Family History Library Film: 805422.
[28] The tradition of artisans housing their apprentices was fairly common among American craftsmen of British descent in the first decades of the nineteenth century but had largely died out by the eve of the Civil War. See David Jaffee,A New Nation of Goods: The Material Culture of Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).
[29] NARA, 1870 United States Federal Census, Census Place: Milwaukee Ward 2, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Roll: M593_1726; Page: 2908; Image: 254; Family History Library Film: 553225.
[30] The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men: Wisconsin Volume (Chicago: American Biographical Publishing Company, 1877), 382.
[34] “Statement of the Condition […],” Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 8, 1871, 2; Daily Milwaukee News, Feb. 10, 1871, 2.
[35] See Jonathan Levy, Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012).
[36] “Joseph Schlitz’s Brewing-Company von Milwaukee,” Der deutsche Correspondent, June 5, 1878, Fest-Beilage, 8.
[37] “In Milwaukee,” Milwaukee Daily News, May 9, 1875, 1. A detailed analysis of the disaster, which killed mainly people of German descent, is given by Keith Austin, The Victorian Titanic: The Loss of the S.S. Schiller in 1875 (Devon, Eng.: Halsgrove, 2001).
[41] “Im Januar 1872 offerirte mir Herr Schlitz die Agentur für Chicago und Umgegend gegen eine Vergütung von $1.25 per Bbl. Wenn auch der Verdienst augenblicklich lange nicht die Höhe erreichte die ich in meinem Geschäft erzielte so durfte ich doch die Zukunft nicht außer Acht lassen da wie Herr Schlitz andeutete er ohne Kinder sei und uns der Besitz seines Geschäfts in Aussicht stand.” Uihlein, Erinnerungen aus meinen Jugendjahren & Lebenslauf, 45.
[45] Comp. Christina Lubinski, Familienunternehmen in Westdeutschland: Corporate Governance and Gesellschafterkultur seit den 1960er Jahren (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2010), 11–14.
[46] Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The