Sixty-six years after the first record of a commercial brewery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Edward Frauenheim, a German immigrant and part owner of Frauenheim, Miller Company, started the Iron City Brewery, the first American brewery to produce a lager, in 1861.
By 1866, the brewery had outgrown its original facilities on 17th Street and moved to Liberty Avenue and 34th Street, where the Pittsburgh Brewing Company continues to operate. Leopold Vilsack, a Pittsburgh native who joined Frauenheim, Miller Company, expanded the new facility. Vilsack later became a partner, investing his small wealth in the firm when Miller retired and another partner died. Iron City Brewery then became Frauenheim and Vilsack Company.
On February 3, 1899, the Pittsburgh Dispatch reported that 12 local brewing firms applied to transfer their license to the trust known as Pittsburgh Brewing Company. These breweries were the Wainwright Brewing Company, Phoenix Brewing Company, Keystone Brewing Company, Winter Brothers Brewing Company, Phillip Lauer, John H. Nusser, Eberhardt Ober Brewing Company, Hippely Sons, Ober Brewing Company, J. Seiferth Brothers, Straub Brewing Company, and the Iron City Brewing Company. In addition to these 12 Pittsburgh and Allegheny county breweries, nine breweries outside the county took part in the merger. In all, 21 breweries joined to make Pittsburgh Brewing Company the largest brewing operation in Pennsylvania and the third largest in the country.
Pittsburgh Brewing Company was one of only 725 American breweries remaining when Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933. During Prohibition, the company produced soft drinks, ice cream and "near beer," as well as running a cold storage business. By 1977, Pittsburgh Brewing was one of just 40 breweries operating in the country. To rebound from difficult years, the brewery introduced a new light beer - "Iron City Light."
In 1986, Pittsburgh Brewing Company merged with an Australian brewery. Seven years later it was sold to Michael Carlow, a Pittsburgh entrepreneur. Carlow was forced to give up the company due to fraud allegations, and Keystone Brewing Company purchased it in 1995. However, due to declining sales, Pittsburgh Brewing was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2005. In 2007, Unified Growth Partners purchased the brewery and brought it out of bankruptcy.
This collection contains six scrapbooks of press clippings both directly and indirectly related to the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, spanning the period between September 24, 1907 and January 8, 1911. The Central Press Bureau compiled the clippings. While the chronology is not entirely intact, the periods that are covered contain a wealth of details, including Pittsburgh Brewing Company stock prices, brewing industry news and trends, opinion pieces citing the evils of alcohol and the need for temperance, and any mention of the company in the press.
Clippings are mounted on the scrapbook pages with adhesive and stamped with their publishing date and the publication the clipping was taken from. The clippings were taken from Pittsburgh newspapers. The titles included the Pittsburgh Dispatch, the Pittsburgh Sun, the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph, and the Gazette Times, among others.
No restrictions.
Gift of Evelyn Shaffer in October 2007.
Pittsburgh Brewing Company Scrapbooks, 1907-1911, AIS.2007.08, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Brewing Company Scrapbooks, 1907-1911, AIS.2007.08, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
This collection was processed by Shaun Hayes, Sean Kilcoyne, and Kate Colligan in November 2008.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of the University of Pittsburgh as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Records of the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, 1899-1909, AIS.1997.10, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
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