Bottle
- Object Name:
- Bottle
- Object ID:
- 2025.005
- Creator:
- Joseph Fallert Brewing Co. Ltd. -- Manufacturer
- Place of Origin:
- Portsmouth, NH
- Date:
- 1904-1917
- Description:
- Bottle. Aqua-colored glass beer bottle for the Portsmouth Brewing Co., Portsmouth, NH, c. 1904-1917. The bottle has a crown cap and a paper label which reads, "Portsmouth / BREWING CO's / Half Stock Ale / BOTTLED EXPRESSLY FOR FAMILY USE / BY / A.O. CASWELL, / PORTSMOUTH, N.H." The glass bottle is embossed with, "JOSEPH FALLERT / BREWING CO. LTD / BROOKLYN N.Y. / REGISTERED / NOT TO BE SOLD."
- Material:
- Glass
Paper
Metal - Dimensions:
- H-9.25 Dia-2.625 inches
- Provenance:
- Portsmouth Brewing Company was the smallest of the three breweries - along with Frank Jones and Eldredge - to operate in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Arthur Harris established a brewery in Portsmouth in November 1870 that operated at 62/64 Bow Street under the name of A. Harris & Company until 1875, when it was renamed the Portsmouth Brewing Company. The firm produced Bock Beer, Porter, Portsmouth Half Stock, Sparkling XXX Cream Ale, Crystal Gold Beer, Portsburger Lager, Portsmouth Lager Beer, India Pale Ale, Portsmouth Export Beer, and Portsmouth Sparkling Ale until it was forced to close in 1917 following passage of a state law banning liquor manufacturing and sales. It never reopened. Portsmouth merchant Andrew Caswell (1871-1943) began bottling local beers and dealing in alcohol, soda, and bar supplies in 1904, which helps to date this bottle to between 1904 and 1917. PBC's use of the word "family" on their label is representative of breweries during the temperance movement in the early twentieth century advertising their beverages as nutritious and suitable for families in order to counter the stereotype of beer as an addictive and socially destructive substance.
- Credit Line:
- Gift of William W. Upton
- People:
- Caswell, Andrew O. (1871-1943)
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