Antique Rare Outstanding Original Antique Harvard Brewing Co. Lowell Mass. Wooden Beer Crate. 18 x 12 x11". Excellent. Chip upper left. As Pictured HA 431 082522 150/46
From the Internet: Lowell's Harvard Brewing Company
What has been called the home of the modern American factory system and the most important planned industrial community in America, lowell, Massachusetts, has had but one brewery of any consequence in its 165 years of existence. But that one brewery was a major one. Of perhaps greater interest, however, was the brewery's "German Connection" both before and during World War II. Before we get to all of that, though, let's go back to the brewery's beginnings, back to 1894. In that year a group of eastern New England beer distributors, lead by John Joyce and John Coffey, organized the Consumers' Brewing Company. A name change was made, to the Harvard Brewing company, in 1898, with John Joyce continuing as the company's president.
That Harvard was a biggie, especially by New England standards, was highlighted by the leading trade paper of the day, The Western Brewer, in its monumental ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF BREWING, published in 1903. Its glowing write-up of the brewery must have been a source of great pride in lowell:
"(The plant) consists of two separate and complete breweries, one for lager beer and the other adapted to the brewing of ale and porter, a mammoth bottling house, magnificent office building, stables, cooper shops, carriage houses, etc. The annual capacity of the plant is three hundred and fifty thousand barrels.
"The products of the company are sold throughout the Eastern, Central and Atlantic Coast States. The plant is the largest of its kind in the New England States, and is considered to be one of the finest and best equipped breweries in the United States."
THE NEXT CHAPTER
When beer bounced back in 1933, Harvard bounced right back with it. The brewery had been purchased for $300,000 by New York interests, headed by Erwin F. lange, in late 1932. Considerable monies were put into the plant and its equipment, with the result that Harvard was in remarkably good shape as it entered the next chapter in its history.
The 1930s were basically good for Harvard. Its brewmaster, Dr. Richard Juerst - himself German-born - would proclaim in late 1933:
"Many persons associate the most notable achievements in brewing with Germany. This is far from true. Today, especially, many of the finest breweries in the world are right here in our own country."
Few would doubt that Dr. Juerst included Harvard among those "finest breweries."
THE GERMAN CONNECTION
At about the same time as the Taste-Test idea was starting to click, Harvard made news in another, less flattering way. One of its employees was arrested for supplying information to the German government. Seems he had been transmitting radio messages from his home on Andover Street in lowell concerning the local shipping industry.
Worse, German interests had been accumulating Harvard stock, and by the outbreak of war in 1941, controlled a majority interest in the brewery. Concerned that Harvard profits were finding their way back to Germany, the Justice Department seized control of the brewery under the Alien Custodial Act. It would be well into the mid- 1950s - toward Harvard's very end - before the U.S. government and members of the family of Fritz von Opel, of Germany's Opel Auto Works, would resolve what had become a source of major embarrassment to most all concerned.
WHEN THE SELLING STOPPED
Richard J. Riley, 50-year old grandson of Long time Harvard brewmaster Dr. Richard Juerst recalls the brewery's arduous final days:
"I can remember at one point, when Harvard was starting to fail, 1954 or so, they paid all of the employees in silver dollars so that the people in town would know that the payroll was going into lowell, that the brewery was contributing money to the town.
"Did it work? Well, no: it (the brewery) didn't last too much longer. There was sort of a phrase around- 'Give me anything but Harvard' - which was really a bad thing to say. People didn't show much loyalty. And then there were rnmors that the wells which were on the adjacent territory were contaminated by a graveyard or something which was nearby the brewery; that the water going in the beer was supposed to be contaminated. That made things really difficult."
Difficult, indeed. In 1951, Hatvard ranked an even 50th in size among America's brewing companies. By 1955, four years later, Harvard had risen in rank to number thirty-nine. Sound good?
It wasn't. The brewing industry was going through a tremendous thinning out process: the only reason Harvard rose eleven notches was because so many of its contemporaries folded before it did. In reality, Harvard's sales had plummeted those four years, from 278,000 barrels sold in 1951 to 183,000 barrels sold in 1955.
A year later, in December of 1956, Harvard joined the ranks of the thinned out: the brewery and its brands were absorbed into the Hampden Brewing Company, of Williamsett, Massachusetts, with all operations in Lowell ceasing.
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