German-American history in Albany from my Masters Thesis research . The following is an excerpt from my 2005 MA Thesis, From Acceptance to Renunication: Das Ende von Albanys Deuschtum. The sub-chapter gives a brief history of Albany's German brewers and the a brief synopsis of the times.
Bier, Joviality, and Celebrations = Gemütlichkeit:[1]
Ethnic membership
in any national group holds with it specific cultural characteristics, and
German immigrants brought with them to America traits such as a love for beer,
singing, festive celebrations, and camaraderie.
These German attributes were opposed by the temperament of mainstream
Anglo-America. The first local
organization to disapprove and to attempt to suppress alcohol consumption was
the New York State Temperance Society, which was formed on April 2, 1829. The group also ventured to limit the sale of
intoxicating beverages. The society was
supported by numerous philanthropic citizens, and its influence spread
throughout the state. By March 1832 the
society was publishing its principal organ, The
Temperance Recorder, in Albany.[2] Also in 1832 there were fourteen temperance
societies in Albany with a membership of 4,164.[3] Many temperance members were native born
Americans who desired the arriving Europeans to completely accept the attitudes
of Anglo-America for thorough assimilation into American society. Their belief held that immigrants must
discard their cultural heritage and submit to Anglo-conformity. Historian Andrew P. Yox vividly describes and
contrasts the German neighborhood to the “English” district;
Unlike the sedate neighborhoods of
the Anglo-Americans, the German district rustled with sounds. Beer gardens, brass bands, shops, dance
halls, and “slumber-breaking” bells, installed in the steeples to rouse the
artisans for work, teamed up to deprive the Yankees of their once quiet weekends. The German community was much younger and
more tolerant with regard to beer and dancing and more populated than the
Anglo-American sectors.[4]
The temperance
movement was viewed by Germans as an issue of Anglo-American Puritanism. German-Americans opposed laws against alcohol
consumption and Sabbath-breaking activities.
From their perspective, such laws reflected the Puritan Sunday. German-Americans preferred a “Continental
Sunday,” where they would spend an afternoon with the entire family at picnics
and festivities.[5] Geselligkeit, or sociability, was strong
in family settings and in the community feasts attended by
German-Americans. Union College English
Professor Codman Hislop describes the Puritan Sunday in Albany during the early
nineteenth century;
By order of the Common Council all
amusements ceased…The only noise to be heard throughout the city was the
occasional rattle of a stagecoach as it toured the city from tavern to tavern
to pick up its passengers. Albanians
were expected to be in one of the nineteen churches which held services on that
day.[6]
Music, alcohol,
and food formed the foundations of German holiday celebrations such as
Christmas, Easter, weddings, and baptisms.
Consumption of beer was common practice in German culture. The 1884 Albany
Handbook reminds readers that “Twenty years ago lager beer was almost
unheard of outside of Germany. Today it
may be called the national drink of America.…” Also, “For many years Albany had
been noted for its ale, but it was not until 1878 that it became equally famous
for lager.”[7] In 1973
the Knickerbocker News reported that
“…by the end of fiscal year, May 1, 1884, 359,203 barrels of malt liquors were
produced in the city, an increase of 26,409 barrels above the previous year.”[8] It
is estimated that the total number of barrels can be broken down to
approximately 263,500 barrels of ale and almost 95,000 barrels of lager style
beer.[9]
A keg of beer aided any festivity
and usually prompted a successful venture.
Germans regarded beer as “healthy and nourishing,” and unlike the
English language press, German newspapers always printed advertisements for
beer and wine, as well as for German Biergartens.[10] A letter to an American in Baltimore was
printed in the Albany Evening Times that describes the scene at beer
gardens in Vienna;
Beer
gardens and beer rooms are everywhere in Vienna and the drinking of beer seems
to be regarded as one of the necessaries of life. It is drank [sic] freely at all the
restaurants and is brought as a matter of course to every one as soon as they
take a seat at a table. A man who would
undertake to eat without beer would be regarded as a curiosity…Beer is the
daily and hourly drink of almost everyone, old and young. It is part of their daily food, just as
coffee and tea is with us. When families
are dining at the restaurants, the beer mug stands by the plate of old and
young, male and female, and it is even put to the lips of infants. Vienna beer does not; however, seem to have
any intoxicating effect and it never occasions a headache. We have seen and been in the company of men
who will drink a dozen large glasses in an evening without observing the
slightest inebriating effect. We doubt
if they could drink as much American beer with impunity.[11]
The German love for beer is quite evident in
the number of German breweries, both large and small that were located in
Albany. John F. Hedrick founded the
first large German Lager Bier brewery, the Hedrick Brewing Company in
1852.
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| 1907 Ad |
The Hedrick Brewery produced only one thousand barrels of beer in 1856,
but its output increased; by 1878 the brewery was producing three thousand
barrels per year, and by 1901 the volume had reached eight thousand barrels per
year. The brewery was located at 426-430
Central Avenue.
It ceased producing beer in 1919
and closed down completely in 1925.
However, the brewery survived prohibition and reopened in 1933. There is conjecture that the reason why the
brewery survived was due to the fact that it was owned by Daniel Peter
O’Connell (1886-1977), the chairman of the Albany County Democratic
Committee. It has been suggested that it
was literally impossible for a tavern owner to obtain a license if the
proprietor did not sell Hedrick Beer.[12] The original brewery buildings have been long
torn down; presently the site is home to the Central Towers, owned by the
Albany Housing Authority.
In
1852 Prussian-born Frederick Hinckel (1832-1881) and Windsheim, Bavarian-born
Johann Andreas Schinnerer (1827-1876) established the Cataract Brewery. Its premises occupied half a city block,
bounded by Swan Street, Myrtle and Park Avenues. By 1864 Hinckel was the sole owner of the
business- Schinnerer opened another brewery in Schenectady.
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| 1873 Ad |
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| 1903 Ad |
In the early 1880s, the brewery’s name was changed to the Hinckel
Brewery. In the 1850s, the brewery
produced somewhat small quantities of beer, approximately five hundred barrels
of beer a year. Yet as years passed the
brewery substantially increased its output.
In 1886 alone the Hinckel Brewery produced at least thirty-five thousand
barrels of beer and employed seventy-five employees. After the death of Frederick Hinckel Jr. in
1916, family involvement with the brewery ceased. In 1922 the Hinckel Brewery closed.[13] In the mid 1980s, the vacant brewery
buildings were transformed into a luxurious apartment complex.
Around the corner from Hinckel brewers was Dobler Brewing Company,
bordering Swan and Elm Streets and Myrtle Avenue. John Dobler founded the business in
1865. By 1897 the capacity at the
brewery was sixty thousand barrels per year, with sixty employees. The Doblers succumbed to competition from
premium breweries throughout the country and sold the Dobler name to the
Hampton-Harvard Company of Massachusetts in 1968.[14] The brewery buildings have long vanished from
the streetscape.
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| 1876 Ad |
Smaller scale breweries owned
and operated by German proprietors included Frederick Dietz’s, located on the
southwest corner of South Pearl Street and McCarty Avenue. Today the former site is covered by a bridge
with Interstate 787 traveling over it.
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| 1876 Ad |
At present a vacant lot, 44-46 Third Avenue housed the former brewery of George Weber (1825-1906), brewer of weiss beer. His business was established in 1858.
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| 1889 Ad |
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| 1897 Ad |
[1] Gemütlichkeit is defined as a convivial
atmosphere of genial sociability.
[2] John
Homer French, comp., Gazetteer of the
State of New York (Syracuse: R. Pearsall Smith, 1860), p. 147.
[3] Howell
and Tenney, eds., History of the County
of Albany, N. Y, p. 340.
[4] Yox,
“Bonds of Community: Buffalo’s German Element,” New York History 66(2):
141. O’Connor, German-Americans,
pp. 288-292. Regarding Anglo intolerance, see, Reimer, “Ethnicity in
Albany, N. Y., 1888-1908,” p. 10. Reimer notes that “by 1811, the Dutch had
become so powerless that the new Yankee majority on the Common Council could
forbid their main cultural event, the Pinksterfest, as being too boisterous and
disorderly to their New England taste.” Similarily, Cuyler Reynolds wrote “No
person shall erect any tent, booth or stall within the limits of this city, for
the purpose of vending any spirituous liquors, beer, mead or cider, or any kind
of meat, fish, cakes or fruit, on the days commonly called Pinxter; nor to
collect in numbers for the purpose of gambling or dancing, or any other
amusements, in any part of the city, or to march or parade, with or without any
kind of music, under a penalty of ten dollars or confinement in jail.”Reynolds,
Albany Chronicles, p. 409.
[5]
Tolzmann, The German-American Experience, p. 234. Luebke, “The German-American Alliance in Nebraska , 1910-1917,”Nebraska
[6] Codman
Hislop, Albany: Dutch, English, and
American (Albany, The Argus Press, 1936), pp. 263-264.
[7] Henry
Pitt Phelps, comp., The Albany Hand-Book:
A Strangers’ Guide and Residents’ Manual (Albany: Brandow & Barton,
Printers and Publishers, 1884), pp. 99-100.
[8] Knickerbocker News, June 7, 1973, 6C:1.
[9] Times Union, July 6, 1986, Supplement,
57:2.
[10] Jay P.
Dolan, The Immigrant
Church New York
[11] Albany Evening Times, July 12, 1878,
1:4.
[12] Stanley
M. Axelrod, “A History of the Brewing Industry in the City of Albany, 1683-1965.”
(Seminar paper, State University of New York at Albany, 1969), pp. 25-26. Paper
in possession of the Albany Hall of Records.
[13] Howell
and Tenney, eds., History of the County
of Albany, N. Y., pp. 559-560. Axelrod, “A History of the Brewing Industry
in the City of Albany,” p. 24. Knickerbocker
News, June 7, 1973, 6C:1; July 28, 1980.
[14]
Axelrod, A History of the Brewing
Industry in the City of Albany, 1683-1965, pp. 29-30. n. a., Geschichte der Deutschen in Albany und Troy
(Albany: Albany Taeglicher Herold, 1897), p. 176.
[15] n. a., Geschichte der Deutschen in Albany und Troy
(Albany: Albany Taeglicher Herold, 1897), p. 228.
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