Prohibition-era handkerchief

Megan Kautz

Catalog Number: 1981.026.10

“Have booze, will smuggle." These words are written on a handkerchief that was found stuffed in the pocket of a tuxedo belonging to Arthur S. Funk.

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

The words were written by hand, with a fountain pen, and the ink has blurred and turned brown with age. It also has transferred through the folds of silk, so it appears more than once on the handkerchief. But those words are still quite legible — and intriguing.

Was this person truly a bootlegger — or just a jokester having some fun?

The initials stitched into the handkerchief indicate it belonged to William F. Funk, Arthur’s brother, of the Funk Steam Boiler and Ironwork Co. The manufacturer was founded in 1865 by their father, Michael Funk, who also founded the La Crosse Rubber Mills in 1897. This phrase hints at the effects of Prohibition on a state known both for its German immigrants and brewing tradition.

While bootleggers were not absent from La Crosse, it's likely this handkerchief was more of a party joke than a shady business deal. Prohibition began in Wisconsin in 1920 with the passing of the 18th Amendment, spelling trouble for bars, taverns and breweries. Many breweries in the state were forced to close or resort to creating new products.

While brewers switched to sodas, dairy products or candy, others produced “near-beers," which had a lower alcohol content. Near-beers were largely unpopular, and some drinkers spiked the drinks to regain the desired effect. The G. Heileman Brewing Co. even cleverly released a near-beer named Spike in 1922.

Like the rest of the country, La Crosse was teeming with bootleg liquor. Basement stills and homemade brew kits were not uncommon, and some people resorted to smuggling alcohol in from Canada. Maybe the owner of this handkerchief — presumably William Funk — indulged in a little illicit alcohol purchasing, and through his playful boasting, wound up memorializing his behavior. Certainly many Americans continued to enjoy alcohol, acquired illegally, until 1933 when the 21st Amendment was ratified, ending Prohibition across the land.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on January 28, 2017.

This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.

1920s Flapper Dress

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

Amy Vach

An iconic image of the 1920s is the flapper — a young woman with bobbed hair and a short, sequined or fringed flashy dress, who drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes. This was a radical change from the proper image of a young woman from the previous decade, not to mention the previous century.

What led to the flappers? After a 70-year fight, women had finally been granted political equality with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The right to vote introduced a new woman.

Contrary to the Victorian era, women no longer remained silent — they held jobs and wanted to have fun at night. They traded their long locks for easier to manage shorter, hip, hairdos. Young women said goodbye to archaic corsets and long dresses that restricted their motion. They began dressing in racy outfits with hemlines that were above the knee that were easier to move around in.

How else could you dance the Charleston?

Women also began smoking, which was formerly an activity that was strictly reserved for men. Even though the 1920s was the time of Prohibition, women consumed more alcoholic beverages than ever before.

The flappers are more than young rebels changing social norms and appearances. These young women ushered in a new age in which women held jobs outside the home, could earn a college degree and could drive. They were adapting to an environment that was completely different from that of their parents and grandparents.

The La Crosse Historical Society has quite a few flapper and 1920s-era dresses, but this one stands out. It’s made of a fine-net fabric, entirely covered with creamy, iridescent sequins. It would have been worn over a slip of almost any color due to its iridescent glow. This flashy dress would have glowed and shimmered on the dance floor, drawing attention to whoever wore it.

The dress does have a deed of gift, but we are unsure of when the dress was worn or who may have worn it. Nevertheless, this dress represents an era of freedom and change for women that began in the 1920s.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on January 14, 2017.

Prohibition shuts down the Gund Brewery

Robert Mullen

Catalog Number: 2011.014.014

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

This sign touts one of Gund Brewing Co.’s answers to Prohibition: a soft drink with the Peerless name.

When John Gund began brewing beer in La Crosse in 1854, he could hardly imagine the changes that would take place in the industry during the next 65 years. By 1858, he partnered with G. Heileman to found the City Brewery. In 1872, Gund left the partnership to start the Empire Brewing Co., later called the John Gund Brewing Co. The company’s best-selling beer, Peerless, propelled sales to 600,000 barrels in 1910. That was the year John Gund died, and his son Henry took over the operation.

But change was in the air. Temperance societies became strong political voices, and World War I created a good deal of anti-German sentiment, including bias against the mostly German brewing industry. In 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, popularly known as Prohibition, and as of January 1920, the sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages was illegal in the U.S.

The Gund Brewing Co. saw the changes coming and tried to prepare for them by re-organizing its products to low-alcohol beer, soft drinks, and malt barley. One of the new products took on the name of their Peerless Beer brand: Gund’s Peerless Beverage, the Everyday Soft Drink. They advertised it throughout the Midwest in newspapers and periodicals in 1919 and 1920, and even received national recognition for their advertisements. The colorful metal sign shown here was a promotional piece produced for the advertising effort. It features a silhouette of the large Gund brewery with the Mississippi River, the old wagon bridge, and Minnesota bluffs in the background. The sign was donated to the La Crosse County Historical Society by Tye Schwalbe.

However, soft drinks and near beers could never replace the public’s thirst for refreshments with alcoholic content. The Gund Brewery was hit by a double setback in 1920: a prohibition of their primary product and then a strike by their employees. It could not survive both. The firm shuttered its doors that year. By the start of America’s Roaring ‘20s, the Gund Brewing Co. was a thing of the past.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on January 14, 2017.