THE history of labor in the Best and Pabst plants, prior to na-
tional prohibition, encompasses the whole transition from pre-
industrial, handicraft conditions to the large-scale modern as-
sembly line; from household workers toiling like brewers of
the Middle Ages to unionized laborers superintending nearly
automatic machinery. It illustrates the earliest successful indus-
trial-union movement, accompanied by a long series of amica-
ble contract negotiations. From the time brewing became big
business in the 1880's, the brewery workers were in the van-
guard of the trade-union movement, and the employers among
the first to agree to continuous collective bargaining.

Up to the Civil War, brewing remained a "household" indus-
try. The three or four hands usually needed to assist the part-
ners in running a brewery generally lived with the owning
family, and their wages included board and lodging. In 1850,
the Bests had four workers, some of whom lived with the family
in the small white house on Chestnut Street. ¹ We have no way
of knowing how the $62 a month that the partners paid out
were divided among the men. Hermann Schlüter in his Brew-
ing Industry and Brewery Workers' Movement in America
says, without offering proof, that in the 1840's brewery wages
ran from $4.00 to $6.oo a week without board and $4.00 to
$12.00 a month with board and washing. ²

By 1860, Best employed eight men and paid them a total of
$200 a month. Some of this must have gone to workers who
lived in boarding houses or their own homes. As the usual
wages per day for Milwaukee laborers were about 50 cents with
board and 75 cents without, the average rate of $25.00 per
month at Best's would indicate fairly good pay. Board at this
time cost about $2.50 per week. ³

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