Saturday’s ad is entitled Birthday Party For Dad, and the illustration was done in 1949 by Douglass Crockwell. It’s #35 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, an elderly man is, one presumes, surrounded by his family, who have just heaped presents on him and are toasting his birthday. Dad looks down, bemused, at his presents, or perhaps he’s looking over at his beer and has realized that’s what he’d rather have in his hand.
