Monday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1907. In the first decade of the 20th century, Schlitz Brewing, then one of the larger breweries in the U.S. after the industry had shrunk from over 4,000 to around 1,500 in just 25 or so years, did a series of primarily text ads, with various themes. In this ad, with the title “The All Important,” you might understandably wonder what is the all important? It’s purity, of course, which is “absolute cleanliness” and “freedom from germs.” And that is more or less what it means. Google’s definition is “freedom from adulteration or contamination.” I certainly wouldn’t “knowingly drink beer that was not.”
