Tuesday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from 1949. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This one is part of a short series called “Here’s How,” in which a different skill is explained in each ad. In this one, they explain how “to swim a Smooth backstroke,” with the tagline: “Here’s how … with Hamm’s Beer Smooth and Mellow.” Given some of the other ads in this series, I would have expected they would have used a famous swimmer, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. But it does show in six steps how to do a backstroke, with two more panels devoted to having a beer afterwards.
