Thursday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1961. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area and beyond. In this newspaper item, from August 6, 1961, was in the Boston Globe, with the headline “Two Bay State Ex-Students In Miss Rheingold Contest,” they’re announcing the 23rd consecutive Miss Rheingold contest for 1962. Showing the six finalists, with the tagling “Which is Your Favorite” — front row, left to right: Kathy Kersh, Valery Shields, and Tracy Butler; back row, left to right: Sue Houle, Judy McGuire, and Anne Cantrell. But because it’s a Massachusetts’ newspaper, they focus on two of the finalists who went to school in Boston.
