Carl Lauber & “Selling Alcohol to Protestants”

In February 1986 a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer named Clark DeLeon received an official looking letter marked “PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE.”  In part the message said:   “The charge…is SELLING ALCOHOL TO PROTESTANTS.  Accordingly we have erected a protest shanty behind the mausoleum of CARL F. LAUBER….In his day LAUBER sold vast quantities of alcohol to Protestants.  We have not forgotten.”  Obviously the letter was a spoof.  But why out of hundreds of Philly whiskey dealers had Carl Friedrich Lauber been singled out?

The answer may lie in the high profile Lauber created for himself, advertising as “Philadelphia’s most dependable wine and liquor merchant,” claiming that his Cabinet No. 9 Rye was “The Finest Whiskey in America,” and continually trumpeting the silver medal his products won at the National Export Exposition of 1899.  Even in death Lauber remained prominent.  His mausoleum stands on a Philadelphia hillside overlooking a major highway where thousands of motorists passed it daily. Moreover, at night, all night, it is lighted.

Born in Bavaria in January 1857, the son of Carl Fredrick Lauber Sr. and Pauline T. Holly,  Carl Lauber emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1873, about the age of 16.  Indicating some advanced level of education, an early occupation in America according to a 1877 Philadelphia directory was as a bookkeeper, possibly in one of the city’s many liquor houses.  By the 1880 census he had been joined by a younger sister, Bebetta, who was working as a cashier in a hotel.  The two lived together in a boarding house.

Frugal and clearly not content to toil for others, with a partner named George Schleicher, the 26-year-old immigrant struck out on his own about 1883, opening a saloon at 28 North Ninth Street, the building shown here. The venture proved so successful that within several years the partners added a wholesale and retail liquor business.  Like others before him Lauber had realized that supplying  whiskey and other spirits to saloons and other drinking establishments was more profitable than selling drinks over the bar.

Carl F. Lauber & Co. bought whiskey by the barrel from some of the many Pennsylvania distillers and blended it on the premises, bottling the results as proprietary liquor brands.   Among company labels were “Lauber Rye,”  “Luxus Whiskey” “Cabinet No. 9 Rye” and “Lethe Rye.”  Luxus, Lauber claimed in ads, was a straight unblended rye.  Cabinet No. 9 was by contrast a blend of the “choicest and old straight rye whiskies.”  

He trademarked only two of those labels and then only considerably later:  Lauber Rye in 1905 and Lethe in 1916. The  apparent success of his “house” brands allowed him to open a second outlet at 904 Filbert Street, shown left.

For eleven years while Lauber was building his liquor business, he remained a bachelor.  That changed in 1896, however, when he met the teenaged daughter of Carl A. and Therese Holly, both immigrants from Germany.  She was American-born Pauline Therese Holly, called “Lina.”  When they married in 1894, Carl was 37 and Lina only 17.  

The couple would have three children, Gertrude, born 1895; Carl Junior, 1896, and Estelle, 1898.  Eventually Lauber would house his family and a servant girl in an impressive four-story home at 1837 North 33rd Street.

Lauber’s marketing strategy included placing a display, shown right, at the Philadelphia National Export Exposition of 1809, sponsored by the Franklin Institute, the city’s science museum and center for research. The Institute had a worldwide reputation for sponsoring exhibitions, and recognizing scientific advancement and invention by awarding with medals.  The display of Lauber’s wares earned his liquor house a silver medal, diploma and “official” blue ribbon for Luxus Rye and for a line of beer he sold.

Winning the medal may convinced Lauber that he needed a distinctive logo for his stationary.  The result, shown here, was a very elaborate drawing that the liquor dealer trademarked in 1905 with the following description:  “The representation of an arbor of lattice-work, over which trail grape-vines bearing fruit.  Up on the top arch of the arbor is an enlarged wine cup mounted on a pedestal, and on the ground at the base of said arch, on either side of the opening therein, stand groups of bottles. Within the archway stands a male child unclad and leaning against a barrel mounted on a trestle, his left hand holding a  wine-cup raised above his head, the head of the barrel being marked with the last name of the applicant , “LAUBER,” and the letters “C F” in monogram form above said name.”   Trademarking was a step to avoid image theft.  But who would want to copy that?

The trademark graced the covers of multi-page catalogues Lauber issued to customers and potential customers to sell his products.  They included photographs of the interior of his North Ninth Street store.  Shown immediately below is his office.  I believe the two figures at right are Lauber and his son, Carl Junior, who upon reaching maturity would be taken into the business.  The middle photo is of Lauber’s store.  The bottom photo is of his storeroom.

For 35 years Lauber guided the profitable fortunes of his liquor house, for the last few assisted by Carl Junior.  Although he was forced by the advent of National Prohibition to shut down the company in 1919, both he and his son continue to list their occupations in the 1920 Federal census as “merchant: wine and liquors.”  Lauber did not live to see Prohibition repealed, dying in January, 1927, as recorded on a plaque at his mausoleum.

Addendum:  As accused in the opening paragraph of this post, during his lifetime Carl Lauber had indeed sold “vast quantities of alcohol to Protestants” as well as to Catholics and adherents of other faiths.  Whether he deserved being singled out by the jokester who said he represented the “Society to Prevent Fallen Over Catholics from Selling Alcohol to Protestants” remains highly questionable.