Developing the Brand: The Case of Alcohol, 1800-1880

Historians generally agree that modern brands arose from the vertically integrated corporations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and were used as competitive weapons between like firms. Looking at the alcoholic beverage trade and drawing on trade press, court reports, newspaper advertising, business records, and accounts of consumer behavior, I suggest that, on the contrary, supply chains made up of small firms played both an earlier and a significant part in the genesis of modern brands. In these chains, firms used branding not only to fight direct competitors but also to discipline and subordinate other links in the chain over whom they had no direct control and with whom they had to cooperate.