By:  Kevin Grace

On Tuesday, November 20, the Archives & Rare Books Library will present the second in its series of lunchtime talks for this academic year.  The book to be presented is George Moerlein’s A Trip Around the World.  Moerlein, the son of Cincinnati beer baron Christian Moerlein, undertook a global journey in 1885 and chronicled his adventures the next year with the publication of this volume.

Printed and designed locally, and heavily illustrated, Moerlein’s travel account was published in both German and English, the better to use as a marketing tool for Cincinnati’s beer-drinking population.  In fact, the end paper of the volume was a color lithograph of the Moerlein Brewery on Elm Street in Over-the-Rhine, a copy of which now decorates the entrance in the Moerlein Lager House brewery and restaurant on Cincinnati’s river bank.

A Trip Around the World is a local example of the grand tours undertaken by young men and women of wealth during America’s Gilded Age.  At a time when the Moerlein brewing enterprise was one of the largest in the United States, the book spoke not only of the importance of the Moerlein business, but also of an attempt by  German-American brewers to increase their social stature.

Please join us on November 20 for a casual noon gathering to learn about this interesting book and the man who penned it.