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Adams, Harry H., Herbert Bruce Cross, Maceo B. Sheffield, Robert Moseley, Irving C. Smith, Ralph Samuels, McCloud, photog.

[Lot of photographs of an African American Budweiser representative.]

Los Angeles, California and Detroit, Michigan, [1940s–1970s]. 26 silver print photographs, 8” x 10”. Photo credits on versos of many photos. Two images with text for press release on separate sheet affixed to the back. Newspaper clipping stapled to margin of one image. With one piece of printed paper completed in manuscript from Mallard’s wedding with details of his wedding. CONDITION: Good, strong tonality overall, one image with brown spots, one photo with remnants of black paper on verso; short tears and creasing to several images and loss to corner of one image.

An engaging group of images documenting the life and activities of an African American beer salesman in Los Angeles.

Described in the California Eagle newspaper as a “suave and easy going Budweiser beer salesman,” Benjamin Franklin Mallard II worked for Budweiser and its parent company Anheuser-Busch, Inc. from at least the 1950s to the ‘70s, as indicated by newspaper articles and photos included here of Mallard as an older man. Many of these photos relate to Mallard’s work for Budweiser and were likely taken and used for promotional purposes. Images show him on a tour of a Budweiser factory; in a liquor shop next to a big stack of Budweiser six-packs and Budweiser toy horses; glad-handing and conversing with company men in offices (many of whom are also Black), and at public events sponsored by Budweiser. Mallard often conducted publicity stunts in Los Angeles, in one case “checking the traffic court on a hot Friday afternoon and offering cool ones for hot violators in to see the judge.” In one photo, Mallard is pictured with a Black woman who is holding a six pack of Bud in one hand and a beer in her other hand. One image is a head-shot of Mallard. Two photos picture Mallard handing a check to a YMCA official in front of a Black youth who is wearing a YMCA shirt. Anheuser-Busch Inc. patronized the YMCA of Los Angeles and its youth services programs for boys. Mallard attests in a newspaper article that “participation in worthy community activities has been a policy of Anheuser-Busch throughout its 108-year history.” Some images are from an annual golf tournament sponsored by Budweiser at Vernoncrest, an all-Black golf club in California, where Budwiser was served to all contestants on the eleventh hole. Several shots show men holding golf trophies in the company of Mallard.

Mallard belonged to Kappa Alpha Psi, a national collegiate fraternity, and participated in its Los Angeles chapter. One image pictures three fraternity members raising glasses of Budweiser during the fraternity’s fourth annual visit and tour of Anheuser-Busch’s west coast brewery in Van Nuys. A handful of photos document Mallard’s 1947 wedding in Detroit.

A telling group of photos documenting the activities of a Black beer salesman as well as Budweiser’s larger campaign to promote its product to the Black community in Los Angeles.

REFERENCES: California Eagle (Los Angeles, CA, 27 July 1961), p. 13; California Eagle (Los Angeles, 7 Apr. 1960), p. 9; California Eagle (Los Angeles, 12 Mar. 1959), p. 6.

Item #7325

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