Date of Award

8-31-2026

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Nicholas Juravich

Abstract

The craft beer movement grew from just a few tiny microbreweries and disparate homebrewing clubs to a nationwide phenomenon accounting for over ten thousand businesses and hundreds of thousands of employees. The arrival of this movement in the 1980s coincided with drastic changes in the economy, which was moving away from the manufacturing base that enabled postwar prosperity and developing a “New Economy” of high-tech and service sector employment. Within this economic transition, the social contract between capital and labor was being rewritten and what constituted a good job was being redefined. Employment in the emerging craft brewing industry represented one model of how work and workplaces could be. By examining these changes in the social contract and craft beer’s representative slice among them, this thesis confronts a central issue. The movement was able to consistently employ an adequate workforce to meet its growth needs while, at the same time, earning a reputation for inadequate pay. Through analysis of wage data, worker and founder oral histories, and case studies of individual breweries, this thesis argues that a combination of entrepreneurial training and community orientation served to resolve this contradiction, for a time.

Comments

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