The story of beer in Dayton and the Miami Valley is as old as the region's first settlers, who brought their brewing methods with them from Europe. From humble origins, the Schwind brothers founded a Dayton brewing dynasty. Adam Schantz arrived penniless and amassed a fortune as one of the city's early brewers. Martha Vorce, one of the region's several unheralded woman brewers, was running the Springfield Brewery a decade before Eliza "Mother" Stewart gained fame there as a temperance leader. Although Prohibition swiftly destroyed this flourishing industry, today's local craft brewers promise to keep good beer and good times flowing for many years to come. Join local author Tim Gaffney as he explores the Valley's brewing heritage.

Breweries have been a part of Dayton almost from the beginning. Colonel George Newcom, one of the original settlers of the city, was said to have opened a brewery next to his tavern around 1810. This was three years before Davis Embree would open the first brewery in Cincinnati. Several breweries came and went, making mostly common beer, ale, porter and stout. Then, in 1852 John and Michael Schiml introduced lager beer to Dayton. The brewing business boomed. Lager was lighter in taste, with an effervescent quality that reminded the German community in Dayton of their homeland. By 1908 more than 200.000 barrels were being made annually, with $300,000 being paid each year in wages. "Breweries of Dayton" tells the history of the city's breweries from 1810 to 1961, as well as biographies of some of the men who owned them. Also included is a small history of how the local breweries brewed their beer in the early 1900's, how they fought against prohibition, and how Dayton's brewing industry never fully recovered from the "Noble Experiment," the last brewery closing it's doors in 1961.

Many stories of Jewish Dayton's past have faded over time. Others, painful to recall, may have been intentionally buried. All are sure to surprise new generations. The Jews of Dayton drank wine during Prohibition, debated Zionism, fought the Klan and joined the battle for civil rights in the trenches. Balancing tradition and modernity across eras, they navigated the American dream and faced challenges often strikingly similar to those we face today. Marshall Weiss--founding editor and publisher of the Dayton Jewish Observer and project director of Miami Valley Jewish Genealogy & History--reaches back nearly two centuries to unearth forgotten episodes of Jewish life in Ohio's Miami Valley.

Vols. for 1887-92 include proceedings of 1-6th annual convention of the International Association of Factory Inspectors of North America.