Illustration of a brown sausage with white text across the bottom on a background with blue on the right and left and yellow down the middle with black and red text
union bug stamped in the metal
This button was distributed as part of a 1959 advertising campaign co-promoting Knickerbocker Beer and Merkel meat products. The campaign included radio, television, and prints ads. Knickerbocker beer was considered to be the most popular beer in America in the early 20th century. It was produced by the Jacob Ruppert & Company Brewery, which was located in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, in New York City. The Ruppert Brewery went out of business in 1965, and though the Knickerbocker brand was acquired by another brewery, it was discontinued in the 1970s. The Merkel Company was a New York-based packer of pork products. Merkel also went out of business in the mid-1960s following the discovery that the company had incorporated horse meat into some of their products. In 1966, Norman Lokietz, former president of the Merkel Company, plead guilty to conspiracy to sell misbranded and mislabeled foods.