Schlitz Beer Can Tower with 5-Cent Snickers Box, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Schlitz Beer Can Tower with 5-Cent Snickers Box, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Schlitz Beer Can Tower with 5-Cent Snickers Box, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-FCBE4B

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Someone spent a meaningful portion of a 1950s evening stacking flat-top Schlitz beer cans into a freestanding tower, which is either a record attempt or simply the natural result of a party reaching its second hour. The cans are the early flat-top steel variety that required a church-key opener and that Schlitz was shipping by the millions during its years as the best-selling beer in America, back when the company's marketing department was confident that title was permanent. A Snickers candy box priced at five cents a bar sits nearby, which places the whole scene in a specific and now-vanished economy where beer and chocolate were both cheap enough that no one thought twice about the combination. The tower itself, leaning slightly, has the architectural confidence of a project whose builder has not yet considered the ending. The 1950s produced a great deal of leisure time and a strong cultural conviction that filling it with small competitive nonsense was a sign of good character.

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