1948 PRESS PHOTOGRAPH — FALSTAFF DISTRIBUTORS, INC., BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA The company's own fleet, from the family of the man who owned it.

An original press photograph, approximately 10 x 8 inches, showing the delivery fleet of Falstaff Distributors, Inc. of Birmingham, Alabama. Five Dodge trucks with box bodies are drawn up at a rail siding, twelve employees posed in front of them, one woman among them.

The truck lettering reads: FALSTAFF DISTRIBUTORS, Inc. — 831 No. 22nd St. — Permit No. 10 — Phone 54-7651. The building behind carries a matching Falstaff Distributors sign.

The verso carries the Birmingham News photographic department stamp:

"Please CREDIT Photo: Joe Winters — BIRMINGHAM NEWS" NEG. # 48-1162 "Address all inquiries to John Faber, Director, Photographic Dept."

The negative number dates the photograph to 1948.

PHOTO CREDIT / JOHN FABER

The photo credit is Joe Winters, here documented to be working under the legendary John Faber (1918-1993). He went on to become one of the significant figures in American photojournalism; for many years the historian of the National Press Photographers Association, and author of "Great News Photos and the Stories Behind Them," a standard reference still in print decades after publication. In 1948 he was running the Birmingham News photo desk.

PROVENANCE

This print comes from the estate of Jacqueline Diane McFarland (1943-2025), daughter of Jack McFarland. The 1950 United States Census records Jack McFarland at Homewood, Jefferson County, Alabama, aged 45, born in Texas, occupation Beer Distributor, industry Wholesale Beer Distributor — and, in the class-of-worker column, working in his own business.

This is therefore the company's own copy of the photograph, kept in the owner's family for seventy-five years, not a newspaper morgue print. Falstaff was among the largest American brewers of the mid-century, at its peak the third largest in the country, and its distributor material is actively collected.

Other photographs and related documents from this estate are being sold and listed separately.