No conversation about THE HISTORY OF Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery could ever be complete without foregrounding the accomplishments of Louisa Nelson.
Louisa is our past, PRESENT, AND future.
Louisa, who was married to our founder Charles for 30 years, was also his shrewdest and most ambitious partner—first in their work as wholesale grocers, and later as distillers and distributors of whiskey and spirits.
When Charles died in 1891, Louisa assuredly took over his role as the president of Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery. From there, she steered the company toward 18 booming years of prosperity, becoming one of the largest and most successful distilleries in the world. Under her guidance, Nelson’s Green Brier bottled and sold 380,000 gallons of whiskey and spirits per year, employed untold numbers of bottlers, distributors, and salesmen—all the while squaring off in a crowded marketplace with very aggressive competitors and prevailing.
a noteworthy exception.
Though more women were in the workforce by the late-1800s than historical clichés will admit, it was still considerably rare for a woman to ascend to chief executive of any large business at the turn of the 20th century. Louisa was a noteworthy exception. Remarkably, she wielded an unprecedented influence and authority in an industry that remains, to this day, largely male-dominated. Not to mention, she also took care of the more traditionally domestic duties of raising children as a single mother while upholding a progressive role in Nashville society. She died in 1918, and a year later, Congress voted to approve the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote.
The Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery of the 21st Century benefits directly from business decisions Louisa made while running the company. And in a broader sense, we all benefit from her refusal to accept the confining role most women of her time were assigned at birth. There’s no doubt her ability refuse these norms was facilitated by a privileged social context, but she utilized that privilege by continually offering a hand up to those who had less than she did. The obscurity of her story is reason alone to tell it, but because Nelson’s Green Brier is in the business of both whiskey and stories, her descendants feel a strong conviction to shine a light on her contribution to our family, our company, and our industry.