James Joyner has got a fascinating story on the history of alcohol abuse in the early 19th century. As I mentioned in his comments, not many people realize that the Women's Christian Temperence Union--a powerful political force in the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th century--was, in fact, primarily concerned with spousal abuse and child neglect, which they linked to overconsumption of alcohol. Yes, they had moral issues with drink, but primarily because of the social problems and negative health consequences that they believed drinking often led to. Especially drinking hard liquor.
By the way, it's not clear that they were wrong--the correlation between alcohol abuse and domestic abuse and neglect are still quite strong today. Correlation is not causation, but the correlation is there and it's never really gone away.
Interestingly, there was also a long time when "temperance" simply meant "drinking lightly, and avoiding distilled spirits." For some, beer was considered the drink of moderation and temperence, although some temperence advocates were harder-nosed about it and wanted all alcohol use eliminated.
While I was reading the piece James came up with, it reminded me of an article makes a fascinating companion piece: Beer and America from the American Heritage. I linked it once over a year ago, but it's as good a time as any to dredge it back up.
Cheers!
I'm trying to think if it was "Third Places", a non-fiction examination of hang-outs (coffehouses, bars, lunch counters, etc.) that advanced the notion of an Anglo (get drunk as fast as possible by one's self) and Germanic (get and keep all day a little buzz while hanging out with one's family in pleasant surroundings) drinking style among other fascinating bits. The Germanic style of sipping light beer rather than gulping hard liquour seemed more fun, cheaper, and more civilized, and less apt to bring on a hangover, and also a lot less likely to have black eyes decorating your spouse in the morning.
This seems like a useful import to me.
You know, I used to have a problem with alcohol, but now I really enjoy the stuff...
This post made me think of an old Barenakeladies song. :-)
Seriously, great links Mr. Esmay.
"...where beer flows like wine!"
I heard that the U.S. government once banned the stuff. That must have been a bad time to live in.
Tim the Soldier
My (maternal) great-grandmother who died at 108, was a founding member of the organisation. She was an ardent authoritarian socialist (as if other types exist) and rather loathsome politically. Of course, her son topped her in shameful acts, he hired Noam Chomsky for an MIT job. (They promptly fell out over the student strike/riots that Chomsky led.)
Does it shock anyone I don't get on with that side of the family?
Andrew,
Well, you might want to go a bit easier on her son. Noam Chomsky's association with MIT has been extraordinarily profitable for both, since Chomsky basically created the field of modern linguistics there several decades ago. His politics are several ants short of a picnic, but his work in linguistics has been intellectually priceless.
When I remeber the easy availability of beer and wine in other countries, I have to wonder about how the prohibitionist attitude has fed that.
Countries with more relaxed attitudes don't really have any higher incidence of alcoholism, but some have lower.
I'm not talking about the French, only actual humans.
Interesting, Dean. I'm often reminded of people who - usually in discussions of illicit drug prohibtion laws - make analogies to Prohibition. Usually they are in ignorance of the fact that Prohibition was in some ways successful; per capita alcohol consumption in the US dropped during Prohibition and has never risen to pre-Prohibition levels.