Domesticating Drink

by Murdock, Catherine Gilbert

• ISBN13: 9780801868702
• ISBN10: 080186870X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-15
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

The period of prohibition, from 1919 to 1933, marks the fault line between the cultures of Victorian and modern America. In Domesticating Drink, Murdock argues that the debates surrounding alcohol also marked a divide along gender lines. For much of early American history, men generally did the drinking, and women and children were frequently the victims of alcohol-associated violence and abuse. As a result, women stood at the fore of the temperance and prohibition movements and, as Murdock explains, effectively used the fight against drunkenness as a route toward political empowerment and participation. At the same time, respectable women drank at home, in a pattern of moderation at odds with contemporaneous male alcohol abuse. During the 1920s, with federal prohibition a reality, many women began to assert their hard-won sense of freedom by becoming social drinkers in places other than the home. Murdock's study of how this development took place broadens our understanding of the social and cultural history of alcohol and the various issues that surround it. As alcohol continues to spark debate about behaviors, attitudes, and gender roles, Domesticating Drink provides valuable historical context and important lessons for understanding and responding to the evolving use, and abuse, of drink.

Author Biography

Catherine Gilbert Murdock is a lecturer in the Growth and Structure of Cities Program at Bryn Mawr College.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
List of Acronyms	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	3	(6)
Gender Prohibition Suffrage and Power	9	(33)
Domestic Drinking in Victorian America	42	(28)
Startling Changes in the Public Realm	70	(18)
Prohibition Cocktails Law Observance and the American Home	88	(26)
Prohibition and Woman's Public Sphere in the 1920s	114	(20)
The Moral Authority of the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform	134	(25)
The Domestication of Drink	159	(12)
Epilogue	171	(4)
Notes	175	(42)
Essay on Sources	217	(12)
Index	229