Bradley -- In line with your comments, my memory is that Roy
Rosenzweig's Eight Hours for What We Will documents the extrusion of
Irish-American women from saloonkeeping by the authorities in Worcester,
Mass in the late 1800s.  Robin

-----Original Message-----
From: Bradley C. Kadel [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, 2 July 2001 7:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: women and alcohol production


Hello list,
 
I'm writing in response to Sarah Hand Meacham's comments.  I've pasted
her comments below with a few of my own thoughts tagged on at the end.
 
Sarah Hand Meacham wrote: 
 
While I'm writing in, I thought I'd tag onto the Distillery
Project topic.  In my research on alcohol production in
the early Chesapeake I've run across a number of receipts
(1790-1820) stating that someone has or has not paid the
required distillery taxes in VA, MD, and PA.  What has
surprised me are the number of stills that appear to have
belonged to women.  In the receipts the tax collector
states that it is the woman's still.  Have others run
across this?  Did it strike anyone else as remarkable?
 
I'm interested in learning not only if early 19th century
woman commonly owned stills (or if I just found a few freak
situations), but also how Americans have forgotten that it
was women who used to make much of the alcohol.  Women
brewed in other countries as well; is their involvement
known outside academia?  Is it only in America that we have
forgotten the gendered aspect of alcohol production?  I'm
curious about how countries remember (or mostly appear not
to remember) their alcohol histories.
 
Brad Kadel:
 
 
I've found in my research on Ireland that women were heavily represented
in the illicit production and sale of alcoholic drinks.  While I have
nothing so concrete as actual numbers of shebeens and stills operated by
women, Parliamentary Papers and newspaper reports often point to the
numbers of females involved in such ventures.  At the same time, it
seems to me, such reports probably exaggerated the number of females
involved in order to garner greater police vigilance in the fight
against the illegal trade--independent women operating successful
businesses outside of the law seems to have been a good way to get the
attention of the British authorities in Ireland.  
 
I would also speculate that women (often widows) operated shebeens and
stills in greater percentages than public houses because of the
discriminating practices of the licensing authorities.  I believe this
was also the case in at least northeastern areas of the U.S. which
experienced a massive influx of Irish immigrants in the nineteenth
century. 
 
I would be interested to hear other contributions on this topic.  
 
Brad Kadel