Dear Andrew,

I suggest that you contact Harold Holder at the Prevention Research Center
in Berkeley, California.  I recall that he did a study of the Iowa liquor
control system 10-12 years ago, right at the time that the state stores
were eliminated (he hired one of my graduate students to do the legwork in
the state files in Des Moines).  I believe one or more publications ensued,
but I regret that I don't have the references in my head.  I recall that
the study was comparative with (I believe) the North Carolina control system.

Best,

Mac Marshall


At 05:23 AM 5/23/98 -0400, Andrew Barr wrote:
>Another request for information:
>I have been trying to connect the alcohol beverage controls introduced in
>the USA after Prohibition with those already in place in Canada and Sweden,
>which not only had state-controlled package stores but also issued ration
>books to people who wanted to buy alcohol in them. The only American state
>I have come across as having introduced ration books after Prohibition was
>Iowa, where, according to a report in the New York Times, 1st December
>1986, until some time in the 1950s people who wanted to buy liquor had to
>show "liquor cards" to the clerks in package stores; these cards were
>punched with each purchase so that the state could keep track of the amount
>of alcohol that an individual had bought. In time (the New York Times
>article adds) it became something of a pre-marital custom in the state for
>parents to demand to
>see the cards of their children's suitors. Does anyone know anything more
>than this about the use of liquor cards in Iowa? or know who might know
>about it? Was Iowa the only state to introduce this kind of rationing? Or
>is this virgin territory for historians?
>
>