David--Envy your time in Paris. Will check your book re 3.2. By the
way, in early 1933 the Ohio legislature considered a slightly less
alcohol beer than 3.2.  Ohio communities that voted against the repeal
of state prohibition in November 1933 were mollified by acquiring a
local dry status without an additional separate vote.  I don't have
all the details, but I assume this explains how Westerville reverted
to a dry status in November 1933 after a few months when 3.2 beer was
sold in the "dry capital of the world."  Have you read Mark Lawrence
Schrad, The Political Power of Bad Ideas: Networks, Institutions, and
the Global Prohibition Wave?  A political scientist, Schrad looks at
three case studies: the USA and Russia which adopted prohibition and
Sweden which did not.  Schrad reads both Russian and Swedish.  David

On 6/14/10, David Kyvig <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear David:
>
>
> An interesting aspect of this story that you haven't dealt with is why
> 3.2 became the new standard in April 1933.  The preceding extreme 0.5
> definition of "intoxicating beverage" was written into the Volstead Act
> legislation by Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League in 1919 in the
> exuberance of victory after the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted.  By
> the mid-1920s a movement for modification had arisen among those
> critical of prohibition but who despaired of repealing the
> constitutional amendment.  The only option they saw was redefinition of
> the Eighteenth Amendment's vague term.  The American Federation of
> Labor, among others, embraced this position and so it went on the table
> for wet Democrats well before the election of 1932.  Exactly why and
> when the moderationists settled on 3.2 as the standard may be buried in
> my book Repealing National Prohibition but I don't remember for sure and
> I don't have a copy at hand.  I'm spending two months in Paris where my
> wife has a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies.  I'm using
> my time in a feeble attempt to duplicate Scott Haine's research on the
> culture of the French café, but as a non-French speaker I'm finding it
> challenging, if pleasant.  Never a 3.2 limitation here.  Good luck with
> your project.  I wonder if the list can come up with other schools
> claiming or complaining that they were the 3.2 beer capital, just as
> there are many contenders for the title of top party school.
>
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
>>>> David Fahey  06/14/10 9:54 AM >>>
> I am writing a short book on the Women's Temperance Crusade in Oxford,
> Ohio.  In my epilogue I offer an explanation for why this college town
> allegedly became America's 3.2 beer capital.  In 1917 the village had
> enacted local prohibition of intoxicating beverages.  When the state
> and the country repealed prohibition, the mayor initially assumed that
> the local law would continue to ban all alcoholic drinks.  For 3.2
> beer, this did not turn out to be true.  My explanation is this: while
> waiting for the ratification of a constitutional amendment repealing
> the Eighteenth Amendment, Congress in March 1933 changed the Volstead
> Act definition of an intoxicating beverage as more than 0.5 alcohol.
> The new definition was more than 3.2 alcohol.  In other words, 3.2
> beer became legal in April 1933, several months before the repeal of
> National Prohibition.  The Ohio legislature enacted parallel
> legislation.  For most of the state and the country, 3.2 beer became
> irrelevant in December 1933 when the Eighteenth Amendment was
> repealed.  In Oxford, 3.2 beer became legal in April 1933 because the
> state had defined it as non-intoxicating.  Local government had no
> power to prohibit it.  In December 1933 there was no change in Oxford
> because the local law still prohibited 6.0 beer, wine, and distilled
> drinks.  In 1979, after a previous rejection by the voters in Oxford
> as a whole, two precincts (student housing and commercial buildings)
> voted to allow their sale by the drink.  This belatedly killed 3.2
> beer.
>
> I suppose that 3.2 wine must have been legal too, but I have never
> seen it sold in Oxford, Ohio (where I have lived since 1969).
>
> Any suggestions?  Comments?
>
> David Fahey
>


-- 
David M. Fahey
Professor Emeritus of History
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056
USA