Hello all.  I just read the archive, and have a few pennies to contribute
to a number of threads, some of them dating from months ago.
 
=== regarding the violence thread inaugurated by Richard Hamm -- You could
add George C. Haddock to your list of temperance martyrs.  He was murdered
in Sioux City, Iowa, on August 3, 1886.  I'm reading this from the handy
\Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition\ published by Funk & Wagnalls
(in the U.S., U.K., and Canada) in 1891.  He was known as the "learned
blacksmith," for studying Latin and Greek while working at the forge.  He
was also an Abolitionist.
 
"In 1885 he was stationed at Sioux City, IA., a town with 20,000
inhabitants, 15 churches, and about 100 saloons running in defiance of
the State Prohibitory Law.  The saloon-keepers had threatened to burn the
churches if their traffic was interfered with, and no one had the courage
to fight them until Mr. Haddock began to arraign them from his pulpit."
(Ever see the c.1916 silent film, \Hell's Hinges\?  Good church-burning in
this temperance film.)  The story continues: "The success of his efforts
aroused the liquor men.  About 9 o'clock on the evening of Aug. 3, 1886,
he procured a horse and buggy from a public stable in Sioux City, and in
company with Rev. C. C. Turner drove to Greenville, Iowa . . . [when he
returned alone] a crowd of brewers, saloon-keepers and roughs gathered
about him, and one of them . . . thrust a pistol into the preacher's face
and fired a shot. . . . The cold-blooded murder murder made a profound
stir throughout the country."
 
Haddock brings to mind a good point regarding violence against temperance
supporters.  Iowa's late 19th century prohibitory laws relied on informers
to bring the government's attention to infractions.  Towns like Sioux City
and Iowa City could have a hundred saloons, provided potential informers
were sufficiently intimidated.  The Committe of Fifty report of the turn
of the century documents a few vivid tales of mob action (e.g.,
tar-and-feathering, stone-throwing) in Iowa City.  Were other states so
dependent on "snitches" for prohibition enforcement?  If so, we could see
how such a system would create an incentive for violence which was more
than economic.  The saloon-keeper may have hired thugs to start things (as
we see frequently in temperance novels of the 1840s), but surely some
loyal (or addicted) bar "flies"  could be excited to violence without
pecuniary reward.
 
 
=== new topic -- regarding Ron's argument that the disease paradigm may have
found widespread acceptance in popular culture before it did in the
medical establishment --
 
From my academic standpoint, representations in print and film seem the
likely cause of such persuasion.  Is there a "Hemingway" school of
alcohol scholar, in the late 30s and 40s?  A "Lost Weekend" school in the
late 40s and 50s?  And what about "Come Back, Little Sheba"?  Were these
"ground-breaking" films, or were they merely a new and novel articulation of
longstanding cultural ideals (say, of the existential hero)?
 
=== one more new topic.
 
I think it is Warren Susman who argues that 20th century Americans hold a
"consumer" ideal of self, appropriate for our consumption-driven economy,
whereas 19th century Americans held a "productive" ideal of self,
appropriate for their production-driven economy.  One stresses
"personality," the other "character;" one stresses the freedom and fun of
self-indulgence, while the other stressed the waste and long-term
sufferings wrought by self-indulgence.  These are overgeneralizations, I
know, and I take full responsibility for them: don't blame Susman.  But
other historians have traced the "rise" of "consumer society."  Are there
any arguments in the literature on alcohol which attempt to correlate the
disease paradigm which an ethos of self-indulgence, in contrast to a
correlation of the temperance paradigm with an ethos of self-discipline?
It seems to me the two "paradigm shifts" are pretty similar.  Burnham's
\Bad Habits\ comes to mind.
 
Or are those terms too loose, and vague, to make good sense of the history
(and future) of temperance?  Or -- perhaps more likely -- is such an
explanation frequently employed?, in overviews?
 
Thanks for reading!
 
 
Jon Stephen Miller
Department of English
University of Iowa
[log in to unmask]
 
"I would rather be a good sleeper than a millionaire." -- Elwood Worcester